The business logic of sustainability Ray Anderson

believe it or not I come offering a

solution to a very important part of

this larger problem with the requisite

focus on climate and the solution I

offer is to the biggest culprit in this

massive mistreatment of the earth by

humankind and the resulting decline of

the biosphere that culprit is business

and industry which happens to be where I

have spent the last 52 years since my

graduation from Georgia Tech in 1956 as

an industrial engineer come aspiring and

then successful entrepreneur after

founding my company interphase from

scratch in 1973 36 years ago to produce

carpet tiles in America for the business

and institution markets and shepherding

it through startup and survival to

prosperity and global dominance in its

field

I read Paul Hawkens book the ecology of

Commerce the summer of 1994 in his book

paul charges business and industry as

one the major culprit in causing the

decline of the biosphere and two the

only institution that is large enough

and pervasive enough and powerful enough

to really lead humankind out of this

mess and by the way he convicted me as a

plunderer of the earth and I then

challenged the people of interface my

company to lead our company in the

entire industrial world to

sustainability which we defined as

eventually operating our petroleum

intensive company in such a way as to

take from the earth only what can be

renewed by the earth naturally and

rapidly not another fresh drop of oil

and to do no harm to the biosphere take

nothing do no harm

I simply said if Hawking is right in

business and industry must lead who will

lead business and industry unless

somebody leads nobody will it’s

axiomatic why not us and thanks to the

people of interface I have become a

recovering

plunderer I once told a fortune magazine

writer that someday people like me would

go to jail and that became the headline

of a fortune article that went on to

describe me as America’s greenest CEO

from plunderer to recovering plunderer

to America’s greenest CEO in five years

that frankly was a pretty sad commentary

on American CEOs in 1999 asked later in

the Canadian documentary the corporation

what I meant by that go to jail remark I

offered that theft is a crime and theft

of our children’s future would someday

be a crime but I realized for that to be

true for theft of our children’s future

to be a crime there must be a clear

demonstrable alternative to the take

make waste industrial system that so

dominates our civilization and is the

major culprit stealing our children’s

future by digging up the earth and

converting it to products equipped to

become waste in the landfill or an

incinerator in short digging up the

earth and converting it to pollution

according to Paul in an early and a

well-known environmental impact equation

impact a bad thing is the product of

population affluence and technology that

is impact is generated by people what

they consume in their affluence and how

it is produced I know the equation is

largely subjective you can perhaps

quantify people and perhaps quantify

affluence but technology is abusive in

too many ways to quantify so the

equation is conceptual still it works to

help us understand the problem so we set

out at other face in 1994 to create an

example to transform the way we made

carpet a petroleum intensive product for

materials as well as energy and to

transform our technologies so they

demanded

environmental impact rather than

multiplied it Pauline and Ehrlich’s

environmental impact equation I is equal

to P times a times T population

affluence and technology I wanted

interface to rewrite that equation so

that it read I equal P times a divided

by T now the mathematically model will

see immediately that T of the numerator

increases impact a bad thing but T in

the denominator decreases impact so I

asked what would move T technology from

the numerator call it t1 where it

increases impact to the denominator call

it t to where it reduces impact I

thought about the characteristics of

first Industrial Revolution t1 as we

practiced it identify sin it had the

following characteristics extractive

taking raw materials from the earth

linear take make waste powered by fossil

fuel derived energy wasteful abusive and

focused on labour productivity more

carpet per man-hour

thinking it through I realize that all

those attributes must be changed to move

T to the denominator in the new

Industrial Revolution extractive must be

replaced by renewable linear by cyclical

fossil fuel energy by renewable energy

sunlight waste wasteful by waste free

and abusive by benign and labor

productivity by resource productivity

and I reason that if we could make that

those transformative changes and get rid

of T 1 all together we could reduce our

impact to zero including I impact on the

climate and that became the other phase

plan in 1995 and has been the plan of a

sense we have measured our progress very

rigorously so I can tell you how far we

have

in the ensuing 12 years net greenhouse

gas emissions down 82% an absolute

tonnage over the same span of time sales

have increased by two-thirds and profits

have doubled so an 82% absolute

reduction translates into a 90%

reduction in greenhouse gas intensity

relative to sales this is the magnitude

of the reduction the entire global

Technosphere

must realize by 2050 to avoid

catastrophic climate climate disruptions

so the scientists are telling us fossil

fuel usage is down 60% per unit of

production due to efficiencies and

renewables the cheapest most secure

barrel of all there is is the one not

used through efficiencies water usage is

down 75% in our worldwide carpet tile

business down 40% in our broad land

profit business which we acquired in

1993 right here in California City of

Industry where water is so precious

renewable of recycled materials in their

25% of the total and growing rapidly

renewable energy is 27% of our total

