A Contractor’s View on Sustainability – Designer Contracts

By Louise Walters, Commercial Director for Designer Contracts

Shared commitment is critical to the success of circularity within the contract flooring sector. Working with customers, contractors, suppliers and staff is at the very heart of their drive towards Net Zero.

Collaboration and co-operation with industry colleagues – both external and internal – are essential for achieving sustainability goals.

Customers increasingly prioritise environmentally responsible practices, so companies must align their operations to meet these expectations. Partnering with suppliers who share a commitment to sustainable practices ensures that raw materials and resources are responsibly sourced.

Contractors, as integral stakeholders, are key to implementing sustainable practices on the ground. We also believe that our in-house colleagues have a vital role to play in the journey.

Designer Contracts works extensively across a range of sectors where customers look to their supply chain to share information and data, not only in terms of their own carbon performance, but in gathering information on procurement standards, materials selection, product design and the manufacturing process. 

Our mutual customers expect us to help them make greener choices when it comes to flooring, and we need to think about how we can do this collectively. We all want carpet to remain a staple when it comes to flooring within domestic dwellings and how sustainable a product is – from cradle to grave – is vital to achieving this.

As well as customers, we also work closely with Innovate Recycle, a recycling company which has invested heavily in state-of-the-art machinery/technology to develop a circular solution, producing plastic pellets from carpet waste for the plastics industry. According to Innovate, more than 500,000 tonnes of end-of-life carpet is produced in the UK each year, and, for the first time, there is now a way, at volume, to deconstruct carpet and enable the reuse of its constituent materials in a wide range of industrial supply chains.

To maximise the recyclability and/or reuse of carpet going forward relies on manufacturers aligning with an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) so that they are designing and manufacturing with this in mind.

We have high hopes that our partnership with Innovate will ultimately enable us to further improve our long-established and multi-award-winning carpet recycling scheme which has been recognised with some 15 different CFA awards and commendations over the last 10 years.

The scheme has evolved significantly since we introduced it in 2015, and we now have a robust system that operates across our national regional network of warehouses. It is has taken a huge amount of time and effort to get to where we are and forms part of our drive for circularity, key to which is supplying high performance products which can be recycled effectively. 

Another step forward in our sustainability journey saw us trial and roll out two new LVT takeback schemes nationally where the manufacturers provide a solution for recycling any LVT waste. The waste is returned and then either recycled back into the production process or sent on for repurposing into items such as traffic cones and bollards.

As a company we strive to have a sustainable supply chain and partner with suppliers and manufacturers committed to reducing waste and supporting a circular economy. We are committed to working with the industry to develop sustainability within flooring and look forward to the changes that we can make together.

One example of a sustainable product in our industry and included within our own portfolio is an underlay made from 85 percent recycled fibres (plastic bottles) which is an eco-friendly alternative to PU foam, felt and rubber underlay. Introduced back in 2019, the launch was the result of another close and long running partnership with Think Group. As a result, Designer Contracts has now diverted over three million plastic bottles from landfill. Other recent new product introductions use 100% recycled polypropylene yarn or 100% recycled polyester.

Exploring new ways of saving waste and energy extends to our own people too, a good example being the success of our Sustainability Champions scheme. Introduced a year ago, it has cut our energy usage by more than 10% 

The in-house campaign to promote sustainability in the workplace, has saved the company some 63,737-kilowatt hours, with total energy usage slashed by 11.35%. Representatives from each region, warehouse and head office were given accountability for monitoring and recording energy usage and waste invoices to maximise the company’s sustainability savings throughout the year. 

This was an important new initiative for us in 2024 and supports our drive towards Net Zero. Thanks to the success of the first year, this is a scheme we plan to repeat in 2025 and beyond.

We have also updated our feature and benefit sheets to help customers understand how products we supply impact the environment. Any sustainable elements are highlighted with a fern icon, including whether the product has a certified EPD and any other green feature. Where EPDs have not been created, we have asked suppliers for further information to support what other environmental benefits there are. These include: the percentage of recycled content; if the product is made in the UK; if it is manufactured using low VOCs; if it is manufactured in a factory powered by wind turbines; if it has a Eurofins Indoor air quality certification or similar; or membership of the UK Sustainable Flooring Alliance (UKSFA), formerly Carpet Recycling UK (CRUK).

The quest for circularity is an ongoing and far-reaching process. But only by integrating sustainability into every step of their operations can companies drive industry-wide change and build a more sustainable future.

Read the CFA Guide to Sustainability 2025–2026 for more sustainability advice.

www.designercontracts.com