Every time I go somewhere to listen to a green business speaker, or have a call with a sustainable consultant or entrepreneur, the name Interface almost always comes up. Interface Inc. is the world’s largest tile carpet manufacturer, and its founder, Ray Anderson, was one of the early movers and shakers to catch the green bug in 1994. Many of us look up to him as one of the big daddies when it comes to transforming industry towards sustainable business practices.
Last month, the New York Times ran a special on Ray titled “Executive on a Mission: Saving the Planet.” I like Stanford’s summary:
Ray Anderson the founder of Interface, a carpet and tile manufacturing company, decided in 1994 that his company would follow the path of “do no harm”. His company would from now on do it’s best to be environmentally responsible. He challenged his colleagues to set a deadline for Interface to become a “restorative enterprise,” a sustainable operation that takes nothing out of the earth that cannot be recycled or quickly regenerated, and that does no harm to the biosphere. The deadline they ultimately set is 2020, and the idea has taken hold throughout the company.
To learn more about a first-generation sustainable heavyweight, read more at the NYT. [via: Jackson Blog]
[photo credit: Jessica McGowan/New York Times]
I learned about Ray Anderson several years ago in University when I read his book “Mid-Course Correction”. In this book, he really lays out the details of his sustainability epiphany and his subsequent efforts to turn his company into a socially and environmentally accountable enterprise. His decision to go sustainable was sparked by Paul Hawken’s book, “The Ecology of Commerce”. Ray Anderson’s vision is unquestionably the real deal. His values and sustainability efforts penetrate deep into the corporate culture. The company’s self-assigned deadline to eliminate any negative impact on the environment by 2020 is part of its “Mission Zero (TM)” effort.
They’ve even got an entire product line that effectively neutralizes the C02 emissions associated with the ENTIRE product’s life-cycle (not just the small portion of emissions created when the product was in their factory). This means that they cover the cost of cleaning up the C02 emissions for their suppliers as well as for the carpet’s maintenance and end of use. Now, that’s Accountability!