Interface launches its first ‘carbon negative’ carpets

Pictured: One of the new 'Embodied Beauty' flooring styles in an office. Image: Interface

The firm has launched a range of carpet tiles called ‘Embodied Beauty’, three of which are certified as carbon-negative on a cradle-to-gate basis, as well as a separate tufted tile model called ‘Flash Line’, which has the same certification. 

Flash Line tiles are made using 100% recycled yarn for the upper and a backing made using 86% recycled and bio-based content. Each tile sequesters and offsets more CO2 than it generates – largely because of the carbon sequestration properties of the bio-materials prior to their processing. The tufting process is also energy and resource-efficient. 

Interface’s entire range has been certified as carbon neutral since 2018, following long-term work on natural and recycled materials, efficient manufacturing and carbon offsetting. The launch of carbon-negative products builds on this progress, on the company’s journey to overall carbon negativity by 2040. Both Embodied Beauty and Flash Line went on sale in the UK this week. 

“By studying nature, Interface has reimagined product design, development, and manufacturing,” Interface’s president for EAAA Nigel Stansfield said. 

“Our journey to create a carbon-negative carpet tile is a demonstration of what is possible and an important step in our journey to reverse climate change. As a company, we have prioritised using carbon as a resource to minimise our impact in the built environment. We have created a ground-breaking, design-led product that will support our customers to specify flooring that also helps them achieve their own carbon reduction goals. The long-term effects of carbon-negative products offer a new way to shape our future economy and society.”

Interface’s carbon negativity commitments form part of its Climate Take Back strategy, which outlines how businesses can “rethink carbon as a resource”. It paints a vision of dispersing materials into “products and goodness”, developing “factories that sequester carbon like forests” and supply chains that have a net-positive impact on people and the planet.

Back in November 2020, Interface’s head of sustainability for the EAAA region, Jon Khoo, detailed progress to date on the strategy and provided his thoughts on how other businesses can become carbon negative in an exclusive interview with edie. You can read the article in full here.

Khoo said: “A lot of the carbon-neutral claims you see are focused on operational energy, and depending on what they do and what they make that might be a fair thing.

“But, if you want to have net-zero impact, you need to figure out what your impact is, where it sits in the value chain and have a wide scope and understanding of it. From there you can start prioritising.”

Sarah George

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