In these times of climate change, sustainability must be a key focus for every manufacturer in the tiling and flooring market.
From material sourcing through to product launch, sustainability is a key focus for BAL.
Wherever possible, environmentally friendly raw materials are used with 12% of all raw materials made from recycled materials this year, up from 8.6% last year. Their target is to increase this to 20% by 2020.
Further to this 96% of their raw materials suppliers are UK-based and 50% of these are within 50 miles of BAL to reduce carbon footprint and emissions from logistics.
As well as the use of recycled raw materials in their products, BAL’s product development process dictates that any impact a new product may create – both positively or negatively – is cited in specific areas of new product proposals.
This includes impact from the raw materials or packaging used as well as any impact from the use of the product in the market.
“Sustainable innovation has led to key environmental gains within our product portfolio including Fibre Strand Technology (FST) developed and applied to core volume rapid-setting products allowing twice the working time and three times the open time,” says Alex Underwood, Head of Marketing at BAL.
“The use of FST in our core products means less product is wasted on-site. This technology now represents 45% of our adhesives and 97% of our levellers.”
BAL’s award-winning Rapid-Mat uncoupling mat also saves 1.5kg/m² (20%) of adhesive use compared to other market technologies. This product has saved circa 500T of adhesives use since its launch to the market.
The Stoke-on-Trent based manufacturer have also recently introduced a new uncoupling mat to the market – BAL Flexbone 2Easy – which saves approximately 2kg/m² of adhesive.
BAL Flexbone 2Easy is a unique floating uncoupling mat where no adhesive is needed underneath – a truly uncoupled system – and ensuring the saving on adhesive. Because it is floating, only basic preparation is needed – simply sweep or vacuum solid, level floors and lay the mat. No remove of residue, bitumen or laitance. No priming needed.
High yield adhesives that utilise re-useable material as a lightweight filler also form a key product category in BAL’s stable. Products like BAL Supercover and BAL Single Part FastFlex provide higher volumes of mixed product per kg (33% to 60% additional coverage is provided). These now represents 10% of their adhesives, with over 4,000T of alternate adhesive saved since their launch. This is equivalent of a tiled area of 750,000m² – greater than the combined pitch size of every professional football team in all of the leagues in England, Scotland & Wales.
Further to this, despite being an American-based system, BAL has also developed LEED points data for specifiers for the full BAL range to ensure specifiers can consciously select a sustainable product for new builds using a standard with which they are familiar.
“While there is an internal focus on circular economy opportunities, our current deliverable focus is to extend building life with the use of our products,” says Head of Marketing Alex Underwood.
“This is achieved by offering a market-leading 25-year guarantee to ensure durable, long-lasting builds and enabling a much longer product life-cycle. Our free specification service also provides correct specifications to over 50,000 people each year.
“While there is still a long-way to go, we believe we are on the right track to providing as sustainable solutions as possible and doing our part to mitigate the impacts of climate change.”
