Scope 1, 2 and 3 explained and reported as appropriate
SCOPE 1, 2 AND 3
Proper reporting on the impact of a product, its production method, its life cycle and the end of life stage can only be done when all aspects (scopes) of all elements that are required to come to a proper calculation are included.
The terminology is derived from the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, which is the world’s most widely-used greenhouse gas accounting standard. The three scopes are a way of categorizing the different kinds of emissions a company creates in its own operations as well as in its wider value chain (involving both suppliers and customers).
SCOPE 1 AND SCOPE 2
Essentially scope 1 and scope 2 are those emissions that are owned or controlled by the company, whereas scope 3 emissions are a consequence of the activities of the company but occur from the sources not owned or controlled by it. Scope 1 covers emissions that an organization owns or controls directly, for example running machinery to make products, driving vehicles, or just heating buildings and powering computers. Scope 2 covers emissions that a company causes indirectly when looking at the type of energy that is purchased. Installing solar panels or sourcing renewable energy would cut a company’s scope 2 emissions. For Flooring Systems our scope 1 and 2 emissions have developed as follows:
These data exclude our building and construction activities.
SCOPE 3
In determining scope 3 emissions all emission that are not produced by the company itself, and are not the result of activities from assets owned or controlled by the company, but are all those that the company is indirectly responsible for, up and down the value chain, for example products or raw materials we buy from suppliers.
The carbon footprint declared in accordance with the 3 scopes as defined by the greenhouse gasses Protocol is:
- Scope 1 emissions: 45,406 tons
- Scope 2 emissions: 1,043 tons
- Upstream scope 3 emissions: 283,461 tons
- Downstream scope 3 emissions: 235,400 tons
These data exclude our building and construction activities.
Since the start of our creating better environments program in 2004, we reduced the carbon emissions from our production by 73%. Raw materials contribute in 2022 for 94% of the upstream scope 3 emissions.
The CO₂ emissions on our manufacturing sites are one to one related to energy used during manufacturing. The average CO₂ emission per square meter product produced dropped from 3.44 in 2004 to 0.88 in 2022, a reduction of 74%. Major improvement started in 2007 when we began to buy renewable electricity. Market requirement for more thicker and heavier products flattened the improvement of our energy saving programs during the last years. With our renewed ‘Sustainability 2025’ program which was started last year we implemented ambitious goals for further improvement.
Our overall impact is as follows:
These data exclude our building and construction activities.
Reporting on energy, waste and water usage
ENERGY, WATER, WASTE, REUSE, RECYCLING AND TAKE BACK
In this chapter we cover our 2022 results on all of the key indicators for our operations. We also show the results that have been achieved in our endeavor to create a circular loop by taking back post-consumer waste material.
ENERGY INDEX
We use an energy index to measure our energy consumption per square meter of floor coverings produced. This energy index calculates the primary energy consumption for all energy carriers, these are the sources which transform their energy into electricity as well as the direct energy use (natural gas). Oil (diesel), remains a small and limited energy source, one that will be phased out in our ‘Sustainability 2025’ program.
These data exclude our building and construction activities.
In 2022, we showed a good result considering our gradual shift in sales from consumer towards more and heavier commercial products, which in turn requires more energy to produce. Considering the combined weight throughput in our manufacturing sites, we managed to reduce our average energy consumption by implementing better monitoring systems and energy saving programs in particular in our Dutch linoleum and vinyl operations.
ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN 2022
At Flooring Systems we use an energy index to measure our energy consumption per square meter of floor coverings produced. This energy index calculates the primary energy consumption for all energy carriers, and includes our building and construction adhesives activities. For 2022 we see a shift moving away from fossil fuels and increasing our renewable energy consumption, this is due to engineering improvements in both our vinyl and linoleum operations. Our use of bio gas continues to be successful and has the intend to be extended. Within the ‘Sustainability 2025' program it is our goal to eliminate the use of diesel in our operations:
- Renewable electricity 341,722 gigajoules
- Non-renewable electricity 15,782 gigajoules
- Gas 673,367 gigajoules
- Biogas 7,759 gigajoules
- Diesel 11,442 gigajoules
Overall, our 2022 performance is a good result considering our gradual shift in sales from consumer towards more and heavier commercial products. On average, commercial products have a higher square meter weight, which in turn requires more energy to produce. Our building and construction adhesive results are included in the addition.
