The Amorim Wise Inspire 700 flooring solutions have a negative Carbon Balance, when the carbon sequestration of the cork oak forest is taken into consideration. The results are from a study commissioned by Amorim Cork Flooring (Corticeira Amorim's Floor and Wall Coverings Business Unit) from the consultancy firm, EY, that evaluated the environmental impacts caused from the extraction of raw materials until the end of the product's life. The study revealed that Amorim Wise Inspire 700 HRT flooring solutions enable carbon sequestration of up to -101kg of CO2 / m2 and Amorim Wise Inspire 700 SRT flooring solutions enable carbon sequestration of up to -93kg CO2 / m2.
As the market leader in the cork-based floor and wall coverings sector, Amorim Cork Flooring's mission is to develop innovative and sustainable cork based flooring solutions to contribute to people's health, comfort and future. Amorim Wise was born with this primary concern in mind. The brand favours the use of cork as its main raw material, adopts production techniques that aim to reduce waste and doesn’t use any PVCs in the composition of its product portfolio. Sustainability invariably plays a fundamental role in the search for new floor and wall covering solutions, and is the overriding principle which determines many of the company's strategies when launching new products.
It should be noted that the results provide relevant information on the environmental contribution of cork products, while highlighting the tremendous value of the cork oak forest in terms of sustainability. The studies form part of Corticeira Amorim's constant effort to encourage further research into cork, so as to provide its more than 27,000 national and international customers with quantifiable information on how to reduce their products' carbon footprint, helping them in their joint efforts to combat climate change.
The life cycle analysis, conducted during 2019, was based on a cradle-to-grave approach, which contemplates all environmental impacts until the end of the products' life. The assessment also included additional information on the carbon sequestration of the cork oak forest. The methodology of EY’s studies was based on the ISO 14040/44 (ISO, 2006) standards, complemented with the guidelines of the Handbook - General Guide for Life Cycle Assessment - Detailed guidance (EC-JRC, 2010), and the International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD). Data associated with production was provided by Amorim Cork Flooring, while data on the general production processes associated with the production of raw materials, energy, transport and waste management was obtained from the ecoinvent 3.5 database (Werner, et al., 2016).
