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CIrcular SUstainable FLOor coverings

Project description

Walking on circular flooring solutions

The flooring industry faces several challenges in its transition towards circularity: complex value chain, lack of knowledge exchange along the entire value chain, different national legislation and habits, numerous product types with various raw materials and additives, lifetime varying from a couple of days in the case of event carpets to up to 20 years for comercial flooring. The European Floor Coverings Association (EuFCA) and other participants in the industry – from research institutes, recycling companies and public authorities – have teamed up to create a framework for circular floor coverings to minimise the sector’s environmental impact. Under the EU-funded CISUFLO project, circular solutions will be found. The project includes six pilots focusing on manufacturing, sorting, separating, and recycling laminates, resilient floor coverings and carpets.

Objective

CISUFLO aims to set up a systemic framework for circular and sustainable floor coverings (carpets, resilient floor coverings and laminates) and minimise the sector’s total environmental impact. Several challenges exist within flooring to make the transition to a circular economy: (i) complex value chain, varying from country to country; (ii) link to various sectors (construction & building, plastics, textiles & wood); (iii) products cover various raw materials, plus numerous additives; (iv) product lifetimes range from over 20 years (commercial flooring) to 3-4 days (event carpet).
CISUFLO provides systemic innovations at the technical, information and socio-economic level and performs 6 pilots to demonstrate their feasibility and value (future flooring, sorting, separation, laminate, vinyl and textile flooring recycling). The basis for circularity is realising circular material streams. Therefore, we focus on the main flooring material streams: wood (laminates), PA (carpets) and PVC (resilient).
We aim to realise circularisation via innovations that deliver value along the chain: (i) manufacturing flooring that is easier to remove, re-use, repair & recycle, as a competitive advantage to the manufacturer, and beneficial to several players along the value chain; (ii) integrated product information system enables sorting, but also offers extra functionalities for installation, cleaning and maintenance, and sustainability info for customer at purchasing phase.
To engage a broader range of stakeholders and ensure uptake beyond the project we have established a Transition Support Group (TSG) with over 30 members covering technology providers, retailers and collectors.
Assuming our impact reaches 30% of the market, CISUFLO will help to shift a turnover of ca. 5 billion to the circular economy, which will significantly help to secure ca 12.000 jobs in the sector and create additionally ca 2500 jobs in collection and recycling.

Call for proposal

H2020-SC5-2018-2019-2020

See other projects for this call

Sub call

H2020-SC5-2020-2

Coordinator

CENTRE SCIENTIFIQUE & TECHNIQUE DEL'INDUSTRIE TEXTILE BELGE ASBL
Net EU contribution
€ 918 750,00
Address
HOF-TER-VLEESTDREEF 5/1
1070 BRUXELLES
Belgium

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SME

The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.

Yes
Region
Région de Bruxelles-Capitale/Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest Région de Bruxelles-Capitale/ Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest Arr. de Bruxelles-Capitale/Arr. Brussel-Hoofdstad
Activity type
Research Organisations
Links
Total cost
€ 918 750,00

Participants (24)