Starnet Worldwide Commercial Flooring recently recognized three Starnet Member Companies for excellence in Environmental Stewardship, a newly established award. The presentation was held April 26, 2013 during the Starnet Annual Meeting at the JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort & Spa in Palm Desert, CA. The selected companies demonstrate leadership in sustainability through efforts including carpet reclamation, office waste reduction and energy reduction among others.

The Gold Award was presented to Corporate Floors of Grapevine, TX, a company that has been a leader in sustainability since 1997. In 2005, it created Texas Carpet Recycling to service its own carpet recycling needs and then to service other dealers and mills in Texas. In their Installation Division, they recycle all carpet, cardboard and all packing film on every project they complete. This equals over 200,000 yards of carpet recycled in the last 24 months along with several tons of cardboard and plastic film. From a maintenance perspective, they use a cleaning process that uses very little water, saving millions of gallons of water annually (they clean over 40,000,000 square feet of carpet annually). All cleaning product buckets/containers are recycled and VCT and other cleaning products are evaluated for their contribution to sustainability prior to using. Their sustainability efforts also extend to office practices where they only use recyclable products in the office for customer or employee events, all paper waste is recycled, they provide filtered water and do not allow water bottles in the office or plastic cups. Community involvement includes co-sponsorship of ZeroLandfill for the last two years along with Texas Carpet Recycling by providing all the trucks and warehouse logistics. In 2010 they were recognized as an Inc 5000 greenest company. Corporate Floors is a member of the US Green Building Council, Greater Dallas Recycling Alliance, Texas Product Stewardship Council and the State of Texas Alliance for Recycling. A company representative serves on the board of the Carpet America Recovery Effort, and a State Steering Committee to measure and increase recycling throughout the state.

The Silver Award was presented to New York NY-based Consolidated Carpet. Its “Con-Serve Reclamation Program” has diverted over one million pounds of carpet from landfills over each of the past three years – with over 174,070 yards of combined carpet and carpet tile, weighing 518 tons, recycled in the past 16 months (May 2011 – September 2012). Consolidated Carpet’s most recent sustainable initiative was the Solar Photovoltaic System at its New Jersey warehouse. Installed in late 2011, the system is affixed to the HVAC requirement-reducing roof constructed of white thermoplastic (TPO). The system generates solar energy that accounts for an anticipated 90% of the energy used in the facility. Since its installation in late 2011, the system has generated energy equaling savings of 11,084 tons of CO2 or 1,250,480 gallons of gas – the equivalent of planting 277,884 trees. A $270,000 grant was provided for the solar panel installation to offset a $1 million capital expense with an anticipated return on investment of 6 years. Clients and community are encouraged to monitor real-time data on Consolidated Carpet’s Solar Panel System, which can be found on its website www.consolidatedcarpet.com. In addition to the system, the company implemented an intensive internal recycling program which rolled out in December 2011. The program keeps an estimated 2 tons of trash out of the waste stream per month, and will also result in nearly 25% savings in trash disposal per month.

The Bronze Award was presented to DFS Flooring, Inc. in Van Nuys, CA, whose major accomplishment in the past year, in addition to reduction of office waste and energy consumption, was bringing Zerolandfill to San Diego, CA. This grassroots upcycling or reuse program started in 2006 and is running in 20 North American markets. Concerned by the lack of a formal recycling program for the staggering amount of specification materials used in the facility design and renovation processes, ZeroLandfill aims to divert these items from the waste stream and find new audiences in the community who placed value in the materials. ZeroLandfill San Diego, led by DFS Flooring, hosted two events in 2012, which diverted 21,000 lbs from landfills and enriched the local community.