Environment award for Australian carpet innovator

Interface, Australia’s largest manufacturer of commercial modular carpet, has won the NSW Government 2012 Green Globe Award for Excellence in Sustainability. The awards were announced last week by the NSW Minister for the Environment, Robyn Parker, at NSW Parliament House.

The NSW Government’s Green Globe Awards recognise environmental excellence, leadership and innovation in NSW. Interface’s award for ‘Going Beyond Environment Standards’ applauds the company’s commitment to be the first fully sustainable company by 2020 - Mission Zero.

Interface launched its Go Beyond campaign this year, announcing the company’s sustainability leadership and achievements, with the aim of becoming the most environmentally transparent manufacturer in Australia.

A recent innovation has been the launch of Australia’s first 100% recycled nylon yarn carpet tile, ‘Raw’. Interface also launched Australia’s first third-party audited environmental product declarations for carpet tiles, revealing the full life-cycle impacts of their products on the environment.

Interface is the first Australian carpet manufacturer to achieve Gold Standard GreenTag certification for its full suite of products, approved by the Green Building Council Australia, achieving the lowest environmental impact scores for flooring under the GreenTag Life Cycle Assessment scheme.

The company has also started to harvest post-industrial yarn from its local manufacturing process and return it to one of its yarn suppliers for inclusion into its yarn-recycling program. This is an example of closed loop recycling in action and has re-engineered its supply chain - transforming its suppliers into customers.

This year Interface started to supply TacTiles, a patented glueless adhesive system for installing carpet tiles, with every new build order. TacTiles reduce the environmental footprint of carpet tile installations by 90%.

Interface also continues to run the successful carpet recycling program, ReEntry.