CONSCIOUS
VINYL FLOORING
Quick-Step vinyl flooring: minimising our environmental impact
By intelligently dealing with raw materials and innovating in green energy generation, we minimise our impact on nature in producing vinyl flooring. We even created our own circular ecosystem to prevent our industrial waste from being burned or dumped. Discover how our vinyl floors are made.
Open about our resources
What vinyl is made of
A Quick-Step vinyl floor consists of about 40% chalk, a natural material that is available in abundance. A quarter is made from recycled PVC from our own production waste. Another quarter is made from what is known as ‘virgin’ or new PVC, which is made from chlorine (common salt) and ethylene (crude oil).
Long-lasting products
We are very aware that oil is a non-renewable resource, meaning it’s a substance which cannot be replenished by nature on a human time scale. That’s why we do everything we can to develop vinyl flooring that can be used for a very long time, up to 25 years. Furthermore, our R&D team is looking for alternative solutions with more sustainable materials every day.
If you’re looking for a more eco-friendly alternative for vinyl flooring, Quick-Step laminate is the way to go.
Ortho-phthalate free
The remaining ingredients in our vinyl flooring – primarily additives – don’t contain any harmful substances. The plasticisers we use to make your flooring flexible are the same as those used in children’s toys and food packaging and are, therefore, 100% ortho-phthalate free and completely safe for you and your children.
Internal closed loop
We recycle 99% of our own industrial waste through our internal production process. This means we do not burn or dump materials unnecessarily, and we create our own circular ecosystem. Our production facility generates practically no waste that needs to be incinerated or landfilled afterwards.
We recycle 99% of our own industrial waste
through our internal production process.
Clean indoor air
Minimal unhealthy emissions
Most of your life takes place indoors, which is why the air quality in your home is so vitally important. Many factors have an effect on it: ventilation, candles, cleaning agents, and even the materials used in your interior, such as the flooring. To prevent unhealthy emission of VOCs (volatile organic compounds) – organic chemicals that have a high vapour pressure at room temperature – we keep the production of your floor as much as possible in-house. That way, we know exactly which materials are used.
Low VOC emissions
All things around us, like furniture or even our house walls, emit emissions which influence the indoor quality of our homes. So it is important to keep an eye on low emission products. That is why the VOC emission of your vinyl floor is lower than the European norm, resulting in an A+ rating and M1 label for very low emissions.
Green production
Good neighbours
In our factory where we produce flex and glue vinyl flooring, we use wood dust waste from our laminate plant next door to generate green heat for our production line. This internal energy covers 70% of our site’s heat requirements, which helps us to avoid 25,000 tonnes of CO2 emission annually.
Wind power
To supply our Alpha Vinyl flooring factory with green energy, we invested in three wind turbines, which generate 12,600 MWh of green energy annually. This is comparable to the annual energy use of 3,490 European households.
More renewable energy
Unilin – the group behind Quick-Step – has also invested in two biomass plants to convert wood dust and non-recyclable wood waste into green energy. Furthermore, we rely on energy from windmills and solar panels to provide our production plants with energy. The result of our efforts? About half of our group’s production is powered by renewable energy.
Certified safety
We challenge ourselves by applying strict criteria when it comes to safety and health. For complying with some of the most stringent environmental and health standards, we received the following labels:
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A+
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EPD
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M1
