News

DESSO Launches Greenest Tile ever

10 March 2008

Leading European carpet manufacturer, DESSO goes the extra green mile in communicating the company's commitment to sustainability. Bypassing rhetoric in favour of real action, the 'Green Book' is made of recycled waste, is fully biodegradable, and can be planted after reading to decompose and grow into wild flowers.

In line with its eco-friendly ethics, DESSO has reduced its carpet sample tiles to a quarter of their previous size, resulting in less packaging and lower impact on transport emissions and landfill. Its Green Book is designed to represent this new sample tile and the company's green goals.

Made of 100% post-consumer waste, the brochure is bound with biodegradable thread and printed with water and soya-based ink. To symbolise the company's code of 'sustainability with substance', the Green Book is embedded with seeds and can be planted after use to carpet the recipients' gardens with wildflowers in just four weeks.

Stef Kranendijk, CEO of DESSO, says: "DESSO has been taking measures to safeguard the environment for many years, long before green issues became popularised. We're working to change the old industrial perception of 'cradle to grave' to a new cycle of 'cradle to cradle'."

Kranendijk continues: "Our sustainability brochure a treeless book is fully biodegraded and generate new life in the form of beautiful wild flowers embodies this principle."

The 'cradle to cradle' concept is shaping DESSO's  Sustainability policy agenda in 2008. The company is launching an ambitious project, reclaiming carpet from customers to be reused or recycled.

To cut its carbon footprint, DESSO sources sustainable raw materials and develops long life and low maintenance products. Waste recycling from its factories already exceeds 90%, and the company is building on a decade-long energy reduction programme by investigating alternative energy options and moving to green energy in all its plants during 2008.

The Green Brochure was designed and produced by communications company, ElcaMedia. Kranendijk says: "ElcaMedia has shown how it's possible to underpin the idea of sustainability with real substance. Its team has avoided the paradox of speaking about green credentials in a brochure which is, itself, environmentally suspect. With the Green Book, it has created a true example of environmental excellence and hence our commitment to it."

For more information, contact: corporate_communications@desso.com