Best Sustainable Gym Flooring Brands

July 22, 2022 Matt Morley

What makes for a sustainable gym flooring or green gym carpet solution?

What factors must be considered when choosing durable green flooring tile or fitness room floors for a gym, fitness studio, or health club?

Here, we give you our gym consultant's perspective on the available options through sustainable, eco, gymnasium, and eco-friendly flooring options. Choosing the ‘correct’ gym flooring is no simple task, and there is no one-size-fits-all answer.

So, if you are in the market for home gym flooring or commercial gym flooring, whether vinyl flooring or carpet tiles, read on to explore your options for fitness center flooring and home gym contexts.

Ecore sustainable vinyl flooring & rubber mat flooring for gym

Ecore is a US-based rubber flooring company with an extensive range, a strong focus on sustainability, and a Circular Economy approach that moves away from the industry-wide “make-use-dispose” linear economy model in favor of a closed loop that reduces waste, reuses, and recycles materials.

This brand is a clear leader in the recycled rubber flooring manufacturers' game, not just for gyms but also for sports hall flooring material (such as indoor basketball courts).

As such, they work to recover rubber waste and turn it back into new products and materials.

Their rubber flooring tiles all use this transformed rubber - a solid example of sustainability principles in the gym flooring industry - as the base layer for rubber gym flooring and rubber tiles.

Ecore’s turn to a recycled rubber material means less demand for virgin materials while still providing the highest quality and characteristics of rubber. They also have a vinyl gym flooring range now.

This process also focuses on waste reduction, and at the end of the rubber’s life cycle, Ecore recycles and turns it into another material once again. Wherever possible, we aim to support brands working with natural materials in this way.

Furthermore, the brand adopts an open-source model, showing other companies how it can be done, thereby helping to promote and develop additional sustainability efforts in gym flooring and rubber matting.

This equates to shifting zero-waste responsibility from individual customers (be they gyms or individuals) to themselves as manufacturers of flooring solutions and rubber floor tiles; instead of passing on the baton at the time of purchase, they retain responsibility for its end-of-life phase.

If you are looking for eco-friendly flooring in London or, ideally, in the US, Ecore could be your answer, especially if you need shock absorption and slip-resistant tiles.

https://www.ecoreintl.com/

Tarkett eco friendly commercial flooring mats for gyms

Tarkett has what they describe as a Human-Conscious Design pledge to create sustainable vinyl flooring and sports surfaces that benefit both people and the planet. They work directly with customers to provide healthy gym flooring materials.

As a brand, Tarkett is powerful in gym floor, group exercise room flooring, and indoor sports court flooring, based on our experience with their products.

Through scientific scrutiny and “radical transparency,” their ReStart program transforms used material into recycled flooring, thereby emulating Circular Economy principles of collecting, sorting, separating, recycling, and then adding value by creating new recyclable flooring products.

This process, in turn, preserves natural resources, reduces waste being sent to landfills, and lowers the company’s carbon footprint.

Within the company's operations, Tarkett aims to optimize job site waste management and guarantee the traceability of collected off-cuts.

This ReStart program is available for their Omnisport and Linosport range of “endlessly recyclable” products. In particular, the Omnisport range is an example of sustainable gym flooring done well.

These products are phthalate-free and biocide-free. It can be phthalate-free because the product line is designed with plasticizers that are approved for use in young children’s toys and food packaging. At the same time, the biocide-free part comes from the removal of antimicrobial treatments.

Tarkett also claims to exceed the strictest industry standards for air quality. Their products capture fine dust, which in turn drives down VOC emissions.

Both the Omnisports and Linosports ranges received the label Allergy UK Seal of Approval, which contributes to preventing allergy disease. Their vinyl floors with wood flooring finishes are a star product in our books.

https://www.tarkettsportsindoor.com/

Gerflor sustainable gym flooring & commercial gym mats

Gerflor is an American flooring, wall, and finishing group with a set of guidelines for its product design that follows 11-step eco-design criteria covering the entire life cycle of its products.

Their goal is to manage their products' carbon footprints and integrate Circular Economy principles into the core of their business model.

