Shaw Industries
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Sponsored Content / This article is sponsored by Shaw Industries .
As the status quo stalled that year, companies like Shaw took the opportunity to innovate to find new ways to help communities and the spaces where they live and work.
We recently spoke with Carrie Edwards Isaac , vice president of marketing and consumer strategy at Shaw Industries , about how unexpected circumstances can stimulate or accelerate innovation.
How has COVID-19 affected Shaw's approach to sustainability?
Carrie Edwards Isaac: At the corporate level, Shaw focuses on what we call [HUMAN] Sustainability® : realizing the importance of people and the planet. Before COVID-19, we built a healthy home to capitalize on this new sustainability focus area. What has been a central theme in the builders / apartment building segment for quite some time has been popping up in our home center and specialty store business, and trends and consumer interest indicated that increasingly the impact of our internal environment on our wellbeing was increasing . .
While we were at the center of this effort, the pandemic hit and accelerated our efforts. Before COVID, we already spend 90% of our time indoors, around 70% at home. Now that many of us have been spending so much time at home for an extended period of time, we have become even more aware of how we feel when designing a room, what surrounds us and what it is made of. And is it easy to clean, especially with increasing virus awareness?
Our wisest fact. Live better. The program, which was launched in autumn this year, underscores the importance of trends for a "healthy home" where our products can show an effect.
Tell us more about Made Smarter, Live Better.
CEI: The program has five attributes, all of which are underlined by our emphasis on design. The first attribute is material, which means that we carefully evaluate the ingredients in our products. We purposely design products with an emphasis on the health of materials. This is in line with Shaw's commitment to the Cradle to Cradle design philosophy , which began in 1999. The second is the design to combat moisture issues. The third attribute is sound with an emphasis on acoustics, knowing that excessive noise can affect everything from health to psychology. The fourth attribute is the belief that the air in your home should be clean and free of pollutants. And finally the products that are included in our Made Smarter. Live better. They are supposed to be cleaned.
How did you come to focus on a healthy home?
CEI: Our approach is based on the knowledge of employees across the company, including knowledge of innovation, sustainability, marketing, quality, product maintenance, technical development teams and countless others. The pillars highlighted in our program are based on common themes in many healthy home standards and their importance has been confirmed in recent months by our own consumer research.
The current global focus on cleanability represents a crucial time for us to improve the properties of our products and the already existing cleaning intelligence. We have a long history of providing cleaning tips and instructions for our products. However, the reality is that they have often been overlooked and are not that important to retailers or buyers. But in the midst of COVID, people naturally wanted to clean everything as thoroughly as possible and with the "strongest" detergents. However, these harsh chemicals had the effect of discoloring floors (and other furniture) and damaging surfaces. And most importantly, they have not proven to be any more effective than the long-recommended cleaning methods. We have seen that we need to improve our cleaning education and make it as simple as the "wash your hands" message that is so prevalent in our lives.
In addition, it provides an opportunity to accelerate the innovation that advances our products and services related to the increased frequency of cleaning and the use or abuse of harsh chemicals such as bleach.
How did that spread across the company?
CEI: People are at the heart of our sustainability efforts. While our industries and customer bases are different, it all depends on people and how our products, our business, our community involvement, and everything we do affect people.
How our whole life, which we are changing as a result of the pandemic, has become a frequent topic of conversation. How do we live, work and study differently? What impact has this had on the spaces these activities take place in and the way we shop, as many of us have turned our homes into makeshift offices and schools? How have we helped our customers in these unprecedented times? Whether it was a retailer whose business was temporarily closed, or an influx due to home improvement projects, a school administrator trying to speed up a project that was already funded while the students weren't. You weren't in the classroom or a commercial interior designer was now storing samples in his house or car.
In the midst of these troubled times, the Shaw teams have worked diligently to manufacture and supply flooring products for critical housing and infrastructure needs, including meeting tight deadlines for flooring required for facilities. temporary medical staff in Reno and New York .
We have offered solutions that go far beyond our products. This cross-fertilization of information within the company has shaped our thinking. While our activities can be different, we can learn a lot from sharing ideas and having thoughtful conversations.
You mentioned community engagement. How has that changed this year?
CEI: As you can imagine, the global pandemic and all of 2020's events have caused us to carefully evaluate our community engagement activities to ensure they are aligned with what is happening by the communities we are in are most urgently needed. at this moment.
Certainly, much of what we could offer has met new needs amid the pandemic. That's why we make 3D- printed face shields for healthcare providers in northwest Georgia in Rochester, New York . and São Paulo, Brazil . In our plants in North Georgia we manufacture our own disinfectant and disinfectant for the hands , which takes some of the strain off the supply chain in the search for similar materials. In addition to our own donations, we've connected medical facilities with Shaw suppliers to give them quicker access to essential supplies (like masks) so they can access a different supply chain than normal, where their supplies come from products typical of growing needs . .
To meet the needs of the local population, Shaw donated Chromebooks to local school systems to provide distance learning and occupational therapy for students in need of devices.
We supported local farmers whose businesses were impacted by restaurant closings under the Georgia Grown to Go program and provided Shaw employees with fresh fruits and vegetables at a discounted price. And we're rolling out the red carpet (literally) for health workers and helping local communities celebrate the health care heroes at the door.
As the needs of the community change, so do our efforts. It's all part of how we maintain [HUMAN] capacity.
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