FCW is pleased to announce the nominees for the 2024 GreenStep Promotion/Communication Awards. FCW's GreenStep Sustainability Awards program recognizes, promotes and honors organizations and individuals in the flooring industry for their stewardship, initiatives and accomplishments. Below are the nominees for the Promotion/Communication category. For more on the 2024 GreenStep Award nominees, read FCW's May 6 issue.
DAL-TILE
Daltile, Marazzi, American Olean — ‘Our Promise’
Innovation, leadership and sustainability are at Dal-Tile's core. Sister-brands Daltile, Marazzi and American Olean have created the “Our Promise” platform to outline the three pillars of its sustainability commitment: our planet, our people and transparent business practices. The Our Promise platform is comprised of Environmental, Social and Governance claims wrapped in the Our Promise campaign. The Our Promise communications ensure that their business partners and customers are apprised of the efforts they participate in when purchasing their products.
To ensure the brands clearly communicate, they developed three branded “Our Promise” plans that flow though marketing channels, including sustainability messaging and visuals in their websites, show booths, advertising, social media, public relations, displays and brochure materials. The delivery of each message is inviting, informative and easy to digest. At Dal-Tile, we are passionate about creating beautiful tile responsibly, and the Our Promise campaign helps us share the good news of these efforts.
METROFLOR
‘What You Stand On Is What We Stand For’: Metroflor Corporation
Sustainability has become a pillar of Metroflor's brand. When making purchasing decisions, consumers are conscious about how products are made and how the people who make them are treated. Metroflor has developed tools for its distributors, retailers and consumers that inform them of its initiatives in simple language.
At Metroflor’s Commercial Summit in March, attended by distributors’ commercial sales and account representatives, the company’s certification initiatives were unpacked through its Sustainability Guide: EPDs and HPDs; Declare product ingredient labels; the JUST social justice label documenting how workers are treated; and the meaning behind Déjà New products. And at Metroflor.com, there is a sustainability web page examining the brand’s commitments to transparency, safety and community expressed in HMTX’s shared values: People before profits. The Sustainability Guide allows retailers to clearly explain company initiatives to customers.
MOHAWK FLOORING
SmartStrand ‘Bring Back the Rhino’ Campaign
Mohawk is charging towards a better tomorrow. Mohawk is partnering with Rhinory, a 55-acre winery and rhino preservation in Fredericksburg, Texas, on a life-sized marketing campaign for SmartStrand tied to a big cause. The partnership provides Mohawk an opportunity to bring the rhino back — not only as a marketing initiative for its retail partners to demonstrate the sustainability, durability and cleanability of SmartStrand, but to also help bring the rhino back from the path of extinction. After going toe to toe with Rhinory’s 4,000-pound beloved resident, Blake the Rhino, SmartStrand proved once again that it is strong enough for all walks of life. After Blake seemingly destroyed the carpet, Mohawk cleaned it up and was able to show side-by-side comparisons. To highlight these comparisons and give retail partners a chance to meet Blake and learn more about Rhinory, Mohawk hosted an experiential customer event in the spring of 2023.
Today, the “Bring Back the Rhino” campaign gives retailers the resources, including in-store and digital assets from the challenge, to make SmartStrand relevant to today’s consumers that may not have known about the brand. When shopping for pet-friendly carpet, they are usually thinking of their dog or cat — not a two-ton rhino. In SmartStrand’s case, All Pet means all pets, all accidents, all the time. Plus, it is rhino tested and rhino approved. Beyond the surface-level story, retailers can also explain how the SmartStrand campaign is supporting rhino conservation and lead them to rhinocarpet.com.
Since 2008, over 11,000 rhinos have been poached in Africa. The “Bring Back the Rhino” campaign helps Rhinory increase visibility while building toward its mission to take in more rhinos and start a breeding program. With the help of Mohawk, Rhinory reached its five-year fundraising goal of raising $100,000 for the International Rhino Foundation (IRF) in one year.
SHAW INDUSTRIES
Anderson Tuftex Makes A Difference — One Tree At A Time
In 2023, Anderson Tuftex kicked off its “One Tree at a Time” initiative to plant a tree on a consumer’s behalf for every hardwood flooring product sold. The result: 15,000 trees planted on behalf of Anderson Tuftex and its customers.
The direct-to-consumer marketing campaign was a partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation, the world’s largest member nonprofit dedicated to planting trees in forests and communities. As the Foundation notes, trees clean our air and water, provide habitat for wildlife, connect communities and support our health and wellbeing.
The initiative aligns with the brand’s commitment to healthy home principles and doing its part to protect the place we all call home — planet Earth. And it promotes sustainable practices through a focus on the message that every decision has the potential to make a difference, and that together, we will make a difference — One Tree at a Time.
Further, the campaign builds upon Anderson Tuftex’ portfolio of products designed to Cradle to Cradle design principles and offers yet another way that eco-conscious consumers can make a positive impact through their purchase decisions.
TARKETT
Every Step Matters
Tarkett’s holistic approach to sustainability is woven into the fabric of how it does business and sits at the heart of its day-to-day decision making. For decades, Tarkett has been scrutinizing every detail of its business for impact on life-sustaining resources like soil, water, air quality and climate — because when you’re trailblazing a more sustainable future, every step matters. That’s why, at Tarkett, you’ll find sustainable solutions throughout its portfolio with Proof in Every Step of the company’s design and manufacturing process.
Tarkett’s “Every Step Matters” sustainability initiative is focused on three core values:
Transparency you can trust: Tarkett subjects its products to relentless third-party testing, then provides customers with radical transparency about its materials, operations and corporate business practices.
Circular economy: Tarkett is committed to creating a circular economy where nothing goes to waste by designing products with the end of life in mind. This means always interrogating the health, safety, environmental and social impacts of its materials.
Healthy impacts: Tarkett has made material choices across its entire portfolio that support better indoor air quality and better outcomes for every living thing. Responsible flooring design not only improves aesthetics; it directly impacts the health of the people who occupy interior spaces.
This initiative is backed by decades of proof: Tarkett North America launched the first full-scale flooring recycling program in 1994, started third-party verification of environmental impacts two decades ago and became ortho-phthalate-free while others were still debating phthalate safety.
Tarkett took the first steps and is determined to stay a step ahead. That’s why it provides proof of impact in numbers subjected to intense third-party scrutiny. These numbers are widely shared in every product brochure, in an annual Corporate Social Responsibility Report, throughout Tarkett’s website and more, making the proof of its sustainable products and practices easily accessible to all customers.