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Armstrong Invents New Hardsurface Flooring Category Made With Rapidly Renewable Resources

CHICAGO, IL, November 6 – Armstrong™ Commercial Flooring today announced a revolutionary new category of flooring – BioBased Tile™ (BBT™) with Biostride™ – made with rapidly renewable resources, here at the 2007 GreenBuild conference. MIGRATIONS™, the first collection of BioBased Tile, offers the affordability of traditional composition tile with enhanced performance and environmental attributes.

New MIGRATIONS BBT incorporates rapidly renewable resources and reduces dependency on limited resources such as petroleum and fossil fuels. Made possible by Armstrong’s new BioStride polymer breakthrough, MIGRATIONS also contains 10% preconsumer recycled content and meets low VOC emissions in compliance with California 01350.

Why did Armstrong select composition tile as the first application for its new BioStride polymer? “We wanted to extend the choice of a greener hardsurface flooring solution to everyone,” explained Dominic Rice, vice president, Commercial Resilient, Armstrong Floor Products. “Composition tile is the most used category of commercial flooring – over one billion square feet is used in the marketplace today. We believe that MIGRATIONS BBT can exert maximum pro-environmental impact on the market because it provides a greener product option at an affordable price.”

Simplicity is key. There is no learning curve with MIGRATIONS, explained Rice. There are no additional maintenance or installation requirements. Identical gauge allows easy use for spaces where composition tile is used today and no new maintenance training, equipment or cleaners are required.

An Affordable Greener Option

“Armstrong makes it easy to go green. A specifier no longer has to choose between a greener product and the project’s budget, which opens up enormous opportunities in virtually every market, including education, healthcare, retail, etc.,” said Paul Sharihari, principal, GreenMind. Compared with conventional composition flooring, for example, a 20,000 square foot installation of BBT saves energy and natural resources equivalent to 72 gallons of petroleum.

Green building practices should not create undue cost burden, said Sharahari. “It’s common to think that because a green building is a higher quality building it may cost more up front, but saves over time through lower operating costs. Armstrong has taken the revolutionary approach that a product can be both affordable and greener so that the cost savings to the customer is immediate. Even with a tight budget, now a basic green building component can be incorporated with minimal increased up-front costs.”

MIGRATIONS™ BBT™ contributes or complies with LEED® credits EQ4.3, MR4.0, MR6.0 and, depending on location, MR5.0. The U.S. Green Building Council has recently approved certification of hardsurface flooring products by the FloorScore™ program as an alternative compliance path to achieve LEED credit. Under the FloorScore program, hardsurface flooring products are tested and certified for compliance with California’s Section 01350 for low Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) emissions, the most stringent high-performance Indoor Air Quality requirement in the nation. In addition MIGRATIONS qualifies under several other key industry environmental rating systems for contributing to environmentally-friendly interiors.

Enhanced Performance With Classic Looks

“Armstrong™ MIGRATIONS is ideal for schools, healthcare, mass retail and any other commercial space that requires a long-lasting, good-looking, economical and easy-to-maintain flooring solution,” said Rice. “This allows for use in retrofits, repairs and additions without worry about transitions since it is the same gauge as composition tile.”

There are no special maintenance or installation requirements. Identical gauge allows easy use for spaces where composition tile is used today. MIGRATIONS™ is designed to be maintained using traditional resilient flooring maintenance methods, which include the use of polishes, spray-buffing techniques and appropriate high-speed maintenance systems. As a result, MIGRATIONS BBT is an easy and inspiring choice for meeting environmental building objectives.

MIGRATIONS™ features twice the indent resistance of conventional composition tile, as demonstrated by ASTM F 970 Static Load Limit test methodology and has more than five times greater resistance to impact, also shown by calibrated Ball Drop Testing and Can Drop Testing. It is more than 2.5 times more resistant to cracking from uneven subfloors, shown by Deflection Testing.

A balanced color offering of 28 neutrals and colors coordinate with Armstrong’s complete portfolio of products. Designers can count on Armstrong MIGRATIONS to help them achieve their design goals, both functional and aesthetic, with complete freedom to mix and match with conventional Armstrong™ composition tile products. Like those products, MIGRATIONS BBT™ takes its color inspiration from the timeless, natural beauty of limestone, helping to inspire the creation of innovative
floor designs.

For more information, visit www.armstrong.com.

About Armstrong

Armstrong World Industries, Inc. is a global leader in the design and manufacture of floors, ceilings and cabinets. In 2006, Armstrong’s consolidated net sales totaled approximately $3.4 billion. Based in Lancaster, Pa., Armstrong operates 39 plants in 10 countries and has approximately 13,000 employees worldwide.  For more information, visit www.armstrong.com.

Armstrong Floor Products and its powerhouse family of brands – Armstrong, Bruce® Hardwood Floors, Armstrong™ Hardwood Flooring and Robbins® Fine Hardwood Flooring – offer the most extensive portfolio of flooring products available, including branded vinyl, laminate, Genuine Linoleum™, hardwoods and ceramics for residential and commercial applications. Armstrong resilient products are recognized for contributing to indoor air quality through FloorScore™, a new voluntary certification program administered by the Resilient Floor Covering Institute (RFCI) that identifies flooring products that meet stringent air quality requirements for low-emitting building materials. More information about Armstrong is available on the Internet at www.armstrong.com.

All trademarks owned by AWI Licensing Company or Armstrong Hardwood Flooring Company.

FloorScore is a trademark of The Resilient Floor Covering Institute.

LEED® is a registered trademark of the United States Green Building Council.

Contact: Michele Zelman Cherry Leaf Communications mjzelman@cherryleaf.net phone: (718) 859-6766	Contact: Carlene Moloney General Manager - Direct Consumer & Trade Marketing cfmoloney@armstrong.com phone: (717)396-5579 fax:  (717) 396-5029