For the fourth consecutive year, Mohawk Group’s parent company Mohawk Industries has been named the most sustainable flooring manufacturer in the Southeastern Corporate Sustainability Rankings’ annual assessment of the sustainable practices of the region’s largest businesses.
Mohawk, the world’s largest flooring company, also saw its state and regional rankings reach record highs. Among Georgia-based companies, Mohawk rose to second behind UPS, while its overall regional rank increased six places to number five. To compile the annual rankings, the Southeastern Corporate Sustainability Rankings reviews the practices of publicly-traded companies from an eight-state region: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
“Mohawk’s rise in the Southeastern Corporate Sustainability Rankings reflects the continual expansion of our sustainable practices across the business,” said Jenny Cross, Mohawk Industries’ vice president of sustainability. “Our sustainability platform is an extension of our core principle of doing the right thing for our communities, employees, and customers, and we are pleased that an independent assessment of our practices ranks us among sustainability leaders. Thanks to the dedication of our thousands of associates, we have made tremendous progress toward our very aggressive sustainability goals including lower energy and water consumption, upcycling our waste stream and expanding the range of our products incorporating recycled content.”
Mohawk employs a three-factor strategic approach to sustainability, focusing on the Company’s processes, products, and people. Each year, the Company processes billions pounds of recycled material into higher value streams each year. Initiatives like Mohawk Group’s ReCover program reclaim carpet products at the end of life in commercial flooring installations and divert millions of pounds of commercial carpet from reaching the landfill each year.
Six of the Company’s ten U.S. ceramic tile manufacturing facilities recover and reuse all of their process wastewater. Twenty-four of the Company’s carpet manufacturing plants have achieved an internal “Zero Waste” status. Across all flooring categories, hundreds of the Company’s commercial and residential products contain recycled material. Mohawk also continues to make progress toward an aggressive 25 percent intensity reduction in energy consumption, greenhouse gases, water use, and landfill waste by the year 2020.
“Mohawk Group has created an entirely new conversation in sustainability related to product transparency and healthy interiors, and we have an extensive list of products that will help our customers create the healthiest indoor spaces,” said Rochelle Routman, Mohawk Group’s director of sustainability. “We are educating others about the importance of transparency, and we are leading the entire flooring industry with the largest and most varied selection of products that have associated Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), Health Product Declarations (HPDs), and Declare labels. We will continue to work with our customers and other leaders in the building industry to strive for greater transparency and healthier choices.”
In addition to Mohawk, other companies recognized for exceptional sustainable practices include such well-known organizations as Delta, Denny’s, Hanes, Lexmark, Office Depot, Sanderson Farms, Sonoco, Vulcan Materials, and Yum! Brands.
