Sustainability is Everyone’s Responsibility

Alan McEwan, CFA president and F. Ball and Co. Ltd, technical representative, speaks about the need to work together to achieve sustainability goals, and the importance of being proactive when it comes to making changes

Everyone in the supply chain has a part to play in reducing the environmental impact of the flooring industry. Fortunately, we are seeing individuals and companies increasingly buying into it, both because it’s the right thing to do and it makes business sense. Effecting real change requires a collective effort.

Contractors are looking to buy more sustainable products, including floorcoverings, smoothing compounds and adhesives, in part driven by demand from customers. They are also evaluating their waste management systems and finding that it is more cost-effective to recycle waste than send it to landfill. Some are even reducing their carbon footprint by investing in electric or hybrid vehicles.

Manufacturers are supporting these efforts by designing products with circularity principles in mind. Many have established recycling schemes, such as Recofloor for vinyl takeback and F. Ball’s recycling scheme for plastic buckets and bottles. They are also adopting renewable energy sources like solar panels and making the switch to LED lighting. There has been a steady move away from solvents and VOCs over the past decade, and there are already adhesives that make it easy to remove old floorcoverings to allow for recycling.

Learning and development is also important for flooring contractors to have the skills and knowledge to ensure flooring installations last as long as they should, as well as an understanding of how their businesses can operate more sustainably. For this reason, the CFA and its members have already been involved in recent revisions of the Floorlaying Apprenticeship Standard and The National Occupation Standards for Floorlaying. These include adding green skills to training and assessment plans, so topics such as sustainable waste disposal, environmental regulation and carbon footprint management are
covered at apprentice level and assessed.

The CFA has an important role in sharing best practice with regard to sustainability and the environment, as well as highlighting forthcoming legislation and what it means for members, so they can prepare well in advance of it coming into effect. We also need to bring together parties in the supply chain, including manufacturers, distributors and contractors, and foster coordinated collaboration to achieve objectives.

In this guide you will find lots of ideas to make your business greener in relation to products, operations and recycling, with examples from a number of companies, and we take a look at some of the recent and upcoming legal developments. The idea is that it serves as a tool for fostering collaboration by promoting a shared understanding of best practice and standards and encouraging conversations about working together.

More legislation compelling companies to become more sustainable is inevitable in the coming years, along with greater societal pressure to minimise the environmental impact of their business activities. For those at the beginning of their sustainability journey, my advice would be to be proactive and take the lead in adopting more environmentally friendly practices now, rather than have them forced on them when it will be a lot more expensive. Access to support and advice that comes with CFA membership, including in this guide, can be particularly helpful with taking the first steps.

It is only by working together that we can effect the necessary changes and make a difference.

This article was originally published in the CFA Guide to Sustainability 2025–2026, which can be downloaded at: 
https://cfa.org.uk/userfiles/Downloads/210816140200_6432-CFA-Guide-to-Sustainability/CFA_Sustainability_Guide_2025_2026.pdf

or viewed as a Pageturner version at:
https://cfa.org.uk/2025-26-Sustainability-Guide-Pageturner/mobile/index.html#p=1