Our stand

At Mannington, we stand on doing the right thing. And we've done our best to earn our reputation as good business partners and good people. We believe part of being a good corporate citizen includes protecting our shared environment; caring for our neighbors and the places where we live. This means we are always looking at our flooring products, trying to do more with fewer resources and always trying to get better. For us, it's not good enough to simply say we care. We believe actions speak.

The importance of being a good neighbor

Being a part of a community isn't just having an address there; it's being a caring, involved corporate citizen. Our customers, our neighbors and our associates are all a part of our community, and we openly and actively encourage involvement. We reward our employees for helping us improve our environmental performance, and we ask our neighbors for input. See something we can do better? Let us know. We always want to be on our toes.

Involvement is also a two-way street. So, we work with environmental agencies and the green building movement to ensure we stay up on the latest thinking and technologies. All this helps us take care of the places we call home, and helps us reach our goals.

Less waste means more improvement

Our corporate environmental goal is simple – to be a net user of waste. This means that we aim to use more waste than we create when we make our products. Sounds easy, but it's actually a big goal requiring careful planning and some smart thinking. Our people are constantly reevaluating our processes and looking for innovative ways to reduce waste, increase the amount of recycled materials we use, and maintain the high quality that you expect from Mannington. We're pleased to report that our commercial carpet location has reached this goal and is now setting new ones.

Wonderfully, the changes we make to become a net user of waste usually save energy and reduce pollution as well. It's all a part of getting better every day.

Getting better every day

So what has our care for the environment led to so far? A whole lot.
We were the first flooring company to completely eliminate solvent inks from printing. Instead of simply meeting standards, we pioneered a new technology to come up with a better solution. We also offer engineered-wood flooring – a more efficient use of each tree. And we've developed a way to recycle both our hard and soft surface flooring into each other.

We've improved our systems, achieving ISO 14001 certification for our tile, inlaid and commercial carpet operations. This environmental certification is done by a third-party, so it's how we all know that we're really doing the right thing.

Improvements haven't just been limited to our plants; we've done work outside them as well. We've reinstated natural landscaping to reduce the need for fertilizers and mowing, established riparian buffers around our wetlands, and created run-off ponds to keep auto pollution out of the surrounding area. We were even able to replace pesticides at our Salem, NJ location with an ingenious natural solution: bug-hungry purple martins.

We're pleased to say that our innovations have attracted some notice, and we've been awarded significant environmental recognition in the last few years. One of which we're most proud is The National Pollution Prevention Roundtable Most Valuable Pollution Prevention Award. More important than recognition, however, is knowing that we are doing the right thing.

Standing on a Better World

At Mannington, one of our fundamental values is to strive to do the right thing by our customers, our people and our craft – every day. That's what it means to stand on a better world. So it is only natural for us to recognize those around us that make our world a better place. In 2005, Mannington established the Stand On A Better World Awards to recognize women in three award categories – Social, Environmental, & Economic – who are making a difference in this world. To find out more about the annual awards, or to nominate an outstanding woman you know who has made a difference in the world, visit the Stand On A Better World website.

Never Finished

This is our stand, but we aren't going to stand still. We will always continue to take action, to research and innovate, and to improve our products and our performance. We hope that you will continue to provide input and make suggestions so we can all stand on a better world.