Specifying healthy flooring is a complex project, requiring knowledge about the comfort, health, and safety of building occupants and an understanding of how to control common indoor source pollutants to provide quality indoor air. Determining the floor material type is the beginning of a process that includes how to mitigate exposure to VOCs and minimize the impact of cleaning and maintaining the flooring.

Once a project’s sustainability goals have been defined, there is a large toolset that can help in making sustainable product decisions. First, using resources on a manufacturer’s website and product specifications pages is a great place to start. Manufacturers should make the information about their products transparent. Product transparency is the state in which all relevant information is fully and freely available. This disclosure and accountability help designers, specifiers, and end-users make informed purchasing decisions about what materials should be placed in buildings.

Focusing on all attributes of sustainability, from the original elements that compose a flooring material all the way to its end of life, is essential. Zeroing in on one single aspect, such as carbon or recycled content is not enough. All of the points – human health, carbon footprint and GWP, lifecycle and durability, and transparency – should be considered.

Using materials that meet multiple third-party certifications offers added assurance that the product, its production, materials, and lifecycle, have been thoroughly examined. There are numerous programs, organizations, and certifications that can assist in determining the right flooring for the building, occupants, and activities.

Tools to Determine Material Transparency

Several third-party organizations enable design professionals to make sustainable, healthy product choices with the best knowledge possible. Declare Labels disclose ingredients, red-list ingredients, chemicals of concern, location of manufacturing, VOC content, and material status within Living Building Challenge. Material transparency aims to reduce and eliminate the proliferation of 26 red list ingredients within over 800 building products. UL GREENGUARD and GREENGUARD Gold Certification for low emissions products are additional certifications that demonstrate both compliance with key chemical emission standards and a commitment to healthier indoor environments.

Health Product Declarations (HPDs) report exact product contents and associated health information. HPDs are created and run by a collaborative of building industry architects, designers, and consultants. Greenhealth Approved and Prop 65 Approved products are certified to be PVC-free; Health Care Without Harm also offers additional product certifications for specific applications.

Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) are comprehensive documents that cover the life cycle impacts of a product including global warming potential, water pollution, smog potential, ozone depletion, and material sourced distances. It is important to request a product-specific EPD, versus an industry-wide EPD, as the product-specific EPD contains information for the exact product itself. Meanwhile, the industry-wide EPD is an average of the products within that category. Transparency, raw materials, and a manufacturer’s energy source, methods, and production are also assessed. Cradle to Cradle® is an example of an EPD certification demonstrating product circularity and environmental responsibility.

Tools for IAQ

Because of its large footprint within a building, it is essential to know a flooring material’s potential impacts on air quality. An excellent assessment tool to test for VOC emissions is the Resilient Floor Covering Institute (RFCI) FloorScore program. FloorScore, developed by the Resilient Floor Covering Institute (RFCI) along with Scientific Certification Systems (SCS), is a program designed to test and certify resilient flooring materials and adhesives. It is based on compliance with indoor air quality emission requirements adopted in California. Recognized by a variety of environmental programs, FloorScore certified products can contribute to better indoor air quality.

UL GREENGUARD and GREENGUARD GOLD Certification for low emissions products also validate a flooring material's support of IAQ. Selecting flooring that can be installed with low-VOC adhesives and coatings to minimize the indoor air pollution load and health risks to both installers and occupants furthers a product’s potential health benefits. The best flooring should also be easily cleaned and maintained with low-VOC cleaners and no supplemental finishes.

Holistic Analysis Tools

There are also tools and certifications that evaluate product and material sustainability in a comprehensive approach. The analysis may include assessing and selecting good materials and eco-design products that are recyclable and effectively recycled, as well as stewarding of resources in operation, shifting to more renewable energy use, and considering social equity in the value chain.

Ecomedes is a comprehensive database and enterprise-grade SaaS platform that allows for product selection matching criteria. Products can be searched based on specific sustainability criteria such as energy efficiency, recycled content, or environmental certifications. Design professionals can also organize a search by design inspiration, rating system, or impact.

Mindful MATERIALS offers a materials list that connects and aligns sustainability information. With the launch of its collaboration with Ecomedes, the new Common Materials Framework aims to provide the industry with a consistent, connected framework for sustainability in decision-making.

The Cradle to Cradle Certified® Product Standard provides a framework to assess the safety, circularity, and responsibility of materials and products across five categories of sustainability performance: Material Health – Ensuring materials are safe for humans and the environment; Product Circularity – Enabling a circular economy through product and process design; Clean Air & Climate Protection – Generating clean energy and protecting the environment; Water & Soil Stewardship – Safeguarding air, water and soil resources; and, Social Fairness – Embracing safe, fair and equitable labor practices that advance human rights and strong communities.

Crafting Comfortable Care: A Radiology Renovation

Photo courtesy of Matter Surfaces and provided by Windmoeller Inc.

In healthcare environments, floors must withstand heavy traffic, equipment load, and rigorous cleaning demands.

Hospitals must adhere to the strictest cleaning and maintenance mandates and require floors that are durable, hygienic, and stain resistant. Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital, located in Boston, Massachusetts, needed to find a flooring solution with all of those qualities for their most recent hospital renovation.

Rudy Viscomi, Director of Environmental Services and Patient Transport at Faulkner Hospital was placed in charge of the renovations. He sought a minimal maintenance and long-lasting floor in the Intervention Radiology Unit that could withstand the high volume of foot traffic created by their alliance with Brigham and Women’s Main Hospital in Boston and the Dana Farber Cancer Center. With the hospitals working in tandem, patients are able to choose the Radiology Unit closest to them for their imaging, resulting in anywhere from 75 to 100 patients being seen every week in Faulkner Hospital alone.

The Radiology Unit especially needed high-quality flooring that could hold up to the heavy rolling hospital beds and tables and the tonnage of MRI imaging and CAT scan machinery in the X-Ray Laboratory. The continuous foot and wheeled traffic and rapid patient turnover meant the floor would have to be cleaned and the room prepared for other patients quickly. The staff required a seamless flooring solution that would necessitate little to no downtime to meet scheduling needs.

Viscomi and his facility management team considered floor covering options such as LVT and traditional vinyl sheet flooring, but ultimately chose a bio-based polyurethane resilient flooring product due to its low maintenance requirements, tenacious wear resistance, and nonporous surface.

Not only did the bio-based flooring meet the functionality requirements set forth by the hospital, but the material also offered superior quality and performance properties. Carefully selected and certified bio-based polyurethane flooring will not negatively impact indoor air quality, energy consumption or facilities costs. The bio-based polyurethane flooring also provides noise reduction along with hygienic qualities, critically vital factors in healthcare environments where patient privacy and infection control are of utmost importance.