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