REMARKABLE REDUCTION IN GAS USAGE
It is uncommon for energy data to vary from one year to the other, unless something unusual happens. In 2022, through innovation and engineering we managed to reduce a remarkable amount of just under 100,000 gigajoule in natural gas usage by replacing filter systems in Coevorden (NL) and various strategic energy projects in Assendelft (NL).
PRIMARY ENERGY MIX 2022
We have an ongoing strategy of obtaining electricity from renewable sources. In 2022, we continued our pilot using biogas in one of our manufacturing sites, Bamber Bridge. This trial with green gas is functioning according to our expectation. In 2022, renewables increased to 55.3% of all the energy consumed in our manufacturing facilities, this is a remarkable improvement more because at the same time we decreased our use of natural gas to 41%. This in turn is helping us to reduce our carbon footprint by reducing the amount of CO₂ we emit into the environment. We believe that limiting environmental impact at source is far better than offsetting, which is a policy we do not use for any of our manufacturing sites. Data in our primary energy mix include our building and construction adhesives activities.
95% RENEWABLE ELECTRICITY
Already for some years Flooring Systems can boast the use of more than 95% renewable electricity for all of its production sites in Europe. This choice has been made already in the early years of 2010 when this opportunity arose. This also means that all of our calculations and improvements in recent years for the greenhouse gases protocol are the result of real innovations and alternative energy use and come without the help of this early achievement by shifting to green electricity, as the base year of 2019 already included our transition data. It is expected that within our 'Sustainability 2025' program we will achieve 100% of green electricity usage.
WATER
The floor covering categories as we produce them are non-water intensive. As a matter of fact water is not used in the production of any of our linoleum and vinyl products. In our textile products the use of water is found in the scope 3 environment of the yarn production, where dying the yarn is concerned. Also in the production of needlefelt and Flotex water is used in the process, however in limited quantities.
In our building and construction adhesive activities, which have been added in this report, water is part of the composition of the product and as such falls into scope 1.
WASTE
The main target for all our manufacturing sites is to reduce waste by maximizing yields and maximizing the reuse of product. Most sites began doing this more than 10 years ago. In 2022, the total amount of waste we created was almost equal to that of 2021, the mix however changed in favor of the amount of recycled product and a decrease in landfill which also is the result of actions taken in our ‘Sustainability 2025’ program.
These data exclude our building and construction activities.
When looking at product waste we see a decrease in the overall amount of waste and a similar movement in that internal recycling is slightly increased, landfill is reduced and the amount of thermal recycled, (incinerated) product shows a slight increase.
These data exclude our building and construction activities.
These data exclude our building and construction activities.
REUSE AND RECYCLING
Flooring Systems defines reuse as 'waste that, after reprocessing, can be fed back as a raw material into the same manufacturing processes.' Our definition of recycling is 'material diverted from the waste stream during a manufacturing process that is sent to a third party for them to use as a raw material after reprocessing'. That third party can be another Flooring Systems operations site or external recyclers.
In 2022, because of further investments in our operation locations for our three product categories, our amount of reused and recycled product increased and is showing a positive upward trend. Our building and construction adhesive portfolio does not contain any recycled content by the nature of the products. Therefore all of the data below count as data for the overall Flooring Systems division.
The total amount of product waste reused and recycled in 2022 increased to above 25%, which also is an important goal of our ‘Sustainability 2025’ program and a target within the EU Green Deal policy for 2030. This is positive in every aspect. Linoleum has long contained the most reused and recycled material of all resilient floor coverings. In 2022, our focus on reusing and recycling waste led to very good results by again increasing the recycle content in our textile and vinyl product ranges and by broadening our installation cut-off take back schemes. Recycled content in our products is a key focus point in our sustainability strategy.
