End of year-round-up by CEO, Cathie Clarke
Welcome to the final UKSFA newsletter for 2025. Christmas is just around the corner, and I am sure that everyone in the flooring industry is looking forward to a well-earned break – although right now, news on the street is that work is still super busy at the moment which has to be good news!
I thought I would undertake a time-honoured activity at this time of year; to reflect on the last twelve months and highlight just how far we have come as an organisation. I’d like to stress the ‘we’ here, as membership support and engagement has been fundamental to our progress. The commitment of our members to the organisation is hugely appreciated, and if you’ve been able to add your time and energy to participate in any of our Working Groups, Advisory Groups, Webinars and Workshops, we are even more grateful. In addition to our members, we couldn’t have got to where we are without my fabulous colleagues and supportive Board. It truly has been a great team effort!
So, what exactly has been achieved in 2025?
Transformation
Well, firstly, I’m sure you’ve noticed that we’ve rebranded this year! Carpet Recycling UK officially became the UK Sustainable Flooring Alliance back in the Spring, and we are pleased to report that this process is already reaping rewards.
By changing our name, we have immediately increased our visibility and credibility, bringing new stakeholders to our door and opening up our ability to broaden our representation of the flooring sector.
Backed by a strong and sustained PR and marketing plan, the transition from Carpet Recycling UK to the UK Sustainable Flooring Alliance has been swift and effective. This has been supported by extensive media coverage, targeted advertising, thought leadership articles, a significantly increased social media presence, and promotion at key industry events such as the INDX Flooring Show in Solihull and The Flooring Show in Harrogate. The team has also travelled to attend partner events, including those hosted by the European Carpet & Rug Association (ECRA), ensuring strong visibility and momentum throughout the transition.
That’s not to say we should forget CRUK; an incredible amount of valuable work was achieved under that banner, and we are committed to retaining the best practice and learning developed over the past 18 years. As part of this continued evolution, we have commissioned a new website that will complete our rebrand process, and we look forward to launching it in the next quarter.
UKSFA Working Groups (WG)
Revitalised and energised, the TakeBack WG and the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) WG each commissioned a report on TakeBack Schemes and EPR/Stewardship for flooring, respectively. Those reports have been completed and presented to the Groups, and now we move forward on the observations and recommendations set out therein.
Earlier this year, the Sustainability Pledge Working Group agreed on a new Sustainability Pledge for members, while the Governance Working Group oversaw the development of our new organisational structure to ensure every member has a voice and the opportunity to influence decisions. There is still much to progress, and this group will resume its work in the New Year to finalise membership criteria, policies, practices, and Board elections ahead of our next AGM on 1 July 2026.
Webinars
During the second half of the year we held six monthly Wednesday Webinars, a new initiative to educate, influence and support those working in the flooring industry on sustainability and the circular economy. The webinars have also provided a platform for members to promote their activities, and we’ve had fascinating discussions. Attendance is increasing each time as word gets out, and if you are a member, all webinars are available to access in the UKSFA members area if you didn’t get chance to participate on the day. A huge thank you must go to Jodie Hatton who talked about her MA Research Project “Fibre to Farm” looking at how wool from carpet could be returned to the earth as a soil conditioner – (congratulations to Jodie for just graduating!!); Ross Dight of Tarkett for a fascinating dive into their takeback scheme ‘ReStart’; Nico Janssen from Object Carpet was inspirational on their journey to circular textile flooring; Cristina Stefani gave a passionate description of Aquafil’s nylon recycling process and forthcoming ‘Carpet Separation Machine’; Su Butcher from Just Practicing gave us a hugely informative and timely presentation on Digital Product Passports, and our last webinar of the year was presented by Joe Eccleston, Andy Murphy and Marie Rhodes from Innovate Recycling who explained the journey to operational status and sent a clear message for us all to look at how the flooring sector could develop their products to meet growing demand at end of life to make new raw materials for other products. Wow!
Industry collaboration
We have held so many meetings with our members and stakeholders over the year that I’ve lost count. By phone, online, or face to face, we’ve worked hard to ensure that we keep everyone involved and engaged. We held a fantastic member workshop in the summer where we presented our work on takeback and EPR and came away with lots of information and ideas to progress our work and reports in this area. We’ve kept abreast of legislation and engaged with our partners in Europe, America and Australia to try to keep ahead of the game and have produced a new Legislation Risk Register, which is available to all members in the members’ area of the website. To make sure your voices are heard, we’ve attended many meetings with government bodies, including Defra and its Circular Economy Task Force, the Department for Business & Trade and the Construction Leadership Council, as well as actively participating with our All-Party Parliamentary Furniture Industry Group through the British Furniture Confederation.
UKSFA Conference and Awards 2026
Since the Flooring Show in Harrogate, we’ve had our heads down working on our future strategy and business plan and also been building a very exciting agenda for our annual conference, which will return again next year on 1 and 2 July 2026.
We have lots of exciting speakers already confirmed, and we will be announcing more on this in the New Year. If you want to get ahead and secure your place Early Bird Tickets are already open! We’ve also begun preparations for our 2026 Awards by developing a new submission portal, and we are accepting entries for projects and initiatives from 2024 and 2025.The UKSFA Awards portal is now live – so why not use those quiet weeks coming up to submit your projects!
Phew! So much has been done, but so much more still to do. I am really looking forward to 2026 – we have a clear plan to help our industry move forward on sustainability, and we can’t wait to get stuck in. But before then – a bit of a break for us all!
The UKSFA office will close from 24th December 2025 until the 5th of January 2026. I would like to wish everyone a very happy and relaxed festive season, and look forward to working with you all again in the New Year.