Material choices and low carbon footprint go hand in hand

As a company, we export many kinds of materials from Turkey, including ceramics, cement tiles and natural stone. How can we as the exporter and you as a customer or a designer make sure that sustainability is taken into consideration every step of the way? After all, the construction industry does need many types of products in the projects and also some materials will always have to be imported from abroad. For example, not all types of natural stone are available in all countries. Also there is no local production of the all the types of ceramic or cement tiles that are needed.  Actually, there is still a lot to do and a lot of conscious decisions to make. 

We put a lot of emphasis on finding products in each category that are also ecological ie. manufactured in a sustainable way. We know the factories and workshops first hand and are familiar with their working processes and where the raw materials come from. Luckily Turkey is quite self-sufficient in terms of stone types and there is no extensive shipping of materials required to make tiles there. Our ceramics and cements tiles are hand made and produced locally in Turkey from the resources in the area.

As an example, the patterned cement and terrazzo tiles are pressed mechanically from locally sourced natural ingredients (marble, limestone, sand, water and natural pigments from colored stones). The making of these high quality and outstandingly durable "real" tiles causes a considerably smaller carbon footprint than making imitation floor tiles from other materials with more complex processes and more harmful chemicals. A quality cement tile will last upwards a 100 years and can be sanded and repolished, whereas cheap imitations end up with a life cycle of perhaps 10-20 years, with printed patterns fading quickly and chips and scratches appearing.

Although ceramic tile production causes more emissions than that of natural stone, those emissions can be reduced by applying the concept of industrial symbiosis, where the waste and bi-products of one industry or industrial process become the raw material of another industry. The application of this concept enables a more sustainable use of materials and contributes to the creation of a circular economy. We are in the forefront of that and working with a top producer in the field. Stay tuned for a blog about industrial symbiosis coming up next week!

We also work with our customers to find optimal shipping options, to minimize the carbon footprint of the product. After all, transportation is the major factor in it, regardless of the type of material. We do not sell any composite stone imitation materials that  have a heavy carbon footprint already before they even leave the factory due to the production process. 

The other reason for us not carrying any imitations is that we believe in genuine materials that are what they look like. In our opinion, using real, natural materials that have been worked on by hand causes the user to have a higher appreciation for the materials and the design. The consumer is less likely to consider them as quickly disposable “trend materials” that should be replaced in a short cycle. The truth is that we as western consumers must unlearn this mode of thinking and start looking at much longer life cycles for building materials. It means going back to the old materials that have been produced for thousands of years and learning new appreciation of them!

Generally speaking, we recommend that environmentally conscious customers should avoid making small individual orders and instead concentrate all their material needs for a project into one order that can be shipped in a container. When it comes to choosing the type of materials for a project, it is always the designer (and ultimately the paying customer) who decides what will be used.

From a purely sustainability point of view, emphasizing natural stone use over other materials is well justified. Not only because of its lowest carbon footprint in production but also because its life span is longer than the other materials’, if taken care of properly. The bigger the project at hand, the more significant is the choice of materials, when we consider the “bottom line” of the final carbon footprint. For a large project, the bulk of material choices should come from natural stone, whereas there can be elements of handmade ceramic tiles or handmade cement tiles added to the plan.