In conversation with UKSFA’s Cathie Clarke.
Cathie Clarke joined the UK Sustainable Flooring Alliance as CEO just over a year ago, in July of 2024, and yet in that short time she has reshaped the organisation in some significant ways, not least by spearheading its recent transition from CRUK (Carpet Recycling UK) to UKSFA. This month, we spoke with Cathie to discuss UKSFA’s “year of transformation” and its renewed focus on industry collaboration.
With around 20 years of experience in the construction industry and recent prior experience running a small specialist trade association, Cathie was well suited for the top role at UKSFA, but even so the position came with a “steep learning curve,” she says. The main challenge, beyond getting to grips with the industry itself, was understanding both “the forces that are driving sustainability and circularity within the construction industry and the challenges of the legislation coming in.” The answers to these questions led Cathie and the organisation to consider the position of UKSFA (CRUK, at the time) in the industry, and how it could better address these issues.
The history
“The whole point of Carpet Recycling UK, when it started in 2007, was to divert textile flooring from landfill – that was the big issue of the day,” Cathie explains. Within that specific remit, the organisation has made marked progress. At the time of CRUK’s formation, only around 6% of flooring waste avoided landfill, but over the past 18 years (“these things don’t happen overnight,” Cathie assures us), that number has risen to around 73%, an enormous improvement. That improvement does come with the important caveat that a lot of the waste that has been diverted from landfill is now incinerated instead. “That is energy from waste,” Cathie points out, “so there is a product, but it’s not ideal.”
There is now a small amount of true recycling happening in the industry, but it needs to grow, and facilitating this through research and collaboration is one of UKSFA’s most important tasks. Today, the organisation boasts a membership of around 120 members, ranging from multi-million pound manufacturers in the UK and Europe to raw materials suppliers, all the way to installers, retailers and waste management companies. “We have the whole range,” Cathie says. “Some have got circular products and are leaders in the field, and others are maybe at the start of their journey and need to do more.” UKSFA’s first goal, then, is to help all companies in the industry approach sustainability practically, to address circularity, and to foster research and development.
A unified voice
The other major objective of the organisation (and one of the primary reasons behind the rebrand) is to provide the UK flooring industry with a “credible” voice when talking to government, Cathie explains. “Textile flooring alone represents about £2bn to the economy. We don’t have the exact figure for the wider sector at the moment, but obviously it’s a lot bigger, and so we have quite an impact when it comes to speaking to government and civil service.”
This negotiating power is important when we consider the answers to the aforementioned questions: who is driving sustainability and how will sustainability legislation affect the flooring industry? Right now, UKSFA is particularly concerned with the potential impact of EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility), a popular scheme in Europe which the UK Government has adopted with respect to packaging. Under the scheme, all packaging used by companies within the UK is now subject to a fee. The Government is phasing in the scheme over time across industries, but ultimately it will impact the flooring industry, leading to significant fees for companies whose packaging is less sustainable.
“We know that legislation can do great things to change products and change cultures, but we want to make to make sure it’s done in the right way and that it’s fair and equitable,” Cathie says. For example, it was initially proposed that the EPR legislation would only affect carpets and textile flooring. For UKSFA, this was a major problem. “Our sector was very keen that if any legislation was coming down the line, it should be applied across all flooring to maintain a level playing field.”
Beyond this, UKSFA is advocating for the flooring industry to be granted autonomy over the issue of packaging, rather than having fees imposed by the government. For starters, Cathie points out, there’s an argument that EPR regulations simply don’t achieve what they’re ostensibly designed to. “In Europe,” she explains, “it’s basically often seen as a tax.” That is to say, if a company knows it must pay a fixed amount to the government to deal with its packaging at the end of life, that company is more likely than not to incorporate that cost into its own pricing structure, rather than making its packaging any more sustainable.
Another way
Instead, the UKSFA proposes the creation of a stewardship scheme, by and for the industry itself. Such a scheme would be voluntary, rather than mandatory, and it would focus on “looking after your own flooring for the sake of your industry,” Cathie says. It would still naturally require investment and upfront work from the industry at large, similar to EPR, but it would afford flooring companies more agency in the process. “It gives them that leadership, it gives them that power to structure something that will be a benefit,” Cathie explains.
The organisation is still in the research and planning stages of creating such a scheme, but it has found an encouraging amount of effort already being made. This research will help UKSFA establish what recycling and take-back schemes already exist, to form a baseline from which it can build a new scheme. For example, across all flooring types, there are around 30 schemes currently operating in the UK. “It’s important because we’re not here to create something new if we don’t have to,” Cathie emphasises. “If there is a scheme over here that’s taking vinyl, and there’s a scheme over there taking carpet carpet tiles, and one over there taking broadloom rolls, we want to work together with them. If they’re working well, we should ask what can we learn and how can we network them together?”
This message of collaboration is, above all, what UKSFA aims to promote. Cathie is keen to emphasise the organisation’s rebrand is not intended as a “takeover” in any shape or form. Rather, it hopes to invite stakeholders from different existing initiatives to the table, to provide the whole industry with a more meaningful voice in the discussions that matter around sustainability. It’s obvious the flooring industry still has a long way to go to meet all its environmental responsibilities, but it may find that distance easier to cross if it moves as a unified force.
www.uk-sfa.com