A new and important milestone has been added to the certifications obtained by Florim over the years.
In addition to being B Corp certified, ISO 9001 for quality management, ISO 14001 for environmental management, ISO 50001 for energy management, and ISO 45001 for health and safety, the company boasts over 20 international product certifications, earning the top spot among the most certified companies in the ceramic district.
The general commitment to sustainability is further confirmed with the achievement of the new ISO 17889-1 which defines for the first time a series of international parameters that allow to objectively measure the sustainability of the tile by evaluating the environmental, economic, and social impact of the product, throughout its life cycle.
Therefore, the ISO 17889-1 standard guarantees greater transparency from companies about the sustainability of their production.
The benefits of ISO 17889-1
In the global market for building and construction materials, there are many environmental product labels and building rating systems, with application criteria that differ from country to country. The international standard ISO 17889-1 promotes a standard that simplifies the overall framework, standardizing the evaluation and scoring criteria.
In this way, ceramic companies around the world have a methodology to enhance their environmental performance throughout the entire production chain and the good practices implemented at the company level. Moreover, designers, contractors, and end customers have a verifiable and objective tool to avoid the pitfalls of greenwashing and identify truly sustainable tiles.
How ISO 17889-1 works
The evaluation system consists of 38 indicators, divided between mandatory and voluntary, and a multi-rating scoring system.
- 15 mandatory requirements establish the minimum prerequisites that a tile must have to be defined as sustainable. If a product does not meet all these criteria, it cannot compete for certification.
- 23 voluntary requirements assign a score from 100 to 130 according to different levels of product and process performance.
A tile conforms to the ISO 17889-1 standard only if it meets all the mandatory requirements and achieves 117.5 points in the voluntary requirements. From a research by Ceramics of Italy, it emerges that Italian production exceeds this threshold, recording an average score of 124.
Florim obtained the certification after the inspection verification by the German body TUV, based on information collected through laboratory tests, inspections, audits, etc., attesting the product’s conformity to the standard with an excellent score: 129 points out of a maximum of 130 for 6 mm thick slabs and 128 points for all other materials.