Armstrong includes circularity in new green building initiative

Pennsylvania-based building products maker Armstrong World Industries is part of an initiative called “Building Better Together," an effort aimed at exchanging ideas and creating connections and collaborative efforts necessary to improve the health of indoor environments while advancing pathways for circularity and decarbonization across the industry.

The company recently brought together more than 200 “sustainably minded influencers"in the building sector to launch the initiative. That event was held at the National Building Museum (NBM) in Washington and was held in conjunction with the 2023 Greenbuild International Conference in late September.

“Because buildings are integral to human health and environmental sustainability, all of us in the building industry have a significant opportunity—and responsibility—to address the global challenges of climate change, public health and equity,” says Mark Hershey, senior vice president at Armstrong.

The NBM is one of the key backers of the initiative, along with 9 Foundations (9F), a Harvard School of Public Health-created entity that is a strategic advisory group comprised of health scientists and public health experts that offers custom healthy buildings solutions to improve the indoor environment and its impact on health and performance.

Much of the phrasing used by NBM, 9F and Armstrong executives regarding the initiative point to human health aspects of the built environment, rather than recycling or recycled-content materials specifically, although the word “sustainable” is used several times and “circularity” twice.

One of the circularity mentions, however, is tied to three main objectives of Building Better Together, with the top listed objective described as: “Sustainability—driven by greater circularity and reduction of embodied carbon.”

Regarding recycling specifically, Armstrong has long had a recycling program for its end-of-life ceiling tiles. “Since 1999, the nation’s first ceilings recycling program has diverted over 200 million square feet of old ceiling materials from going to the landfill,” the company states on its website.

Armstrong focuses on the manufacture and sale of ceiling and wall system products in the Americas, garnering more than $1.2 billion in revenue last year with the help of about 3,000 employees and a manufacturing network of 16 of its own facilities and another seven joint venture ceiling products plants.