• LEGISLATION

Legal and environmental considerations for flooring

November, 2019

Legal and environmental considerations for commercial flooring choices.

We look at those all important legal and environmental considerations for commercial flooring decisions, some are a must and others reflect your ethos.

Health and safety

According to the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, floors must be suitable for the activity taking place, in good condition and free from obstructions. People should be able to move around safely, so choosing the correct flooring is key to this.

Even if you’d prefer to have carpet in the area where your desks and meeting rooms are based, it is worth thinking about safety flooring for bathroom areas and also busy kitchen areas. Seeing as slips, trips and falls are the most common cause of workplace injuries, avoiding risk has to be a major consideration.

Sustainability

In 2016, the world’s cities generated just over 2 billion tonnes of solid waste, amounting to a footprint of 0.74 kilograms per person per day. To do your bit for the environment, choose a type of flooring made from recycled materials and manufacturers that make sustainability a key part of their ethos and the standards they adopt.

Reusing what we make is how we’re going to keep our planet from being totally destroyed, so start from the ground up.

Your employees and other people who come into your office or client’s premises, will probably spill drinks or tread in mud at some point. You need a flooring that can withstand this. In addition, a suitable and sustainable cleaning and maintenance regime needs to be part of a company’s green ethos.

This also includes thinking about the footfall levels in your commercial spaces, and how that will affect aspects such as how quickly it wears out and how much maintenance it will need. Thinking about entrance matting and barrier tiles is one solution, as well as making choices around the durability expectations of the flooring you purchase from the outset. Placing durability as a key criteria is not only and environmental option, it can also directly affect the safety of the flooring, since any areas that are worn out may become a hazard.

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