The effect of green building and the circular economy
Over the past decades, growing environmental awareness among property owners, coupled with formal frameworks like LEED, BREEAM, the Living Building Challenge and now WELL, have pushed flooring sustainability to the forefront.
In essence, these standards and methodologies stressed that multiple indicators as to the adherence of a building’ s floors with sustainability, including the following need to guide our building standards into the future:
• Durability and lifecycle performance: long-lasting products reduce frequency of replacement;
• Human-friendly: toxins such as VOCs, formaldehyde, and harmful additives are avoided;
• Reduced embodied carbon: lowering emissions associated with material extraction, manufacture, and transport; and
• Circularity: designing for reuse, recycling, or safe biodegradation.
Nowadays, the WELL Building Standard prioritises human health and wellbeing across categories such as Air, Materials, Comfort, and Mind.
When examined through this paradigm, many traditional and legacy flooring systems, especially carpets and applied finishes over screed, quickly reveal shortcomings that are as much about occupant health as about environmental impact.
Lessons for modern WELL-aligned flooring
Modern WELL-compliant flooring addresses this through:
• Low-VOC, transparent materials that declare their components;
• Being designed for breathable or properly detailed assemblies;
• Modular carpets with cleanable surfaces; and
• Adhesive-free or low-toxicity installation methods.
In short, viewed through the WELL lens, historical flooring systems, particularly carpets and applied screed finishes, often undermined occupant health despite functional or aesthetic merits.