November 7, 2005—The Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI) and The Institute for Market Transformation to Sustainability (MTS) have reached an agreement to promote their jointly developed Sustainable Carpet Assessment Standard as the preferred consensus environmental standard for purchasers, specifiers, and users of carpet, the organizations say.
The standard will be administered by the not-for-profit NSF International and published as an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) draft standard for trial use following registration. This will move the standard into a well-established, transparent ANSI process that will refine and finalize the draft through a consensusbased task force within the next three years. The task force will include many of the MTS and CRI members that developed the standard.
CRI and MTS cooperated in determining that NSF administration and ANSI designation was the best solution to build stakeholder trust in this comprehensive global supply chain standard underpinned by life cycle analysis (LCA). Both CRI and MTS believe the carpet standard will drive progress toward sustainable product development and pave the way for future MTS product standards and administration including product certification by Ernst & Youngs Global Sustainability Audit Group.
MTS is a nonprofit public charity, comprised of leading environmental groups, governments, and companies accelerating the global market transformation to sustainability. For more information, visit the Web site.
CRI is the national trade association for the carpet and rug industry. For more information, visit its Web site.
