Armstrong's environmental credentials set to turn others green with envy

Already a leader in materials recycling, Armstrong Ceilings has taken its green building credentials to new heights with the launch of a guide to its environmental offer.

The 12-page brochure is also reflected online on www.armstrong-ceilings.co.ukgreenbuilding to give architects and interior designers all the options they need to specify a green building. Options such as how to achieve energy savings, simplify waste management, reduce environmental impact and enhance indoor environment quality.

The guide explains how ceiling systems can play as major a role in effective energy conservation as insulation and window placement and gives many case studies to illustrate the methods. It showcases Armstrong's CoolZone system which uses Phase Change Material (PCM) to absorb a room's heat during the day and release it at night to delay the requirement for air conditioning by up to five hours in an average office and save 40% of the HVAC energy costs. And explains how ceiling tiles with light reflectance of 90% and more, such as Armstrong's Ultima range, deliver 20% of cost savings with indirect lighting and can yield total building energy savings up to 11%.

Armstrong's green guide also explains how island or canopy ceilings, such as the Axiom range which is manufactured to pre-designed sizes, allow for thermal transfer to optimise thermal gain. Armstrong introduced the industry's first ceiling recycling programme in 1999 and currently offers this service regardless of the quantities involved.

To date, the company has recycled over 11 million m² of old ceiling material or diverted 61,500 tonnes from landfill. This End Of Life (EOL) scheme is complemented by an Off-Cut recycling (OCR) scheme and both schemes are delivered by a growing network of Green Omega approved specialist sub-contractors. As well as helping to save the external environment, Armstrong systems also help to enhance the internal one, with high light reflectance systems being complemented by the industry's largest range of acoustic solutions and ceiling solutions with anti-microbial qualities for healthcare environments.

Armstrong now has Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for the vast majority of its product families, with the mineral portfolio featuring recycled content up to 82%. A member of the UK Green Building Council, the company manufactures to ISO 14001 and is the only UK manufacturer of mineral ceiling tiles with a BRE Ecopoint profile. LEED, BREEAM and SKA Credit summaries, developed by Armstrong to support the design, specification and installation of the company's systems in a range of buildings, are featured on the green building mini-site

ENDS