Ohio Flooring Retailers Rate Green Products

Cincinnati, OH, Aug. 16, 2012 -- Four flooring retailers in southwest Ohio said they have become the first in the area to offer health and environmental scorecards for their full line of “green” flooring products, along with virtually every traditional product they carry.

The scorecards are part of the Natural Interiors Design Center program, which has been licensed exclusively in southwest Ohio by Carpetland Carpet One Floor & Home and Schumacher & Co. Custom Hardwood Floors in Milford, OH; ProSource Wholesale Floorcoverings in Cincinnati; and, Buddy’s Flooring America in Beavercreek.

Using Better for People and Better for the Planet icons, the program lists indoor-air quality and other green attributes for each product.

Check marks appear in the icons if the product has achieved a third-party certification, verifying that it meets set limits for chemical emissions or planet-friendly sustainability standards.

“More and more people buying flooring are asking about whether specific products emit chemicals that compromise indoor-air quality and human health,” said Ken Weisbacher, president of Carpetland Carpet One Floor & Home.

“The Natural Interiors program gives our customers documentation of the indoor-air quality standards a product meets, in addition to whether it is better for the planet.”

According to the retailers, the Natural Interiors scorecards make it easy to compare competing claims among “green” products.

For example, cork manufacturers all point out that their products are made of a renewable resource. But cork also contains adhesives, which can emit formaldehyde and other Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs).

The scorecards at Carpetland show 40 percent of the cork products they sell have third-party certifications for meeting set indoor-air quality standards. Sixty percent of the bamboo flooring brands, which also contain adhesives, have indoor-air quality certifications.