Tricycle's Sustainable Samples Kept 50,000+ lb

Chattanooga, TN, October 4, 2005 -- Sustainable design company Tricycle has published its first annual Environmental Report Card, on the heels of a Green Apple Award for international environmental best practice and short list inclusion for the international INDEX: award for design to improve life. The Report Card is a straightforward presentation of data showing the amount of oil use and landfill waste that SIM from Tricycle samples have prevented in 12 months. Amidst advertising campaigns promoting eco-friendly products across all sectors of the interiors industry, Tricycle has repeatedly heard from architects and interior designers that the design community wants presentations of clear, accurate measured facts. So in August of last year, Tricycle set benchmarks and began measuring the impact of its simulation on the environmental footprint of the design process. Tricycle's simulation, which is digital modeling for interiors, is used to create alternative samples during the early rounds of product sampling. In the past four years, Tricycle has won four NeoCon awards while working with progressive mills in the commercial carpet market, where product samples have historically been notoriously expensive and wasteful. Tricycle's Environmental Report Card shows that between August 2004 to July 2005, 35,443 SIMs from Tricycle color accurate print samples were sent as alternative carpet samples, saving 8,611 gallons of oil and keeping 51,665 pounds of carpet out of landfill. Additionally, specifiers used Tricycle's simulation online at sites owned by Bentley Prince Street, Interface, Lees, Milliken, and the three Tandus brands to create 79,000 custom samples and to simulate more than 375,000 installations into room scenes. The simulation also saved manufacturers $4.7 million in sampling costs (which are now rising due to higher oil prices and shortages of refining capacity). These numbers represent the alternative sampling component of Tricycle's services alone, and do not include further environmental and economic savings resulting from Tricycle's product development services, which includes the prototyping and marketing of new product lines using SIMs from Tricycle simulation. "As the evaluation of what makes a design project sustainable shifts from materials-based measurements to include the full lifecycle of the project, the issue of design waste is gaining attention," said Tricycle president and COO Jonathan Bragdon. "In the same way that the waste created by a design project does not end with the ribbon-cutting ceremony, it does not begin with groundbreaking or even with specification, but with design waste." For the architect or interior designer, the opportunity to reduce unnecessary waste begins during sampling and the buying cycle; for the manufacturer, during product development and prototyping. The sustainability advantages of SIMs from Tricycle, along with its speed (the color-accurate print samples are delivered to design professionals within 24 hours of request), has propelled the use of simulation into the heart of the interiors industry. Tricycle works with eight of the top ten commercial carpet manufacturers, and has begun to offer its advantages to the hospitality sector as well as to wallcovering and furniture.

Related Topics:Mohawk Industries, Interface

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