Calhoun, Ga.—Mannington Commercial is partnering with Appalachian Carbon Exchange (ACE), a non-profit initiative of the Tennessee River Gorge Trust, as its carbon offset partner. The partnership underscores Mannington’s goal to work with local or regionally based partners and to invest in communities close to home. The company will also actively support ACE’s other environmental programs and its mission to create nature-based solutions that go beyond carbon dioxide sequestration.
“Our partnership with ACE seeks to achieve our mutual goal that the land does more than just immediately sequester carbon dioxide,” said Shane Totten, AIA, Mannington Commercial’s director of sustainability. “We are working to increase quality of life opportunities over time for the people who live, work and play in our shared region. The partnership reflects one of our core values to ‘do the right thing’ and our unwavering commitment to environmental stewardship.”
Through the initial five-year partnership with ACE, Mannington’s purchase will result in four decades of climate-smart land management practices on 7,500 acres of forest in eastern Tennessee, northern Georgia and northern Alabama. ACE will work with private landowners through legally binding and public-facing documents on properties that otherwise would remain unrestricted and likely to be harvested. The offsets will cover the equivalent of 105% of the cradle-to-gate embodied carbon of Mannington Commercial’s domestically manufactured commercial flooring products, including carpet tile, rubber tile, luxury vinyl tile and resilient sheet. Mannington’s commercial flooring products are manufactured at facilities in Northwest Georgia, part of the Southern Appalachian and Cumberland plateau area covered by ACE. It is estimated that approximately 392,400 metric tons of carbon-equivalent greenhouse gases will be offset during the five-year period with the current cohort of properties. Mannington has committed to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and 50% reductions by 2030.
Mannington will provide ACE with additional financial and human capital resources as part of the partnership. Totten will serve on ACE’s advisory board and will seek to increase ACE’s capacity to grow additional nature-based carbon programs. Taken collectively, these programs will generate impactful climate mitigation and more integrated societal and environmental impact, such as economic investment into Appalachian communities, better-protected wildlife habitat for biodiversity, new and improved recreation areas and vigilant land stewardship due to the focus on true impact and local relationships.
“Our values and goals align perfectly,” noted ACE executive director Ongeleigh Underwood. “Mannington realizes that doing the right thing can often be a more difficult and expensive path. But creating true change—especially environmental change—takes vision, dedication and perseverance. Mannington’s commitment and Shane’s expertise have already proven to be invaluable as we grow and fulfill our mission.”
ACE’s offsets are registered with the American Carbon Registry (ACR) and have passed a rigorous third-party vetting process. Mannington worked alongside ACE to verify its offsets adhere to AVID+, a best practice for climate-smart land management that recommends offsets must be Additional, Verifiable, Immediate, Durable and help meet other societal goals (the “plus’ symbol).
Beginning in 2023, Mannington has been offsetting an equivalent 105% of the cradle-to-gate embodied carbon from all its domestically manufactured commercial products.