Resilient Flooring and Sustainability

It is important for a specifier to utilize a multi-attribute approach for the selection of resilient flooring products to verify performance, durability, sustainability, and material health attributes. In context of a building project, the Owner Project Requirements (OPR) are developed including the required product characteristics for the specific application. The resilient floor covering industry is participating in several environmental initiatives that include evaluation of performance, environmental impacts including embodied carbon, the introduction of the AFFIRM™ Certification that is based on the revised NSF/ANSI 332 Standard for the Sustainability Assessment for Resilient Floor Coverings, and the inclusion of the resilient flooring category within the ecomedes® sustainable product database. The program will include the perspective of interior designers and the process for specifying sustainable resilient flooring products and the manufacturer point-of-view on the various importance of environmental, health and wellness, and social responsibility initiatives – in turn providing designers transparent information to make informed decisions.