FLOORING
construction and built environment sectors and making measurable progress towards delivering net zero carbon.” “While the CLC’s report is encouraging, sustainability has, unfortunately, always been at the mercy of market forces,” continues Paul. “Stakeholders too often opt for traditional solutions deemed ‘cheaper’ than newer, more innovative solutions. It’s these market forces that risk stifling the sustainable innovations that the construction and housebuilding industry so desperately need. Now is an especially important time to keep green building principles at the forefront of everyone’s mind.” Indeed, the need to ‘build back better’ has been addressed by prime minister Boris Johnson and the government’s Race to Zero campaign, as well as by the CLC’s Roadmap to Recovery. Specific details are, however, currently sparse. “There are a multitude of materials that need to be properly governed if vital green benchmarks are to be hit,” says Paul. “Concrete is often cited as the construction industry’s ‘dirty’ addiction, but in our world, traditional flooring solutions – ones that are unsustainable to manufacture, require adhesives to affix, and are difficult to recycle – are the problem.”
Sustainability from the ground up The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the environment and what we’re doing to it into sharp focus. There’s no doubt it was front of mind for the Construction Leadership Council (CLC) when it wrote and published its recent Roadmap to Recovery, an industry recovery plan for the UK construction sector. Sustainability and a decarbonised society are placed right at its very heart, proven with the inclusion of this statement under its key outcomes and benefits: “Reducing carbon emissions and improving the sustainability and resource efficiency of the
"FASHIONS AND OUR OWN TASTES AND NEEDS ARE CONSTANTLY EVOLVING AND IT CAN BE AN UPHEAVAL EACH TIME WE REDECORATE. IT CAN ALSO BE EXPENSIVE AND TIMECONSUMING. BUT IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THAT WAY."
Greater flexibility and design freedom In the UK, on average, we decorate our living room every 25 months, our bedroom every 29 months, dining room every 37 months, and hallway every 45 months. Amazingly, a quarter of all UK homeowners admit that their home is in a constant state of redecoration. Over a lifetime, that’s a lot of redecorating.
Paul comments: “Fashions and our own tastes and needs are constantly evolving and it can be an upheaval each time we redecorate. It can also be expensive and time-consuming. But it doesn’t have to be that way. If people had the option to change their flooring quickly and easily, by themselves, in just two to three hours, how many more would opt to do it? They may even opt to do just that rather than redecorate an entire room. Add to that the options to stow away the flooring that’s been uplifted for re-use, recycle it in an environmentally-friendly way, or simply just swap some sections that are more worn than others, and you’re left with a transformative solution to what is an old problem.” The solution? IOBAC claims to offer a solution to the issues Paul outlines above. It comes in the form of its Ezy-Install underlay system, incorporating a unique dual-grip technology that enables “faster, cleaner and easier flooring installations.” “Ezy-Install is what we call our dry-laid magnetically receptive underlay,” explains Paul. “It takes away all of the messy, time-consuming issues that arise with traditional solutions. There’s minimal sub-floor preparation needed, you simply roll out the underlay and cut to size. It is waterproof, naturally anti-microbial, easily cleanable, durable and manufactured using recycled rubber from old tyres. It’s perfect for reuse time and again and ticks all of the sustainability boxes. Combining a metallised, magnetically-receptive base with a high-grab dry adhesive tack, it utilises dual grip strength for optimum hold between underlay and surface flooring. The underlay adhesive is plant-based VOC-free resin, manufactured predominantly from renewable castor oil.” The final step is to fix magneticallybacked tiles into place – much like putting a fridge magnet on a fridge – or attach a standard backed tile using IOBAC’s MagTabs.
Cont.
September/October 2020 • BuildingProducts.co.uk
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