Tarkett engineered wood is awarded the Cradle to Cradle® Silver Certificate

Tarkett engineered wood is awarded the Cradle to Cradle® Silver Certificate

Tarkett, the worldwide leader in innovative flooring and sports surface solutions, has now been awarded the Cradle to Cradle® Silver Certificate for its multilayer parquet flooring ranges Epoque, Tango, Salsa, Rumba and Professional. This makes Tarkett the first wood flooring manufacturer in Europe to offer Cradle to Cradle® certified products, and is testament to the company’s continued investment in the wood floor market.

Tarkett’s engineered wood floorings are available in a wide range of wood species including oak, ash, beech, merbau and jatoba, with a variety of surface finishes such as aged, brushed, stained or heat treated, to allow creation of truly individual, beautiful floors.

The Cradle to Cradle® certification is based on 5 criteria: material content; material reutilisation and design for the environment; use of renewable energy and water stewardship during the production process; and social responsiblity principles. The certification process looks at the chemical components of materials that go into a product, assessing their effects on human and environmental health, as well as their ability to be recycled or composted.

The Silver Certificate means that the materials used for Tarkett’s engineered wood flooring are identified and positively assessed. The production sites, in Sweden and Poland, are committed to continuous improvement and have recently installed new lines for water cleaning that clean waste water using biodegredation. All the sawdust generated at both sites is either regenerated as energy for the plant or sold to third parties for energy production. Tarkett’s engineered wood flooring meets the requirements of Gold level for the energy and water criteria.

Tarkett is also committed to the United Nations Global Compact 10 principles for social responsibility and has published a code of ethics and integrated the Global Compact into procurement contracts.

At the start of 2011, Tarkett signed a partnership with the German scientific institute EPEA (Environmental Protection and Encouragement Agency) to deploy the Cradle to Cradle® concept. This offers a new approach to business and corporate culture, and Tarkett is keen to support eco-innovation without conflicting with economic growth and environmental commitment.

Since 2009, the Group has been engaged in an ambitious sustainability strategy which not only aims at minimising environmental impacts, but also at designing products for reuse with a positive impact according to Cradle to Cradle® principles. This means designing products that go into perpetual technical cycles and can even be upcycled.

Tarkett is one of the first companies to promote and adopt this concept, both in it’s approach to new materials and in terms of product certification and was awarded a Silver Certificate for its linoleum range in July last year.

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