Pioneering spirit...

• Carpet tile-maker sets out to reduce its environmental impact
• Launches recycled nylon line and expands it to many colour combinations

Interface is a global manufacturer of carpet tiles and a pioneer in sustainability. The use of secondary materials for their products is one of the company's main business strategies.

Nylon yarn is the single largest contributor to the environmental impact of a carpet tile. For a standard product, virgin nylon yarn contributes to around 50 % of the total environmental impact of the carpet. In fact, it has around four times more impact than the backing compound.

Since 2000, Interface has pioneered the use of recycled yarn, and today the majority of its carpet tiles contain recycled yarn.

Key results

In 2011, Interface launched Biosfera as the first carpet tile using 100 % recycled nylon yarn. Now, the company has 450 different colourways, or the combination of colours in which its textiles are printed, using 100 % recycled yarn.

Interface's goal for 2020 is to only use recycled or bio-based materials, to cut dependence on virgin petrochemical raw materials altogether.