SandFree has always been “Green”, but now it is certified “Green”.
In 2001, when SandFree was getting going, we selected products not only because they worked, but also because we wanted our associates to work with products that would not harm their health. We didn’t anticipate the “green” movement. The Philadelphia Museum of Art thoroughly tested the products because their concern was that the art would not be damaged by toxic odors. The PMA knew the products were “green”.
To become certified “green”, we didn’t change any products, but now they have been tested and approved.
SandFree as a system is a clean process, which produces no dust to contaminate the home or work environment. It uses low VOC, waterbased finishes and cleaners for the greenest, cleanest recoating method.
- Phase I and III meet U.S. Green Council LEED NC 2.2.
- Phase IV – meets U.S. Green Council LEED NC 2.2.
- Phase V (Satin or Gloss) meets U.S. Green Council LEED NC 2.2 requirements. It is a low VOC, and low odor finish. It is an excellent green alternative to High VOC, high solvent oil based finishes. This catalyzed product stands up to athletic, commercial and residential traffic. Despite being “green”, it remains the hardest urethane we have found.
What is “Green”?
Excerpts from FOCUS magazine, www.floordaily.net:
Green, as it relates to interiors, involves “sustainable design” as it relates to cradle to cradle manufacturing and servicing of interior products. The U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program to certify green buildings still has a lot of holes, but is a great step in the right direction. “When a designer starts to think about this issue, they find there is no data or there are no products or there are completing claims, or there is green washing. There’s a lot of confusing claims in the marketplace. My anxiety basically only gets resolved when I see scientific data that tells me that what I’m doing is intelligent.”
The cradle to cradle concept, advocates an entirely different approach to manufacturing products that takes into account what will happen at the end of their useful life. In other words every product should be designed to be biodegradalbe and return to nature as food, or be completely reused in another product, preferably the same product, to create a closed loop.
It’s not enough, McDonough says, for products to have recycled content, be made of natural materials or give off no gases, the things commonly touted in the green marketing of floorcovering as “eco-efficient.” The products should be free of toxic materials and made with renewable energy-preferably solar, wind, or geothermal energy – and they should produce only clean water in their manufacturing.
The issue that McDonough and Michael Braungart have as their primary goal is to provide cradle to cradle third party certifications for products of all kinds that meet their requirements. There are currently varying levels of certification (gold, silver, platinum and basic).
“Most other third party certification programs only touch on certain aspects of the issue, and taken as a group there are still a lot of missing pieces. For example, GreenGuard and FloorScore certifications only cover the volatile organic compounds in products. The Carpet and Rug Institute’s Green Label Plus program certifies air quality and recycled content. None of them deals with the end-of-life issue the way the MBDC (McDonough/Braungart) certification does.”
MBDC “supports LEED and all these programs like FloorScore and they’re all valuable in their own way but I just don’t know that they’re sufficient.” because many times the ratings don’t deal with how the products will be recycled.
Because floor refinishing products are not recycled, we are confident with our LEED certification.