What is Green Flooring?
There are many factors that decide the degree to which a particular product is eco-friendly or "green." Some floors are considered "very green" while others are only "moderately green" and others not green at all. The following questions can be extremely helpful in determining a floor’s greenness.

Is the floor made from a renewable source?
Can the floor be recycled after its useful life?
Does the floor emit harmful levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs)?
Is the floor made from recycled materials?
How was the raw product and the final product transported?
How was the flooring manufactured?

A Number of Factors to Consider
Eco-friendly flooring is good to the environment in a few different ways and is often a matter of opinion. In some cases it may be up to you to decide what green qualities you favor most. Transportation, for example, is an important aspect to a product’s eco-friendliness and one that is frequently overlooked.

Stone flooring, which one might think of as natural and green, is not generally considered green because high-intensive machines are needed to quarry and shape the stone. On the other hand, stone is usually sourced and manufactured locally, which means less distance it has to travel. In the end it’s a matter of measuring the amount of pollution from all machines and transportation involved in the process.

Green Flooring Options

Almost all floors can be made in a more green way. Although concrete is made with machines that contribute 5% of the world’s total CO2 emissions, it’s made locally and can be recycled at the end of its life. Tile flooring can be made from recycled tiles and even recycled glass. Carpet, once one of the main contributors to flooring landfill waste, can now be made with recycled plastic bottles and used at the end of its life cycle. Reclaimed hardwood flooring is becoming a popular alternative to new hardwood, and is taken from abandoned buildings, warehouses and barns.

Vinyl flooring is one floor that is left out of the "green club" as it’s made with polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a toxic building material. Tests show that PVC can outgas harmful chemicals for years after the vinyl flooring is installed. This not only creates an unhealthy indoor environment during its life, but also contributes to global warming once the floor is disposed of.

Cork, bamboo and linoleum pave the way for green flooring. All three floor types are sourced without harming the natural environment and share characteristics that are ideal for high-standard living. With these floors you can help the environment as well as enjoy a surface that’s hypoallergenic, antimicrobial and VOC-free. Of course, some manufacturers may use adhesives that contain a high level of VOCs, so consumers need to make sure they ask about this when purchasing.

How can you tell if a floor is green?
A number of organizations now give green labels to products that pass certain testing. Testing is different for every floor type. The Forest Stewardship Council, or the FSC, certifies hardwood flooring that’s made from socially and environmentally responsible forests. Carpet, on the other hand, is evaluated by the Carpet and Rug Institute’s Green Label program.

The Leadership for Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a certification program developed by the U.S. Building Council to promote sustainable green building. While some organizations are only interested in specific building materials, LEED focuses on the building in its entirety. Buildings that are certified by LEED boast various benefits to the environment including conserving water and energy and reducing landfill waste.

In most cases, finding out if a floor is green may take some investigation on the part of the consumer. Use the preceding questions as a guideline when purchasing green flooring for your home. If you’re purchasing the flooring from a distributor, ask for the manufacturer’s contact information so you can ask them your questions directly.

Start Living Green
Start a life of green by donating your old floors to a local reclamation center. Every flooring type is disposed of differently; contact your manufacturer where you originally purchased the floor or do a local search online.

Find Green Flooring Information in One Place
It helps to have information from a reliable source to refer to when shopping for green flooring. FindAnyFloor.com (FAF), "The Web’s Flooring Authority," a site wholly dedicated to environmentally friendly flooring: Green.FindAnyFloor.com.

"Green.FindAnyFloor.com completes a trio of flooring information sites for our company," said FindAnyFloor.com founder and CEO Damien Patton. "FindAnyFloor.com was always intended to be the ultimate flooring site on the Internet for consumers. Pro.FindAnyFloor.com caters to flooring professionals. But our company is very environmentally conscious - right down to our in-house recycling and our purchasing of carbon credits. So it just made plain sense for us to put together Green.FindAnyFloor.com. While it will certainly continue to expand over coming months, I can honestly say that I think site visitors will be delighted from the outset with the depth and breadth of information, and how practical the site is."

As with its parent site, Green.FindAnyFloor.com is structured for easy use. Avoiding unnecessary "bells and whistles" and instead sticking with plain-English, neatly condensed information, the site guides the visitor through separate sections for a dozen of the most popular floors (including interesting choices like terrazzo), stockpiles of blogs and articles, analysis of supplemental flooring products (such as adhesives, trims and underlays), green organizations and standards, questions to ask retailers when buying flooring, and much more.

And, like its partner sites, Green.FindAnyFloor.com has been designed with accessibility in mind. There are approximately 60 million people in the United States alone with some form of disability. In the private sector, this fact is almost unacknowledged by companies with websites. Audio, visual, and mobility disabilities pose serious challenges for Internet users and these folks will find the FAF sites to be much more welcoming than most.

"We’re extremely proud of Green.FindAnyFloor.com because it’s a socially responsible website," said Patton. "But in these tough economic times, it also helps flooring consumers to be environmentally conscious and budget conscious at the same time. After all, there are few things in life that save you money better than good information."

Whether it’s the environment or the pocketbook, Green.FindAnyFloor.com offers flooring solutions that are kind to both.

By: Kirsten Kapson

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