Being environmentally conscious in a nutshell means reducing your carbon footprint and waste. It is not as simple as choosing, say a reclaimed wood flooring.
Let’s take reusable cotton bags as an example. Cotton bags, although biodegradable, cost much more energy to produce than a traditional plastic bag. According to the National Geographic, “cotton bags have to be reused 131 times before they reduce their impact on climate change to the same extent as plastic bags. To have a comparable environmental footprint (which encompasses climate change as well as other environmental effects) to plastic bags, a cotton bag potentially has to be used thousands of times.”
Selecting a reclaimed wood does help but it also depends on how long you use the flooring for, does the manufacturer have the capacity to reproduce it using renewable energy, amongst many other factors. A long lasting luxury vinyl flooring produced by a reputable manufacturer who takes a cradle to grave approach eg. having the capability to recycle contents safely and use them in a safe manner, can be an environmentally-friendly option too.