How Interface can help you meet DGNB Criteria

How Interface can
help you meet
DGNB Criteria
For the usage profile of New Office
and Administrative Buildings 2012
(NBV12)
Green building rating systems such as the German Sustainable
Building (DGNB) help determine a building’s overall sustainability
performance.
DGNB certification is a voluntary system that awards a gold, silver or
bronze certificate for elements of a building’s design, construction or
materials that contribute to 50 criteria related to sustainability. These
cover a wide range of issues in the areas of ecology, economy, sociocultural aspects, technology, process work flows and site quality.
Flooring may be just a fraction of a building’s overall environmental
footprint, but your choice of flooring can help you achieve DGNB
certification.
Interface has a range of products that can help you contribute to DGNB
criteria and improve your building rating. The leaflet explains how.
Environmental Quality
DGNB Ref: ENV1.1 & ENV2.1
DGNB Criteria: Life Cycle Assessment of: ENV1.1 — Ecological footprint of physical building components
ENV2.1 - Primary energy demand
Description of Criteria:
DGNB uses life cycle assessment (LCA) to assess energy consumption and emissions during construction, maintenance, operation (assumed to be
500 years) and dismantling. The data basis for the assessment of the environmental impacts of the construction products are the manufacturer-specific
Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) or generic datasets from the ‘Ökobau.dat’ database.
How we can help:
We publish an EPD for all Interface products to help you understand and compare energy use, resource consumption and environmental impacts
of each of our ranges. EPDs provide clear information and help you choose the most sustainable products for your project. All the corresponding
certificates are available here: http://www.interfaceflor.co.uk/web/sustainability/epd/certificates
For Interface’s carbon neutral carpet, Cool Carpet®, we use LCA to measure the total greenhouse gas emissions during the life of our products and
offset these by investing in programmes that reduce emissions elsewhere in the world. For many product ranges Cool Carpet® comes as a standard
product feature.
DGNB Ref: ENV1.2
DGNB Criteria: Risks for the Local Environment
Description of Criteria:
DGNB assesses the impact of construction products and materials on local air quality, water and soil. For floor coverings, this includes an assessment of
the amount of volatile organic compounds (VOCs, the chemicals that affect air quality) within primers, undercoats and adhesives.
How we can help:
Interface TacTiles™ meet the indoor air quality criteria of DGNB. Liquid glues often contain formaldehyde and other VOCs that affect indoor air quality.
TacTiles™ offer a glueless alternative for installing Interface carpet tiles, virtually eliminating VOCs.
Tac Tiles™ also have a much lower carbon footprint than traditional adhesives. A standard installation typically needs 110g of adhesive per square
metre, while TacTiles™ use only 5g of tackifier per square metre. TacTiles™ are fully recyclable and also make it easier to recycle carpet at end of life.
They leave no residues at the backing of the carpet and are easy to remove.
Sociocultural and Functional Quality
DGNB Ref: SOC1.2
DGNB Criteria: Indoor Air Quality
Description of Criteria:
DGNB assesses air quality in the workplace, including emissions and fumes from construction products, ventilation and air conditioning. The
assessment uses two indicators: Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in Indoor Air and Personal Ventilation Rate.
VOCs are chemicals, such as formaldehyde and toluene, which affect indoor air quality. Some are toxic at high concentrations and others produce lowlevel odours. A building will not receive DGNB certification if VOCs levels exceed certain limits.
Personal Ventilation Rate assesses the quality of breathing air by measuring the amount of fresh air entering a room through air conditioning systems or
windows.
How we can help:
All Interface products comfortably exceed the most stringent regulations for VOCs, including AgBB in Germany, ANSET in France and GUT standards.
Most VOC emissions from flooring are from glue used during installation, so using our glue-free TacTiles™ system can virtually eliminate VOCs from
flooring.
Selecting the right carpet can also help to increase the personal ventilation rate. We can guide you on the thickness of the pile, type of carpet and carpet
structure to increase a building’s ability to trap and retain dust, airborne particles, fibres and fungal spores.
Our hard-wearing entrance matting, Barricade, prevents dust and dirt from entering a building in the first place. Barricade has been awarded the
highest-level Gold label from GUI, which means it captures at least 60-80% of dust.
DGNB Ref: SOC 1.3
DGNB Criteria: Acoustic Comfort
Description of Criteria:
DGNB carries out reverberation tests to assess the acoustic comfort of a room. In most situations, a shorter reverberation time is desirable. Floor
coverings with high sound absorption provide the conditions for optimum room acoustics, and a higher DGNB score. Sound absorption is measured
across 18 different frequencies between 100Hz – 5000Hz. These values are called the alpha s. They are then averaged, rounded and weighted into a
single value called the alpha w. To be sure you address the specific type of sound you want absorbed, use the alpha s values for the relevant frequencies.
Humans are less sensitive to low frequencies, making the absorption of mid to high frequency sounds more important.
How we can help:
Flooring materials have a strong influence on acoustic comfort because they cover a large area and absorb noise. Carpet is a very efficient sound
absorber compared to all other flooring materials. It absorbs up to 10 times more airborne noise than any other flooring material, and reduces impact
noise (such as footsteps, chairs being moved, or objects being dropped) up to five times more than a typical hard floor. We measure the sound
absorption for all our products across 18 different frequencies between 100Hz and 5,000Hz.
