Crossville has recently been honored as the 2012 Pinnacle winner at Floor Covering Weekly’s annual GreenStep Environmental Awards ceremony. GreenStep recognizes companies in the flooring industry that are leading environmental sustainability and stewardship. The Pinnacle award is a highest honor, and we’re immensely grateful that the fruits of our corporate commitment are having an impact in our industry. To follow is the entry that presented our Pinnacle achievements and helped us earn this recognition.
Net Waste Consumption | Industrywide Programs | Innovative Practices
Crossville® is a manufacturer that was ‘born green’ 26 years ago, but the company’s recent innovations and sustainable accomplishments prove Crossville is at the pinnacle of environmental responsibility.
In 2011 alone, Crossville took these green steps to a better future:
- became the first U.S. tile manufacturer to attain 3rd-party certification for waste recycling processes, through Scientific Certification Systems (SCS), verifying that the company recycles approximately 12 million pounds of previously land-filled filtrate, fired tile and pre-consumer sanitary ware
- became a net consumer of waste, meaning the company consumes more manufacturing waste than it generates
- achieved recycled content production across 100% of the company’s U.S.-manufactured product lines (recycled content varies from 4% to 50% depending on product)
- entered a landmark partnership with TOTO, maker of luxury sanitary ware, to recycle pre-consumer fired porcelain fixtures, thus contributing to at least 4% recycled content for all Crossville products
- made history in a cradle-to-cradle installation project for Chicago’s renowned, 43-story Federal Building by harvesting all 200,000+ pounds of porcelain sanitary ware from the building and recycling it to create 65,000 sq ft of porcelain tile to install in the project
All this came above and beyond Crossville’s established, industry-changing green processes, including the Tile Take-Back™ Program, the innovative process that solved the major environmental problem facing the tile industry today: the recycling of fired tile. Though Tile Take-Back involves a proprietary recycling process, Crossville made the program barrier-free, openly recycling fired tile regardless of manufacturing/brand origins. This solution is universally beneficial to the tile industry and, most importantly, to the environment.
Founded with a commitment to responsible manufacturing, Crossville has always invested in green practices and processes, prioritizing sustainability over profit and minimizing environmental impact wherever possible. The company
- reuses more than 99.98% of water used in manufacturing (the nearly imperceptible portion not reused is returned clean to the environment)
- keeps superior air filtration/circulation and stringent standards for safety/cleanliness in the plants to ensure employees work in uncontaminated, hygienic environments
- prints marketing materials at Forestry Stewardship Council-certified facilities, using soy ink and recycled paper whenever possible
- packages samples, merchandising and piece goods with recycled/recyclable wrapping and cushioning
- maintains a companywide recycling program for all office/production facility paper and plastic waste
- encourages employees to bring recyclables to work for collection, as the local county offers no formal recycling effort
From the company’s first steps to its current path, Crossville is tangibly, actively committed to sustainability—offering true leadership for the tile, flooring and building products industries and real hope for the environment.
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