How transition engineering is making flooring more sustainable

Transition engineering is the process of moving to a circular economy by designing resource efficiency into products and systems.

Prof Susan Krumdieck of Heriot Witt University is researching how transition engineering works in different industry sectors including food, computing and flooring.

In the flooring industry, she studied Danish company Tarkett, which asked employees to suggest ways to make their business model more sustainable. The company specialises in commercial carpets that needed frequent replacing, with the old carpets disposed of in landfills. The way transition engineering works in its new business model is to lease, not sell, carpet tiles. When the carpet needs freshening up, only worn or damaged sections are replaced. This is far better than replacing the whole carpet. Krumdieck says:

“If you’re leasing, you’d rather just replace the worn bits than replace it all."

A few years ago, most carpets were thrown away in landfills after they needed replacing. Many installers of commercial flooring in the Chester and North Wales region are partners with Carpet Recycling UK, who reuse and recycle carpets, diverting them from landfills. In 2007, 2% of carpets were recycled or reused, but in 2021 this increased to 81%.

The carpet industry supports the transition to a fully circular economy in which the textiles in old carpets are extracted and made into new products. Another resource-saving initiative by carpet manufacturers is the increasing use of green renewable energy sources that reduce the carbon emissions of the manufacturing process.