USTAINABLE SPACES HE GROUND UP
g new standards in sustainability for more than 25 years. Manager, UKIME & Nordics, Interface tells us how.
As many companies begin to support their employees in returning to the office, it is more important than ever that workplaces cater to the needs of the people using them. Both design and installation will need to strike a balance between a number of factors including functionality, wellbeing and sustainability.
Although recent events have thrown a number of additional considerations around safety and distancing into everyone’s list of priorities, there is no ignoring the fact that sustainability remains a key factor in the long term when it comes to choices around products and materials for a project. Interface believes that this process needs to start from the ground up; both in the literal sense of fitting sustainable flooring products and helping companies to operate responsibly throughout their business.
At Interface, sustainability and protecting our planet are at the centre of everything that we do. We have spent the last 26 years learning and innovating to not only develop a range of flooring including carpet tile, LVT and rubber products, which support the sustainability goals of our customers and their clients, but also to ensure our business helps to create a climate fit for life.
OUR JOURNEY Back in 1994, our founder, Ray Anderson, realised that the flooring industry, and his own business, were having a negative impact on the environment. But he saw the potential to turn this negative into a positive and prove you can have a successful organisation despite placing more of a priority on creating products with a lower environmental impact while manufacturing and selling more sustainable products.
This sparked the launch of Mission Zero – a bold ambition for Interface to seek to have no negative impact by 2020. This approach inspired innovation across the whole business, from sourcing raw materials, to manufacturing processes and ensuring the management of flooring when products reach the end of their life. Last year we announced Mission Zero success ahead of our 2020 target based on our offer of carbon neutral products, progress on renewable energy and reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. Today, our European and American manufacturing sites operate with up to 99% renewable energy and we’ve achieved a 96% reduction in Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions globally.
CLIMATE TAKE BACK Even before we’d accomplished Mission Zero, we were looking to the future and examining our next objective. In 2016, we launched Climate Take Back which had the aim of running our business in a way that actively helps reverse global warming and inspires other organisations to do the same.
Tackling climate change requires Interface to go beyond just reducing carbon emissions, but also to find ways to support
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natural and manmade carbon sinks, which absorb more carbon than they release.
RETHINKING CARBON We want people to stop seeing carbon as a problem, but instead see it as a resource and an opportunity. Managed properly, carbon can support a better, healthier planet. As a manufacturer, we’ve been working to reduce the carbon footprint of our products over 25 years through embracing recycled materials and renewable energy.
In recent years our Carbon Neutral Floors programme has set a new standard in interiors. Now, all of our carpet tile, LVT and nora rubber products are carbon neutral across the entire product life cycle. If you can make a product carbon neutral, why wouldn’t you? For contractors, this means you can provide your customers with sustainable products helping them achieve their environmental goals without adding any additional expense to your project.
But we’re not stopping at offering carbon neutral products - our goal is to become a carbon negative enterprise by 2040. This will be done through innovating in three key areas: raw materials, the supply chain and operations. The work has already begun. For Interface, getting to a carbon neutral footprint for our products is a stepping stone toward carbon negative materials. In 2017, we launched our Proof Positive concept tile, this prototype was the world’s first carbon negative carpet tile – an idea we are building on next year.
INSPIRING OTHERS As a manufacturer, we want to be part of a collective of businesses that is driving real change towards a more sustainable future. We achieved our first goal, Mission Zero by transforming ourselves into a purpose-driven flooring company. In doing so, we re-thought everything about our supply chain and products, implementing new business models that resulted in widespread innovation and sustainability. Our aim is to inspire and help others from our industry and beyond to follow us and recognise how economic and social sustainability go hand in hand, creating a powerful ripple effect.
Contractors have a big part to play in helping us achieve this powerful, industry wide impact. By choosing Interface products, you’re not only having a positive impact on the environment, but you’re able to provide additional value and support to your customers by offering products which balance design, wellbeing, and functionality as companies begin their journey back to the office.
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