Carbon Neutral Floors™

In the beginning of 2019, we have officially announced that the nora systems GmbH has been included into the Interface Carbon Neutral Floors™ program.

As a result, Interface’s product portfolio – carpet tiles, luxury vinyl tiles (LVT), and since 2019 also nora rubber floor coverings – is carbon neutral* across the entire product lifecycle.

Offered as a standard to every customer, at no extra cost, the program helps them meet their own sustainability goals. We know the impact of your floor covering on climate change. With Carbon Neutral Floors™ we support you in reducing your personal CO₂ balance.

* nora floor coverings are carbon neutral over the entire product life cycle. We are continuously working on further reducing CO₂ emissions within the value chain through various measures. Remaining CO₂ emissions are offset by the acquisition of certificates relating to audited emission reduction projects.

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Global warming and your carbon footprint

Climate change and more specifically global warming is not necessarily so complex. For the last 250 years humanity has been putting too much carbon into our atmosphere through the use of fossil fuels. The more carbon that is in the atmosphere the faster the planet has warmed and that has had an impact on our climate.

We all have a carbon footprint as individuals and corporates. Interface has been working for more than 25 years to better understand and reduce ours and to help our customers reduce their carbon footprint. Since 2019 also nora rubber floor coverings is part of the “carbon neutral floors” initiative.

Helping you to reduce your carbon footprint

As part of Carbon Neutral Floors we offer to calculate your contribution to tackle global warming, offering a certificate that outlines how much carbon your flooring purchase has offset (see image).

What does carbon neutral mean?

A carbon neutral product is one that results in net zero carbon emissions being released into the atmosphere. We have achieved this by reducing our carbon footprint and balancing what we still can’t avoid with carbon offsets that support renewable energy, fuel switching and reforestation to keep carbon in nature and out of the atmosphere.

Let’s talk about embodied carbon

For any building it’s not just heating and cooling buildings that adds to carbon emissions, but also any emissions related to creating the materials used to create the building itself and its interior. Including flooring products. This is known as embodied carbon. As a business we’ve been focused on reducing the embodied carbon of our flooring products throughout their lifecycle.

Supporting a climate fit for life

The remaining emissions are balanced through the purchasing of carbon offsets that support renewable energy, fuel switching and reforestation to keep carbon in nature and out of our atmosphere. Our Carbon Neutral Floors program is independently verified each year by APEX (formerly verifier was Bureau Veritas) and the carbon offsets we purchase are required to meet the criteria of the Verified Carbon Standard.

Our global program is verified to the ISO 14064-3 standard and the methodology we use to calculate the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions throughout the full life cycle of the flooring products is in accordance with the World Resources Institute (WRI)/World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)'s Greenhouse Gas Protocol, Product Life Cycle Accounting and Reporting Standard.

Compensation of the remaining greenhouse gas emissions

We offset unavoidable carbon emissions by purchasing carbon-reduction certificates from climate protection projects.
Types of projects we support with our carbon offsets are for example:

Asia-Pacific
Renewable energy projects from solar and wind power to reduce the amount of carbon emissions, as well as forest projects for reestablishments of native forest.

Africa
Forest protection from deforestation and degradation, alongside community fuel switching and water purification projects.

Americas
Reforestation projects to keep carbon stored and sequestered in the soil and plants.