REUSED AND RECYCLED MATERIAL PER PRODUCT LINE
When looking at the amount of reused and recycled material in our individual product lines we see very good results compared to 2021 in almost all categories. Our carpet category remained on par, however vinyl, linoleum and entrance flooring all showed double digit growth averages when it comes to the amount of reused and recycled content.
TAKE-BACK: BACK TO THE FLOOR
Flooring Systems already for a number of years has been working with taking back cut-off and installation rest-material for both its vinyl and linoleum portfolio. In addition to this, Flooring Systems is also participating in different European programs for enabling recycling of post-consumer vinyl floor coverings.
To facilitate better post-consumer recycling Flooring Systems has developed loose lay vinyl sheets next to our loose lay plank and tile offering. Installation waste can account for up to 6% of an installation. Moreover, from a recycling perspective, it is as good to process as post-consumer waste because we know what is in it and it is clean and safe to use. The challenge has always lain in creating a sustainable logistics infrastructure to make the collection of postconsumer waste economically viable. We have schemes for post-consumer waste recycling for linoleum, carpet and vinyl in the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, the UK and the USA.
POST-INDUSTRIAL AND POSTCONSUMER WASTE
Over the last years, manufacturers have begun to pay significant attention to pre-consumer waste. They have invested heavily to reduce, reuse, and recycle waste generated in the manufacturing processes. One of our collections, Sphera homogenous vinyl even reduces its manufacturing waste to near zero which in the end should be the ultimate goal for any manufacturing process.
So far, post-consumer waste was not often considered as a potential resource. Not only collection and transport is a challenge but also selection, sorting and processing is more difficult. Given that we already have invested in internal recycling solutions, we are now turning our attention to taking back post-consumer waste for recycling. We are doing this for our linoleum, vinyl and textile product portfolio, produced in Western Europe. Collected and recycled post-consumer waste in 2022:
- 30 tons of linoleum and 32 tons of vinyl in the Netherlands
- 60 tons of vinyl in Sweden and 210 tons of vinyl in France
- 10 tons of linoleum, 15 tons of vinyl and 2 tons of carpet tiles in the UK
- 5 tons of carpet tiles in the USA
Raw materials usage and supply chain
RAW MATERIALS: TRANSPARENCY
The quality and safety of our products at the start is determined by the purchase of raw materials and their subsequent processing and manufacture. We only use raw materials that have been specifically approved for purpose in our production, and we always check their safety and legal compliance. In this, we follow relevant legislation including the European Union’s REACH regulations and building regulations. These regulations have been designed to protect public health and the environment by comprehensively identifying the safety properties of chemical substances and determining how chemicals can be used safely. The exact origin of our raw materials and chemicals used can be found in our Environment Product Declarations (EPD) which we have available for all of our products.
At Flooring Systems we have adapted our raw material policy not only limited to forbidden the use of category 1a and 1b regulated chemical substances, but also category 2 (suspicious chemical sub- stances). We oblige our suppliers to comply with our requirements related to our raw material policy. One of the results of this policy is the change to non-phthalate plasticizers in all our vinyl and textile products, another one is that all our products now have low to very low TVOC emissions. Also easy to install loose lay solutions diminish the effect on the environment. Flooring Systems is committed to pursue this policy in the years to come to always guarantee safe products to our customers.
RAW MATERIALS USAGE
Raw materials, in particular when they are scarce, ultimately run a risk of depletion. Using natural resources which renew themselves and that can be harvested as annual crops are the preferred solution by far. Our linoleum portfolio is made from natural resources and has a CO₂ neutral footprint when its cradle to gate stages are concerned.
