When it comes to commercial flooring with sustainable attributes, it doesn’t get much better than Milliken’s much loved Major Frequency modular carpet collection. Now in its 2nd generation, the collection has recently been streamlined to focus on the Distortion design featuring an extended and refreshed palette of 25 colours.
Balancing the need to address climate change while still creating beautiful, high performing interiors is no easy task. Uncomfortable compromises in product choice, functional performance and design are too often made in order to achieve an acceptable environmental scorecard.
Flooring without compromises
An exemplar of collaborative working at its best, Major Frequency 2.0 sets a useful benchmark for architects and designers looking to specify floor coverings with minimal environmental impact. Its development is a showcase for what can be achieved when advanced product engineering, exceptional design talent and sustainable mindsets come together to create something extraordinary.
Major Frequency 2.0 - Fader - Fader Brick - Buzz
Use this seven-point checklist to compare your next carpet specification with the sustainable features of Major Frequency 2.0:
1. Carpet Carbon Footprint
Minimising carbon footprint is now a priority on most corporate agendas. For commercial interiors, specifying material finishes with minimal carbon impact can be challenging. A manufacturer’s commitment to continually driving down its products’ embodied carbon, with a commitment to offset any residual footprint will give the assurance that your final interior scheme won’t be harming the planet.
Milliken’s Major Frequency is a carbon neutral carpet plank. Engineered with a minimal embodied carbon level of 4.59 kg CO2, e/m2 , fully offset through its M/PACT Carbon Offset Programme, this carpet product offers just that assurance.
2. Carpet Yarn with Sustainable Credentials
As a major material component, carpet yarns must also perform well to withstand wear and deliver longevity while still being derived from sustainable sources. With a range of sustainable yarns available to commercial carpet manufacturers, Thrive® Matter yarn is recognised as one of the highest performing and lowest carbon footprint nylon fibres in the world. Produced with 100% post-industrial recycled resin, the production process results in a total of 90% recycled content in the final yarn. The small amount of remaining embodied carbon is offset to achieve a net positive climate impact.
The Major Frequency 2.0 carpet collection is manufactured with Thrive® Matter yarn. As a solution dyed yarn, it offers deep, saturated colour and inherent stain resistance.
Major Frequency 2.0 - Fader - Fader Moss Vibe - Fade Ochre Vibe
3. Carpet Backing
Working in conjunction with a high-performance yarn, the other major performance factor in terms of material components for modular carpet is the backing. Carpet backings come in many forms and variable options when it comes to sustainability.
Major Frequency features an open-cell polyurethane cushion backing manufactured from 90% recycled material. Unique to Milliken its WellBAC® carpet backing® carpet backing is engineered to absorb wear, significantly extending the life of the carpet and allowing Milliken to offer longer wear warranties. What’s more, it also absorbs impact noise, making a marked difference to the acoustics of the interior spaces in which it is installed.
Milliken carpet collections include a range of WellBAC® Comfort and WellBAC® Comfort Plus cushion backings with 10 and 15-year wear warranties respectively. Major Frequency 2.0 features WellBAC® Comfort.
4. Modular Carpet Design
While a carpet’s performance on the floor is paramount, design appeal is just as crucial. Sustainable choices should never lead to a compromise on aesthetics.
Major Frequency 2.0’s Distortion design makes no concessions. Like any other Milliken collection, it offers outstanding design sophistication. Expressing the energetic, pulsing movement of soundwaves, Distortion positively lifts the mood with bold, contemporary styling. The design’s tactile, sensory dimension and seamless aesthetic have proven widely appealing for commercial interiors. This has led the Milliken design team to extend the colour palette available for this latest generation of the collection.
Major Frequency 2.0 - Moss Fader Moss
5. Carpet colour choice
Given an appealing carpet design, colour choice in carpets that feature strong sustainable credentials, is as important. Offering designers a wide enough palette from which they can select the perfect tones can often make or break the success on an interior scheme. Distortion’s new 25-strong palette incorporates 9 fresh foundational neutrals supported by a sumptuous array of accents.
Earthy ochres, deep indigos, and vibrant greens punctuate the collection, offering designers flexibility and freedom to build tone, contrast and movement across the floor. Today’s commercial spaces need to be agile, zoned and ready to flex as requirements change. Major Frequency 2.0’s planks offer endless opportunities for creating beautifully co-ordinated and easily changeable interiors.
Major Frequency 2.0 - Teal Tremor Teal Analogue
6. Design for disassembly with glue-free carpet installation
Carpet tiles or planks designed for installation without the need for adhesives or even sticky tabs, futureproof them for easy recyclability and re-use. It also immediately eliminates wasteful materials, labour time and potentially harmful VOCs. Milliken’s TractionBack® high friction coating, applied to the back of its carpet, is the only modular carpet installation system of its kind to do just that. Allowing the carpet module to grip the floor and keep it firmly in place, while making it just as easy to uplift, this unique glue-free system delivers the ultimate in sustainable installation.
TractionBack® is an option for all Milliken carpet and plank design collections, including Major Frequency 2.0 enabling easy uplift for reconfiguration change or reuse is also vital for product circularity.
Major Frequency 2.0 - Phase - Green - Tremor Green - Ochre
7. Carpet Circularity
Our final checklist point relates to the circular economy – a imperative for the interiors industry.
Major Frequency 2.0 is manufactured with 69% recycled material content, lowering the reliance on new material extraction and lowering environmental impact. The collection is also designed with longevity in mind, minimising waste over an extended lifecycle thanks to its enhanced performance and superior appearance retention. Its modular format also immediately minimising waste.
While carpet takeback programmes and downcycling are significant progress compared to landfill disposal, designing carpet for longevity and re-use from the outset is where we need to be. Through collaborations with re-use specialists and partnerships with recipient organisations, Milliken is now at the forefront of driving new opportunities for circularity for in floor coverings.
