Housing represents one of the most important and resource consuming sectors, accounting for about 50% of all exctracted materials and 32% of global energy expenditure, as well as a third of water consumption at EU level. In a lifetime, an average EU citizen generates at least 160 tonnes of construction and demolition waste and this amount is increasing. These negative environmental impacts result from the linear ‘take, make, dispose’ model, the dominant economic model of our time, traditionally adopted by the de-cision-making of main stakeholders in the housing sector(i.e. construction companies, technological and product suppliers, design teams, municipalities, housing agencies, owners/dwellers/tenants and policy makers).
For this reason, the need to limit the huge environmental impact generated by the building sector, has become a priority in almost all the political agendas worldwide. Several EU policies, such as the “Construction Products Regulation”, the “Eco Design Directive”, the “Green Public Procurement” and the “Resource efficiency
opportunities in the building sector”, along with sustainability standards for construction (such as CEN TC 350 and ISO/TC 59/SC17), are all aligned with the objective of reducing the environmental impact of buildings by improving their overall resource efficiency. The Circular Economy Action Plan of 2015 reiterates
this objective and adds that, given the long lifetime of buildings, it is essential to encourage design improvements that will reduce their environmental impacts and increase the durability and recyclability of their components. In 2016, the EC commenced the debate for the forthcoming EU green building policy, with the aim of improving the sustainability, quality and value of the construction sector.
As a result the green building market is anticipated to be among the fastest growing industries worldwide. Driven by citizen and building owner demand for sustainability and operational cost reduction, the green building market is, indeed, doubling every three years.
To meet the sustainability needs of the building sector and satisfy the market demand for green products, MOGU has developed a proprietary technology to produce natural-grown materials. Our cutting-edge technology is based on mycelium, the vegetative stage of mushrooms. Over the years, we have identified effective protocols to monitor the growth of these amazing organisms and in line with that, we have learned to engineer the properties of the resulting materials. We produce materials by growing selected strains of mycelium on pre-engineered substrates made of agro-industrial residues. By tuning the matrix configuration, we harvest different materials within short timeframes and with limited use of resources. Fungal mycelium acts as a reinforcement to the matrix structure, creating a 100% plastic-free and coherent material composite. At the end of the production process, mycelium materials are inertized by slow drying, for reduced energy consumption. The resulting products are completely stable, safe and durable and biodegradable.
Starting from such material we designed MOGU floor, a natural-grown and high-performance resilient flooring. MOGU Floor tiles consist of a mycelium composite core, coated with a proprietary formulation of 90% bio-based resins. The tiles are designed as modular elements with an attractive design and distinctive tactile qualities, making it the most suitable solution for luxury living environments. The proprietary formulation of the bio-based resin utilised in Mogu Floor products is literally 90% bio-based, replacing traditional industrial pigments with low-value biomasses, such as corn crops, rice straw, spent coffee grounds, discarded seaweed and clam shells. Mogu Floor tiles are designed as modular elements, allowing to create colorful compositions and aesthetically pleasant patterns, according to personal taste and creativity.
MOGU floor has the potential to completely redesign the current value chains of the building market, allowing the use of a wide range of raw materials, currently considered unsuitable for performance demanding applications. For the first time it is possible to convert leftovers and byproducts into high performance material and in this way increase the environmental and economical sustainability of the flooring market, as well as of the value chain from which the residues originate.
