ADF editor James Parker reports on how one major flooring firm is embracing the challenges of using recycled material but also full reuse of carpet tiles, to achieve sustainability wins at scale across a range of sectors
The construction industry is steadily raising the bar when it comes to genuinely sustainable flooring options. Architects are looking to suppliers to provide verified data on the sustainable credentials of their products, including innovating their supply chains to bring in more recycled content.
The emergence of measured and accredited approaches like closed loop and cradle to grave manufacturing have shifted expectations, and made enlightened architects, clients and contractors seek such options, as well as full-blown reuse in some sectors. One housebuilder, Cora Homes, has gone the whole way to specifying 100% recycled carpets made from recycled plastic bottles and fishing nets.
Interface Flooring is one company which is ‘walking the talk’ on sustainability, fully embracing the potential of recyclability across a range of customer sectors, on the back of strategic life-cycle analysis of its ranges over the years. One of the leading global carpet tile makers, Interface has been on a “sustainability journey” since 1994, reducing virgin petrochemicals in its widely-specified flooring, and driving reuse of materials. Its ‘mission zero’ strategy in 1996 was targeted at an overall aim to become carbon negative by 2040, and the firm has made huge strides such as 100% renewable-generated electricity for its European manufacturing.
As well as committing to designing “long-lasting products that can be reused,” Interface is increasing its use of recycled and ‘bio-based’ materials in carpet tiles; and reengineering products’ formulations to enable them to be recycled. It says 51% of its ranges (carpet tiles, LVT and nora rubber flooring) are now “recycled or bio-based,” and the firm has managed to achieve 93% recycled content in some carpets.
The company has transitioned to ‘biocompatible’ carpet backings, reducing carbon footprint by 30% in those lines. pursuing circular economy approaches, centred around the CQuest Bio and BioX backing ranges, which consist of a mix of ‘biopolymers’ and ‘recycled fibres,’ and are designed to be separated from the carpet post-use and recycled. Alongside this, Interface is heavily involved in reuse projects for its old Graphlex bitumen-backed tiles.
There are a host of challenges for a firm actively pursuing a much greater component of recycled product. These range from ensuring new processes run smoothly in complex supply chains, meaning close collaboration. But are there further business challenges from reusing tiles rather than selling new ones, even for this global firm?
I spoke to Interface’s regional sustainability manager, Becky Gordon, at an event staged by the company at this year’s Clerkenwell Design Week, and asked her where the balance lies from a business point of view, between new and ‘old’?
Gordon accepted that finding the balance between selling new and ‘remanufactured’ products was a challenge, but that Interface’s “direction of travel” was that “we’ve got to do the right thing, but we want those decisions to be as commercial as possible.” Demonstrating a pragmatic approach to both innovating with more recycled product and facilitating full reuse, she added: “There will always be a place for new product, and our main priority is making sure that the new product is as good as it can be, using as little virgin petrochemicals as possible, and designed in a way that there are options at end of life.”
Reuse
In addition to greatly increasing the percentage of recycled material in ‘new’ products however, Interface is also working with a range of partners such as Uplyfted to facilitate reuse of used bitumen-backed tiles in sectors such as social housing, with the bold aim that “no tiles go to landfill.” With reuse being critical to developing the circular economy, Interface is going a long way to deliver simple reuse methods, and helping specifiers engage clients and customers in the ‘circular argument.’
This new business model enables social housing and charity providers to improve flats for tenants across the UK, on both aesthetics and comfort. Gordon admitted that the firm is “not yet seeing the demand for reused product on new projects,” but added that clients are looking to retain existing carpet in some refurbishments, and Interface is working with them to combine this with new installations.
The firm’s ‘route 1’ approach, following the end of life of an initial tile specification, is to “explore reuse with local businesses, charities and others who need support,” ‘route 2’ is to recycle the tiles to other industries (in the case of bitumen-backed) or into new carpet tiles. The “last resort,” says Interface, is to incinerate, but even then it will be “converted into energy.”
A shift in thinking
True circular approaches require a complete shift in thinking on the part of manufacturers with complex supply chains, however Interface has been working hard at this since the 1990s. Gordon explained how they are looking at introducing waste bio-materials from agriculture to help serve the supply pipeline which Interface needs as it ramps up bio-based content in its ranges.
However, as architect Lucy Bagshaw of tp bennett explained at Interface’s Clerkenwell event, supply chains’ complexity is one major reason for the challenges to unravel on increasing recycled content and recycling. She pinpointed a different circularity that was needed in the industry itself – that it was “up to us as designers, the more of us that ask about it, the more it will influence manufacturers.”
Gordon asserted that “it’s not the case that a product with higher recycled content is going to cost more. When we made the change from a bitumen backing to a biocomposite, we didn’t pass that cost on to the customer.” She adds that economies of scale made this a viable proposition for the business, as demand for bio-based increases.
Bagshaw praised Interface’s approach to examining its existing ranges to drive sustainability, describing it as: “We’ve found a solution, we’re going to look at our existing portfolio and re-engineer it to work with this new information.” She contrasted this with the approach of bringing out ‘more sustainable’ options of products rather than improving existing lines.
At the Clerkenwell event, Interface presented ideas for architects looking to increase products’ recycled content, saying that the key was “ensuring you have as much data as possible is crucial to judge whether a product supports your sustainability ambitions for a project.” They added that EPDs can provide info on carbon footprint, but even once the data is obtained, they advised “asking the manufacturers questions to determine a product’s content and what its end-of-life options are.”
Not all manufacturers will have the bandwidth to combine true circularity with provision of the range of offers that designers will demand for clients (Bagshaw said: “designers have a duty to understand that EPDs are really expensive.”) However the general momentum is pushing the whole industry in the right direction. The question may soon be not ‘can you provide closed loop recycling,’ but ‘why aren’t you?’
As Bagshaw confirmed, collaboration is required to work change through supply chains; between specifiers and manufacturers, and in the form of partnerships between manufacturers and innovative start ups. It also helps avoid greenwashing, she said, but “it has to be a conversation, nobody’s perfect at the moment, but the best projects have been the ones where there is synergy and open conversations within the project team.” Becky Gordon concluded with a key message: “Transparency can be complicated, but it’s the right thing to do.”