LIVDEN’s Low-Impact Tiles are LEED-Ready

Tiles by San Diego–based LIVDEN contain 65 to 100 percent recycled content and are decorated using the company’s proprietary low-impact printing process.

By: Kelly Beamon

Once apprentices in their mother’s tile business, LIVDEN’s sibling cofounders Georgie Smith and Hilary Gibbs developed a special printing method for recycled tile bodies, then partnered with ecofriendly suppliers to source their castoffs. Here’s what that process yields.

01 TRACEABILITY

Using content from suppliers that already qualify as green helps LIVDEN trace its own material safety.

02 REDUCED CARBON FOOTPRINT

To cut transportation-related emissions, suppliers of the base tile bodies are all domestic. 

03 RECYCLING

Producing LIVDEN’s porcelain collection creates a market for postconsumer tiles (collected by partner firm Crossville), recycling more waste than is generated.

04 LANDFILL DIVERSION

Tapping partners’ waste-reduction programs means LIVDEN has helped redirect 12 million pounds of material away from landfills.

05 WATER CONSERVATION 

In cutting, printing, and finishing the art tiles, LIVDEN uses recycled water.

06 RAINFOREST ALLIANCE SEAL

This organization certifies that the ingredients in PaperStone (a collection made of 90 percent recycled melamine and 100 percent recycled paper) are socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable. 

07 U.S. GREEN BUILDING COUNCIL AFFILIATION

Suppliers of LIVDEN’s terrazzo and porcelain tiles are members of the USGBC, which administers the system.