What’s Love Got to do With It?

In his new book, Confessions of a Radical Industrialist: Profits, People, Purpose—Doing Business By Respecting the Earth, published by St. Martin’s Press, Interface CEO Ray Anderson presents his argument and process for transforming Interface Inc. from a typical petroleum-intensive corporation of the 21^st century into an organization on course to achieve a zero carbon footprint by the year 2020. Many of us connected with the commercial A&D community are familiar with this goal, Mission Zero, from Anderson’s many public appearances at NeoCon^®, Greenbuild, and other industry events. But many of us may not be as familiar with its origins and implementation. 

Influenced by the brilliant book The Ecology of Commerce by environmentally-minded entrepreneur Paul Hawken, Anderson committed to transforming the carpet company he had founded in 1973 into a model of sustainability for the future. The process began in 1994, and has continued on pace ever since, sometimes slowed (but never stopped) by global economic realities and buoyed all along by a critical alignment in corporate culture from Anderson’s office right down to the factory floor. (In a humorous anecdote, Anderson tells the story of how one skeptical executive from another corporation, by the end of a visit to Interface for a lesson in sustainable industry, described that culture as nothing short of love.)

In Anderson’s view, the path to true sustainability—defined by the author as the continued healthy, balanced existence into the indefinite future of the biosphere (nature) and the technosphere (industry) on this thin shell (Earth)—lies in the rethinking of our entire industrial system, which is currently in the “iron grip” of the environmental impact equation that emerged from the first Industrial Revolution: Environmental Impact = Population x Affluence x Tehnology (I = P x  A x T). In this equation, the T represents current technologies that are fossil fuel-driven, focused on labor productivity, abusive, wasteful, and extract from the earth without giving back. “This made sense 300 years ago when people were scarce and nature was bountiful,” says Anderson.

 He goes on to say that this equation is deeply problematic, and underscores a flawed economic system where the gap between what we have and what we want defines all economic progress. It ignores the consequences of its actions. In the second Industrial Revolution—no time like the present—the environmental impact equation should look more like this: I = P x A / T₂, where T represents technologies that are renewable, cyclical, benign, solar/hydrogen-driven, emulate nature, and focus on resource productivity.

This new equation is obtainable if the corporation of the future adheres to the seven faces of “Mt. Sustainability”: eliminate waste; benign emissions; renewable energy; close the loop; use resource-efficient transportation; sensitize stakeholders (culture shift); and redefine commerce. In practicing what he preaches, Anderson’s own company, Interface, has cut greenhouse gas emissions by 82 percent; cut fossil fuel consumption by 60 percent; cut waste by 66 percent; cut water use by 75 percent; and increased sales by 66 percent, doubled earnings, and raised profit margins all since 1994—the example he uses to assert that the sustainable corporation of the future is indeed within reach. Anderson’s prediction is that the typical corporation of today “will become the proverbial fish out of water.”

It took 10 years of convincing, but Wall Street finally grasped Anderson’s unwavering intentions to build a green manufacturer—an important milestone in the aforementioned culture shift. And eventually, says Anderson, the environmental impact should resemble something more like I = P x A / T₂  x H, where H represents Happiness. The ideal sustainable world, he says, will defy today’s capitalistic principles of “more is better,” and instead be defined by “more happiness with less stuff.”

Click here for a video clip of Ray Anderson talking about his radical industrialist principles.