The breakdown of all our raw materials used for our products in 2022 is shown below. Growth in the volume of vinyl products against that of our linoleum portfolio led to minor changes (1% ratio) in the balance between the different sources of raw material extraction.
These data exclude our building and construction activities.
Succes stories
2022 ACHIEVEMENTS AND HIGHLIGHTS
Going round, moving forward perhaps does not sound very spectacular. Fact is that most improvements, or breakthroughs that lead to innovative solutions of new products are the result of laborious work carried out over years of research. When it comes to sustainability, we also very much depend on the day to day focus on our processes. Our needlefelt operation in Reims proves to be a good example.
NEEDLEFELT
In 2022, we have managed to reduce water consumption by over 25% as the printing process and recipes have been optimized. This in turn allowed us to reduce the gas consumption as the oven temperature was lowered for the latex curing. Next to this, the insulation of all the piping on the printing and impregnation lines helped to reduce thermal losses and we manage to re-use the heat generated by the air compressors.
LINOLEUM: CRADLE TO CRADLE AND BEYOND
One of the highlights in our linoleum operations was the controlled take-back and reprocessing of 12,000 m2 linoleum from the Technical University in Delft (The Netherlands). Having installed this linoleum floor over two decades ago, we organized the take back of the old material before installing new floor covering in the building. The stripping, sorting and cleaning of the floor was carefully managed and the whole batch was reprocessed in our Linoleum factory. Out of this particular floor we managed to create a new batch of raw material from which a new linoleum floor could be produced. Rest material that did not end-up in the new floor found its way into the cement industry. The new linoleum floor that was produced was installed in the Heineken experience center in Amsterdam, and as such became a fully operational heavy duty flooring solution in an upmarket, highly frequented location. The controlled recycling process from one building site to a next building site helped us creating the cradle to cradle process for linoleum, something we now will apply and offer to all our European sales markets.
ENTRANCE FLOORING FROM REGENERATED YARN
Pet bottles and old fishing nets, when recycled can be used for a number of products, one of them is nylon yarn. The new Coral world series, a new collection of entrance flooring that came to the market at the start of 2022, features these recycled Econyle yarn, and thus gives products a second life. Coral entrance flooring in their own right already perform in their function: keeping dirt and moist out of the building, thereby reducing the amount of cleaning. Using recycled yarn makes the product range all the more sustainable.
ENERGY SAVINGS AND CO₂ REDUCTION
By far the biggest achievement when it comes to making progress towards our 'Sustainability 2025' goal, was made in our vinyl and linoleum operations in Coevorden and Assendelft, both in the Netherlands. The projects in both locations have an interesting spin off, because the technology to reduce natural gas (energy) and thus lower CO₂, will be used in our factories in Krommenie (NL), Giubiasco (CH) and Bamber Bridge (UK).
In Coevorden a thermal filtering system for years took care that emissions stayed within the legal limits, at the same time thermal energy was reused for heating the factory and offices. The system, that functioned well for years, however became obsolete, due to new technologies and shifting parameters. In all this will reduce the amount of CO₂ emissions from the site by 60% in 2025 (measured against 2019). For 2022, the reduction of CO₂ of the Coevorden site came to minus 40%.
Coevorden, new filter technology installation.
In Assendelft, the ‘energy team’ considered all of the various options to reduce energy (natural gas and electricity) in our linoleum operations processes. Again, the project came across savings in the so-called after-burner technologies, which with lower temperatures are no longer required. In all we saved 50,000 m³ gas consumption for this factory.
In the Coral plant, over 100 solar panels have been installed in 2022, as part of a scheme to become fully reliable on natural electricity.
The results of the efforts of the various manufacturing locations can be seen when looking at our energy use overview as shown in our ‘facts & figures’ section.
TOPSHIELD PRO
Our new linoleum finish ‘Topshield pro’, introduced in 2021, performed well in this reporting year. The new top layer proves to be superior to anything applied before. A linoleum which is lasting longer, requiring less maintenance, staying free of scratches, prolonging the time between cradle and cradle.