The 11 guidelines are:

responsible purchasing of raw materials
use of renewable raw materials
energy requirement per m²
production scrap rate
load volume optimization
weight reduction per m2
adhesive-free products
VOC and volatile reduction
minimized use of cleaning products
recycled material in products and packaging
recyclability of products and packaging

A considerable part of this set of 11 guidelines is the collection and recycling solution they employ, recovering material for recycling at each stage of the product life cycle.

The company has set up two systems to make the recycling solution work. One part of this is “The Second Life Programme,” which is for recovery of laying offcuts and “clean” end-of-life products, such as glue-free REACH-compliant items.

This program is a Circular Economy concept with the following steps:

collection, sorting, and recycling
grinding
granule recycling
incorporation of recycled material
“second life”.

This sustainable gym flooring production process creates healthy flooring and wall products that last a long time (avg. product life span of 25 years).

The second program they have uses their sustainable influence for other industries. The “PVC Next Programme” transforms “soiled” end-of-life products such as glue-down items, items mixed with other materials, or non-REACH-compliant components. This program is more of a linear process in which waste is sorted and ground into granules for reuse in other industries.

Ecore’s 2025 sustainability plan showcases the positive effects they aim to have on the environment through their products and production processes, stating that by 2025, they intend to have 20% fewer carbon emissions, 10% of all their sales coming from bio-based products, 30% recycled content in their products, 35% of sales from adhesive-free products, and a total recycling tally of 60,000 tons of material.

https://www.gerflor.co.uk/

Zandur sustainable gym flooring

Flooring is fundamental in creating a healthy indoor environment, mainly indoor air quality.

Designers and architects need to think not just about a flooring product’s performance in terms of acoustics and durability but also ongoing cleaning and hygiene, especially for workout flooring that generally takes a beating by exercise equipment.

Zandur has a range of gym flooring types for workout room flooring. They happen to be big on their healthy product certifications, leveraging the many benefits of using cork as a raw material, for example, while avoiding the use of natural rubber in favour of vulcanized rubber as a way to create a more circular, long-lasting, and environmentally friendly flooring product.

As company founder Robert McKee said on our podcast:

Our interest has never been to profit off of sustainability. It's always just to be sustainable, because it's the right thing to do.

Vulcanized rubber is completely sealed, making for an impenetrable surface. In contrast, recycled rubber flooring made of countless tiny rubber chips held together by urethane glue that releases nasty toxic substances into the gym's air is an inferior option for gym floor mats, rubber gym mats, or a yoga mat.

So, for a genuinely sustainable gym flooring selection, you'd better go with something like the Zandur cork-rubber flooring mix, possibly with different color options for each of the various fitness zones on offer, complemented by an eco gym mats range on top for stretching areas.

https://zandur.com/products/sustain-cork-rubber/

PaviFLEX sustainable gym flooring

PaviFLEX is a Spanish gym flooring company with 35+ years in the industry, producing non-porous, compact virgin rubber typically delivered in interlocking tiles or rubber rolls, as with all the best gym flooring brands.

All their floorings are made with part virgin rubber and have elements of bacteria prevention; their new ECO line is the most sustainable option for gyms looking for an eco-friendly solution.

A few of the floorings that belong to the ECO line are “fitness Xtreme eco,” “fitness eco,” and “fitness PRO eco,” all available as interlocking rubber tiles.

These floorings are constructed using recycled material from the other premium flooring lines PaviFLEX offers. This minimizes waste and provides a Circular Economy solution.

These gym floors are resistant to bacteria and inhibit the reproduction of microorganisms. They are free from formamides (a colorless liquid chemical), HPA’s, and are ‘vegan approved’. The construction of the final finishes means the gym flooring tiles do not absorb water or sweat, thereby avoiding unpleasant odors and facilitating regular cleaning protocols in the gym.

PaviFLEX is also promoting its “low VOC” emissions status due to its products' absence of formamides and HPAs. The low-emission certification complies with the requirements of international regulation.

As Paviflex is geared up for smaller orders, they are also a candidate for a top slot when we consider our home gym flooring options. They also provide foam tiles for martial arts areas or movement spaces.

https://www.paviflexgymflooring.com/

Further Reading