Our Commitment to Circular Design.

At GH Commercial, we understand that the foundation of every space begins with flooring. A permanent fixture in interiors, flooring quietly supports daily life - enduring countless footsteps, resisting wear, and standing the test of time. While this durability reflects our commitment to quality, in today’s resource-conscious world, it also presents a growing paradox: what happens at the end of its long life?

In a sector where longevity is essential, the eventual removal and disposal of flooring materials can create significant waste. This is where our thinking shifts - from seeing flooring as a static product to recognising it as a valuable resource that can be recovered, repurposed and reused in a truly circular system.

Circularity: A Challenge Worth Tackling

As a leading Australian flooring manufacturer, we are committed to advancing product circularity - an approach that reflects the evolving priorities of the architectural and design industry. Increasingly, design decisions are being made with an eye toward regeneration, resource efficiency and end-of-life recovery.

“At GH Commercial, we believe in better,” says Lachlan Howell, Strategic Account Manager. “This philosophy is an integral part of how we make decisions, how we reinvest in our planet and our people, how we advocate for change and how we communicate our progress to our customers, employees and the wider architectural and design community.”

This ethos underscores our commitment to addressing the environmental and resource challenges inherent in the flooring sector – and for an industry historically focused on endurance and longevity, the shift towards circularity presents unique hurdles. “Flooring’s enduring performance – while broadly expected and valued – presents a key challenge in the context of a circular economy and end-of-life waste,” Lachlan explains. “This challenge, coupled with the high material intensity of production, which often relies on finite resources, the potential for harmful substances in older products and a considerable carbon footprint, underscores the critical need for a circular approach.” He adds that increasing regulatory and market pressures also push industries towards Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), compelling manufacturers to take greater ownership of their products’ environmental impact.

“Improving product circularity is a strategic priority for GH Commercial because it is a key step to minimising the impacts of our products and promoting a positive legacy for future generations,” Lachlan emphasises. “It’s our mission to innovate and discover new technologies to deliver circular solutions for the future while inspiring others, across all industries, to do the same.”

Pursuing product circularity, however, is a complicated undertaking, a reality we acknowledge. With a legacy dating back to 1865, we have witnessed firsthand the intricacies of transforming established industry practices. “Achieving complete product circularity is incredibly complex,” says Lachlan. “And each industry faces its own challenges. In ours, the significant investment to operationalise new innovation, the accessibility and availability of technology to support closed-loop systems and supply chain maturity have been the key challenges when pursuing complete circularity for our products.”

Lachlan explains that the realities of multi-material construction, where different layers make efficient separation and recycling difficult, alongside the contamination that occurs during a floor’s lifespan from dirt, adhesives and coatings, complicate the process, while the lack of consistent recycling infrastructure can further hinder the scalability of take-back programs. Plus, the flooring removal process is often labour-intensive and coordinating collection at scale presents significant logistical challenges, often compounded by the carbon footprint of transporting bulky, used materials. This is underscored by the fragmented nature of the industry, which sees products pass through multiple stakeholders, adding another layer of complexity in ensuring materials are handled appropriately at their end-of-life.

ReCover: Rethinking Recycling, Repurpose and Reuse

Despite these complexities, we are actively taking steps towards a more circular future through a range of initiatives falling under their ReCover product stewardship program, which aims to provide solutions for end-of-life flooring waste and proof-of-concept for innovations to advance product circularity.

This commitment manifests through tangible programs. For instance, the Loop Program offers a second life for eligible GH Commercial carpet tiles through a take-back, grading and reuse system, and even accepts tiles made by other manufacturers. The 3R Program, on the other hand, focuses on broadloom carpets, modular carpets, and hybrid and vinyl flooring, aiming to repurpose or recycle these materials, effectively diverting them from landfill. “We also recognise that waste extends beyond the flooring itself,” Lachlan adds. “And we operate a packaging take-back program, too.”

Investment in Innovation

Beyond these crucial initiatives, GH Commercial is continuing to invest in research and development to increase the recycled content within their new products and explore innovative material solutions.

“In 2023, we launched a new lighter-weight cushion backing, Enviro Bac Lite®, in response to the growing demand for solutions made using greater recycled content,” Lachlan points out. “This product contains approximately 85% recycled content while maintaining optimum performance.” He adds that the company is also actively developing novel backing technologies that promise greater flexibility and the potential for easier removal and reuse in the future.

Circularity is a collaborative Journey

While our efforts highlight our unwavering commitment, Lachlan believes that transitioning to a truly circular flooring industry requires a collaborative, industry-wide approach.

Over the past two years, we have been actively advocating for continued investment in local manufacturing and, specifically, in equipment that would enable textile recycling locally. These efforts continue and it is this conviction that has led us to forge meaningful partnerships, such as the innovative collaboration with RMIT University and Textile Recyclers Australia, which explores the potential of using waste carpet fibres to enhance concrete properties, demonstrating a creative approach to material upcycling. Lachlan also mentions a collaboration with a yarn supplier that resulted in the regeneration of approximately 70 tonnes of pre-consumer nylon yarn waste back into a 100% recycled yarn product, successfully highlighting the potential of closed-loop systems within the supply chain.

“We actively engage with industry to understand the challenges facing customers, specifiers, end-users and occupants in our built environment,” he says. “This engagement piece enables us to acknowledge real challenges our industry and others are facing when it comes to creating circular systems.”

Do Better and Be Better Together

This notion of industry-wide and cross-industry collaboration underpins our simple but powerful mission – to do better and be better every day. As part of our efforts to embed the principles of product circularity into the very fabric of the design processes, we are looking to focus on upstream and downstream collaborations.

“Upstream collaboration focuses on ensuring the sourcing of materials that are inherently circular in design and manufacturing, while downstream collaboration aims to build effective recovery systems and create demand for recycled content, fostering crucial feedback loops,” Lachlan explains, adding that a critical aspect of this is gaining deeper material transparency. “What goes in must come out. A key challenge for all organisations, especially manufacturers and suppliers, is knowing what our products are made from at a granular level, what potential environmental and health impacts they have – and whether they complicate future reuse, recyclability and disposal in the future.”

And while Lachlan acknowledges that there certainly isn’t just one perfect solution, GH Commercial remains committed to pushing boundaries and partnering with innovators to create scalable and impactful solutions. And it is this commitment to collective action that underpins our vision for the future.

“As a proud Australian manufacturer and local subsidiary of Mohawk Industries, we appreciate the small part we play in delivering sustainable flooring solutions to our customers and how our work contributes to greater outcomes for the people who work, learn, live and play on our products,” Lachlan says. “But circularity in flooring is not a solo mission - it’s a shared responsibility.”

He highlights that, to build a truly circular future, we must move beyond isolated efforts and embrace greater collaboration at all levels. “From material sourcing to product design, installation, use and end-of-life recovery - every stakeholder has a role to play,” Lachlan enthuses. “Let’s align around common goals, co-invest in infrastructure and commit to solving waste from the start. Together, we can turn today’s challenges into tomorrow’s solutions - and build an industry that regenerates rather than depletes.”

In this galvanising vision, everyone, indeed, plays an essential role – from manufacturers fostering design for disassembly and specifiers carefully prioritising circular products and recyclable systems to the end-users driving demand for robust sustainable solutions. “Even recyclers and waste managers need to innovate material recovery technologies and expand their capacity for flooring materials,” Lachlan adds. “And, crucially, policymakers and industry bodies must create supportive frameworks that incentivise circularity and foster collaboration across the entire value chain.”

By rethinking how flooring is designed and managed at end-of-life, we are contributing to a more resource-efficient industry model – one that treats materials as assets, not waste.