When designing and manufacturing our carpet tiles, Interface pays close attention to how we can enhance their acoustic properties. For the majority
of projects, acoustic and ergonomic comfort can be achieved with the specification of standard Interface carpet tiles. With a variety of textures and over
1000 colourways across 80 ranges, your scheme doesn’t have to be compromised when you need to control the acoustic properties of the interior.
Our enhanced acoustic backing options, SONE™ and Interlay, can be used across the entire workspace or limited to smaller zoned areas that have
more complex needs.
DGNB Ref: SOC 1.7
DGNB Criteria: Safety and Security
Description of Criteria:
DGNB’s safety and security assessment ensures that building products are safe. For flooring, the three main considerations are the ability of flooring to
reduce injuries from slips and falls, the flammability of the material, and the amount of electrostatic discharge generated through friction.
How we can help:
Flooring can contribute not just to wellbeing but to physical safety in offices. To meet safety and security standards, Interface considers slip resistance,
the flammability of materials, and generation of electrostatic discharge.
Slip resistance: At the simplest level, flooring can influence the likelihood of slips and falls that directly cause injuries. Carpets have more in-built friction
than hard flooring and do not require formal slip resistance testing in Europe.
Flammability and reaction to fire: All Interface products pass the Radiant Panel Flammability Test, the most common measure for flammability of
flooring in Europe. This assessment examines flooring for its propensity to catch fire, the time and speed of flame spread, and the density and toxicity of
the smoke produced when burning.
Static: Interface reduces static by fitting carpet tiles with conductive nylon agents in the backing systems to safely conduct static electricity to the ground.
Technical Quality (TEC)
DGNB Ref: TEC 1.2
DGNB Criteria: Noise Protection
Description of Criteria:
DGNB measures impact sound in a working space.
How we can help:
A good acoustic environment is always the result of many factors, but to effectively control noise from footsteps and other impacts, no flooring
alternative is more effective than carpet. Impact sound transmission, measured in decibels, tells you how much sound is insulated from an adjacent
space. Our products reduce impact noise by 14 to 34dB compared to hard flooring which is just 1 to 6 dB.
DGNB Ref: TEC 1.5
DGNB Criteria: Ease of Cleaning and Maintenance
Description of Criteria:
DGNB evaluates materials for their ease of cleaning and maintenance. Soiling-tolerant floor coverings and patterned, mottled or textured flooring
achieve higher scores.
How we can help:
Correct maintenance of carpet will not only extend the life of any carpet investment but will also help to preserve a satisfactory level of appearance and
comfort within the working environment. Interface provides detailed carpet maintenance guidance, training and support for your in-house maintenance
team, and a customised maintenance programme tailored to your facility’s needs. We make choosing a soil-tolerant carpet easy. All our products are
classified according to their potential to hide soiling.
In general, the DGNB favours two coloured (salt and pepper) and patterned products over light colours and/or plain products. We also offer a dense
pile carpet, Baricade, which traps dirt at the entrance to buildings and hides the appearance of stains through its patterned design. In the event of
spillage or staining, Interface’s modular flooring concept means you can replace individual damaged or worn tiles with new ones, with minimum
disruption, waste and cost.
With little effort and no additional cost for the builder, Interface carpets can help you improve your assessment in a DGNB certification.
DGNB Ref: TEC 1.6
DGNB Criteria: Ease of Dismantling and Recycling
Description of Criteria:
DGNB assesses the ease of dismantling and recycling to evaluate the effort required to separate component layers. For flooring, loose-laid products
are considered readily separable, and are scored more highly than products that are glued down.
How we can help:
Using TacTiles™, carpet tiles are easy to uplift and recycle at end of life. There is no sticky mess on the backing and no need for a costly clean-up of the
sub floor. You can also lift and replace individual carpet tiles with no problem. When you are ready to change your flooring, we take back your old carpet
and send it for reuse by social enterprises, or recycle it into new products.
We use advanced technology to separate the main components of the carpet for easy recycling. Through a process called ReEntry® 2.0, raw materials
are separated to allow yarn and backing to be recycled for use in new carpets.
Process Quality (PRO)
DGNB Ref: PRO 1.3
DGNB Criteria: Comprehensive Project Definition
Description of Criteria:
DGNB assesses the planning process of construction projects. Comprehensive planning with tailored solutions and concepts are scored more highly.
Projects which use LCA to compare variants, and those that consider life cycle costs are also scored well.
How we can help:
Interface uses LCA to assess and compare the impacts of different products and processes in line with ISO 14040 standards. This looks at everything
from raw material extraction through to disposal or recycling at the end of the product’s life. The results are documented in our EPDs for all our product
ranges to help you compare variants and demonstrate clear planning. All the corresponding certificates are available here: http://www.interfaceflor.
co.uk/web/sustainability/epd/certificates
Furthermore, we publish an Environmental Data Sheet (EDS) which has been developed to give a quick and fact-based overview of the main
environmental impacts for each of the Interface products throughout all phases of their life cycle. All the corresponding certificates are available here:
http://www.interfaceflor.co.uk/web/sustainability/environmental_datasheets
DGNB Ref: PRO 1.5
DGNB Criteria: Comprehensive Building Design
Description of Criteria:
DGNB assesses products that facilitate daily business operations, like instructions for maintenance, inspection, and operation.
How we can help:
Interface provides you with a detailed carpet maintenance guide that includes instructions for vacuum cleaning, pile lifting and spot cleaning. We
also provide instructions for interim cleaning and periodic maintenance, training and support for the in-house maintenance team, and a customised
maintenance programme tailored to your facility’s needs.­
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