Polyflor Ltd already held many environmental accreditations such as Life Cycle Analysis under BREEAM (ENP 415, ENP 429, ENP 472). To supplement this, the company had ambitions to achieve BES 6001 certification around sustainability, ethical practice and responsible sourcing.

To demonstrate on-going commitment to underpin and measure these environmental, social and economic drivers and to seek competitive advantage in the marketplace, Polyflor Ltd set out to secure BES 6001 certification for its resilient flooring products, which in the first phase included Luxury Vinyl Tiles. Certification for Polyflor resilient vinyl sheet Homogeneous, Heterogeneous and Polysafe Safety Flooring ranges will follow shortly.

In addition, Polyflor Ltd recognised that securing BES 6001 certification would help their customers secure additional BREEAM credits for their projects. The company also recognised that listing its BES 6001 certification on BRE Global’s Green Book Live service enabled clients to quickly and confidently establish the company’s sustainability credentials. So it was of the utmost importance that the company secured a BES 6001 certification.

Polyflor Ltd already prided itself in being ‘the responsible source’ for flooring materials and had established a suite of sustainability policies across the organisation. Polyflor have significant levels of supplier certification to ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 standards. The supply chain is well regulated and managed.  Polyflor Ltd’s view was that BES 6001 is an excellent way to draw all these initiatives together under a single certified process to demonstrate a holistic approach to a wide range of ethical and sustainability issues.

The certification and audit process began in 2013. There followed two site visits in May to James Halstead PLC’s Radcliffe HQ along with their production facilities in August 2013. The early engagement between Polyflor Ltd and BRE began with a scoping meeting in order for Polyflor to better understand in general terms how the BES 6001 Standard is implemented.  A period of consolidation of systems followed and evidence within Polyflor Ltd before the certification activity began in the middle of 2013.

This evidence covered internal systems as well as breakdowns of input material types, sources and suppliers. This was a challenging activity for both client and auditor given Polyflor Ltd were the first resilient flooring manufacturer to be assessed to the standard. The input materials for the products to be audited were diverse, numerous and from a wide range of source companies. In addition, the combination of input materials was complex for the different product types within the ranges.

The site visits enabled BRE Global auditors to review Polyflor Ltd’s responsible sourcing related processes both at their HQ function from where the various policies and procedures were developed and managed, through to the  manufacturing plants where the policies were implemented in the production process. By October 2013 the process was complete and Polyflor Ltd, the first resilient flooring manufacturer to do so, had secured a ‘Very Good’ BES 6001 certified rating for the products which entered the certification process.

Polyflor Ltd were delighted with the results of its BES 6001 certification. At the time, the company’s marketing manager, reflected, “Polyflor Ltd is a market leader in the resilient flooring industry and has long been sourcing materials in a responsible manner. However, up until now it has been a difficult and lengthy process to demonstrate to stakeholders the underlying approach towards sustainability.”

He continued, “The BES 6001 responsible sourcing certification now gives Polyflor clients the confidence and peace of mind that third party certification has taken place to demonstrate the leadership and commitment of the organisation. This will in the immediate future be supplemented by BES 6001 accreditation of more flooring ranges within the portfolio and on-going support of new verification schemes such as 'BRE Global's EN 15804 Verified EPD scheme for which Polyflor Ltd have also become a member”