Part one
This is truly the age of corporate environmental consciousness as everywhere one looks there are stories, ads and marketing initiatives proclaiming a company’s eco-friendly products and culture. While these are all well and good, truth is, the flooring industry in general has been at the forefront of being green well before it was vogue.

“The flooring industry as a group was practicing environmental improvements long before the movement hit the press,” said Dave Kitts, vice president-environment for Mannington Mills.

John Bradshaw, environmental marketing manager for Shaw Industries, added, “The flooring industry should feel good about our environmental progress to date. Shaw applauds efforts throughout the industry.”

In fact, even before there was a floor covering “industry” there is evidence of companies being green. Over a century ago in Lancaster, Pa., Thomas Armstrong, founder of Armstrong World Industries, realized the shavings produced from his cork stopper business could be put to a better use than being thrown out.

“Thus began our history of incorporating scrap back into the manufacturing process and diverting waste from landfills,” notes Michael Lockhart, chairman. This, he said, was the beginning of linoleum, “the green product on which our modern flooring business was built. In our more than 140 years of continuous operations, Armstrong has continued to pioneer green products and services, first in North America and now worldwide.”

Proof of the company’s continued commitment came last year when Armstrong’s headquarters received the highest level of certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) under its LEED Green Building Rating System for existing buildings. The building was only the sixth existing structure—and the first outside of California—to achieve Platinum Certification.

“Armstrong is committed to making sure our activities are in harmony with the natural world,” Lockhart added. This is a corporate commitment, and it’s not new. We have a strong heritage of sustainability, one that we continue to build upon every day.”

Mannington Wetlands

In 1915 in Salem, N.J., Mannington Mills was started in an area that has come to be known as the Mannington Wetlands. Kitts said the company “has worked diligently over the years to be protective of the wetlands.”

In fact, in the 1990s in New Jersey, which was already a highly regulated state, a shift in how the environment was viewed pushed Mannington to adapt the mindset that “merely meeting regulatory requirements was not enough.” The mill took a long-term approach and “has won awards for its efforts,” such as the first-ever Environmental Management Award from the Salem County Utilities Authority, and being recognized by the New Jersey Business & Industry Authority as a company that has done outstanding work to preserve and enhance the quality of the natural environment in the state.

Go back just over 50 years and you will find that since 1957 Tarkett has been recycling raw materials, including the first PVC HO tile. “And 30 years ago we were one of the first to launch loose lay floorings minimizing adhesives and solvent use,” said Gary Finseth, director of marketing for Tarkett Residential.

Today, Tarkett recycles more than 130,000 tons of material per year throughout its worldwide operations, which includes its Re-Use USA program. He added this not only includes its resilient business in the U.S. such as in Houston at the Azrock facility, but at its newly opened laminate plant in Clarion, Pa., which “recycles scrap wood chips for our laminate core board from more than 100 lumber operations, all within a 200-mile radius of the production facility.”

Not all companies have been around for a lifetime or more like above, yet many still have plenty of experience on the environmental front, explained Peter Barretto, president of hard surface supplier for Torlys, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. “Torlys has long been promoting the environmental benefits of its floors, long before the green movement became popular with consumers.”

Under the company’s philosophy, “We urge consumers to rethink the way they look at purchasing flooring for their homes,” he added. “It comes down to three principles: Reduce. Renew. Re-use.”

From sustainable design practices, such as using up to 30 times fewer trees than conventional solid hardwood in its wood floors, to cork floors which do not destroy trees as well as accessories such as readily biodegradable cleaning products and tools that allow floors to be taken up and reused, Barretto said Torlys is committed to creating “the most beautiful and practical products, but not at the expense of the environment.”

Carpet industry CAREs

While all this may seem like the industry’s hard surface categories have been ahead of the green movement, truth is the carpet segment has been at the forefront for the last two decades, starting when the first Green Label—now Green Label Plus—program was introduced by the Carpet & Rug Institute (CRI) in 1992.

“At the time,” explained Frank Endrenyi, vice president of sustainable development for Mohawk Industries, “there were very few green standards.”

While the protocol has been “tightened” three times to the point where it has become the most stringent set of standards in the country, he added the program was ahead of its time from the beginning. Even carpet has not had formaldehyde in it for decades, the standard included a zero tolerance as a way of showing the industry’s advancement. “This was at a time when other industries, such as furniture, was still using the stuff.”

Bradshaw pointed out “the flooring industry is ever-changing and programs such as Green Label Plus will continue to grow in importance as consumers learn to differentiate green products. For example, Green Label is a great program that very few consumers know about, and the industry needs to raise awareness of these differentiating factors.”

In 2002, with concern over America’s landfills becoming scarcer, the carpet industry came together to spearhead the formation of the Carpet America Recovery Effort ( CARE).

Together with representatives of government agencies at the federal, state and local levels, and non-governmental organizations, a voluntary effort was established to increase the amount of recycling and reuse of post-consumer carpet and reduce the amount of waste carpet going to landfills.

Over its first five years, more than one billion pounds of used carpet were diverted from landfills and either recycled into new carpet, used for energy or used in the making of another product. Endrenyi said programs such as Green Label Plus and CARE got the manufacturers “heavily into thinking about ways in which we can reduce our own environmental footprint. We’ve long been doing various things, such as reducing water and energy use, but up to then they were looked at more for their economic benefits.”

(Editor’s note: In part two we will look at some of the green initiatives from the carpet mills themselves as well as discuss how adhesive makers have also been ahead of the trend.)