going for 100%

we have diverted 148 million pounds at

74,000 tons of used carpet from

landfills closing the loop on material

flows through reverse logistics and

post-consumer recycling technologists

that did not exist when we started 14

years ago those new cyclical

technologies have contributed mightily

to the fact that we have produced and

sold 85 million square yards of climate

neutral carpet since 2004 meaning no net

contribution to global climate

disruption in producing the carpet

throughout the supply chain from mine

and wellhead clear the end of life

reclamation independent third party

certified we call it cool carpet and it

has been a powerful marketplace

differentiated increasing sales and

profits three years ago we launched

carpet tile for the home

the brand flora misspelled FL Oh are you

can point-and-click today at flora

dot-com and have cool crumpet delivered

to your front door in five days it is

practical and pretty too we reckoned

that we are a bit over halfway to our

goal zero impact zero footprint we’ve

set 2020 as our target year for zero for

reaching the top the summit of mount

sustainability we call this mission zero

and this is perhaps the most important

fact that we have found mission zero to

be incredibly good for business a better

business model a better way to bigger

profits here’s the business case for

sustainability from real-life experience

costs are down not up reflecting some

four hundred million dollars of avoided

cost in pursuit of zero waste the first

face of mount sustainability this has

paid all the cost for the transformation

of interface and this dispels a myth too

this false choice between the

environment and the economy our products

the best they’ve ever been inspired by

design for sustainability and unexpected

wellspring of innovation our people are

galvanized around the shared higher

purpose you cannot beat it for

attracting the best people and bringing

them together and the good will of the

marketplace is astonishing no amount of

advertising no clever marketing campaign

at any price could have produced or

created as much goodwill costs products

people marketplace what else is there it

is a better business model and here’s

our 14 year record of sales and profits

there’s a dip there from 2001 to 2003

dip when our sales over three year

period down 17 percent but the

marketplace was down 36 percent

literally gain market share we might not

have survived that recession but for the

advantages of sustainability if every

business were pursuing the interface

plan would that solve all our problems I

don’t think so

I remain troubled by the revised early

equation I equal P times a divided by t2

that a is a capital a suggesting that

affluence is an end in itself but what

if we reframed Ehrlich further and what

if we made a lowercase a suggesting that

it a means to an end and that end is

happiness more happiness with less stuff

you know that would reframe civilization

itself and our whole system of economics

if not for our species

then perhaps for the one that succeeds

us the sustainable species living on a

finite earth ethically happily and

ecologically in balance with nature and

all her natural systems for a thousand

generations or ten thousand generations

that is to say into the indefinite

future but does the earth have to wait

for our extinction as a species well

maybe so but I don’t think so it

interface we really intend to bring this

prototypical sustainable zero footprint

industrial company fully into existence

by 2020 we can see our way now clear to

the top of that mountain and now the

challenge is in execution and as my good

friend and advisor Ariel Evans says if

something exists it must be possible if

we if we can actually do it it must be

possible if we a petrol intensive

company can do it anybody can and if

anybody can it follows that everybody

can Hawking fulfilled business and

industry leading humankind away from the

abyss because with continued to

unchecked the climb of the biosphere

Derek a very dear person is at risk here

frankly at unacceptable risk who is that

person not you’ve not I but let me

introduce you to the one who is most at

risk here and I myself met this person

in the early days of this mountain climb

on a Tuesday morning in March of 1996 I

was talking to our people as I did at

every opportunity back then bringing

them along and often not knowing whether

I was connecting but about five days

later back in Atlanta I received an

email from Glenn Thomas one of my people

in the California meeting he was sending

me an original poem that he had composed

after her Tuesday morning together and

when I read it it was one of the most

uplifting moments of my life because it

told me by God one person got it here’s

what Glenn wrote and here’s that person

most at risk

please meet tomorrow’s child without a

name and unseen face and knowing not

your time or place tomorrow’s child Oh

yet unborn I met you first last Tuesday

morning a wise friend introduced us to

and through his sobering point of view I

saw a David you would see a day for you

but not for me knowing you has changed

my thinking for I never had an inkling

that perhaps the things I do might

someday somehow threaten you tomorrow’s

child my daughter son I’m afraid I’ve

just begun to think of you and off you

are good though always having known I

should begin I will the way the cost of

what I squander what it’s lost if ever I

forget that you will someday come

live here too well every day of my life

since tomorrow’s child has spoken to me

with one simple but profound message

which I presume to share with you we are

each and every one a part of the web of

life the continually manatees sure but

in the larger sense the web of life

itself and we have a choice to make

during our brief brief visit to this

beautiful blue and green living planet

to hurt it or to help it for you it’s

your call

thank you