Lexington Ky. — All Kentucky-produced Florida Tile products have been certified Green Squared.
“The new Green Squared certification is more than a way to quickly identify environmentally sustainable tile products,” said Sean Cilona, marketing director for Florida Tile. “It is also a new ANSI standard (ANSI A138.1), defining exactly what is required for a tile to be considered truly green. This is a complete one-stop assessment of a product’s sustainability developed by the Green Initiative Committee of the Tile Council of North America,” says Cilona.
(Florida Tile was an integral part of the 5-year development of the GREEN SQUARED standard, and its products were among the first groups of products to achieve that certification.)
“Green Squared is also a true, third-party certification. The certifying body Florida Tile used, the environmental division of the 117-year-old Underwriters Laboratories (UL), is the same independent company that administers our GREENGUARD certification which remains in effect,” according to Cilona. “Only products and companies that meet the strict guidelines of the program and achieve certification by a third party may bear the “Green Squared Certified” mark.”
Cilona reported that a “Certificate of Conformity” was issued to Florida Tile by UL for the following products, all of them American Porcelain Tile manufactured at the company‘s facility in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky:
Ankara, Ashton, Berkshire, Cinema, Contessa, Creekside, Fontana, Formations, Grandeur, Hamlet Manor, Highlands, Horizon, Legend, Livingston, Mendocino, Millenia, Montana, Paramount, Phoenix, Pristine, Quartez, Renaissance, Retroclassic, Savannah, Taconic Slate, Terrace, Topeka and Tuscania
“Multi-attribute standards such as Green Squared are becoming increasingly recognized and encouraged as a resource by green building programs such as LEED, the National Association of Home Builder’s standard for green homes and the International Green Construction Code’s Green Building Code,” Cilona noted.
He said, “Green Squared included the input of manufacturers and incorporates that of designers, architects, standards developers and professionals in the rapidly emerging green marketplace, plus users of tile products. The result is a complete, whole-picture assessment of a product’s green attributes. This starts prior to the production process such as raw materials extraction, environmental manufacturing and products characteristics and includes behind-the-scenes corporate green governance and innovation,” Cilona concluded.