Ray Anderson of Interface Raise explains how we can do well by doing good.

In 1994 Ray Anderson had just retired as president and CEO of Interface Inc., a mid-size textile manufacturer in Atlanta, Ga., and had been bumped upstairs to board chair. He talked his board into going green, and not just in a small way, such as by issuing a press release full of good intentions. Instead, he wanted to take nothing from the planet that wasn’t rapidly and naturally renewable, and only things that wouldn’t harm the biosphere. 

That was at a time when oil, on which floor-covering manufacturers such as Interface were totally dependent, was selling for less than $20 (U.S.) per barrel, and virtually any alternative was more expensive. (One company wag asked if they were going to switch to making wool carpets and, if so, who would be tending the sheep.) 

But Anderson, who had founded the firm in 1973, persisted and set the publicly traded company on a course to leave a zero environmental footprint by 2020. It was an unprecedented move, and a risky one for a company operating in a highly competitive industry where price is often a more compelling argument than environmental concerns. Now 73, Anderson never saw it that way; in 1999 he published Mid-Course Correction: Towards a Sustainable Enterprise–The Interface Model, in which he combined the chest-thumping mea culpa, “My God! Am I a thief too?” with the capitalist’s eternal optimism: “There are new fortunes to be made in the next Industrial Revolution.” 

“While we are still implementing the plan, I think that what we have achieved has confirmed the viability of the book and the feasibility of the program,” Anderson said during a recent interview in Halifax. “It has proven itself even during the most difficult of times, after the dot-com bust of 2000, when our sales declined 36%, a hole we are still digging ourselves out of. But we survived because we cut costs by eliminating waste from our production process. So we not only dispelled the myth that you have to choose between the environment and the economy, but the waste we eliminated has also more than funded the rest of the program.” 

Along the way, Anderson’s initiative has yielded yet another shade of green: the one on the U.S. greenback. The share price of Interface, which trades on the NASDAQ under the symbol IFSIA, has risen from a low of about $2 (U.S.) in 2003 to a recent high of almost $17 (U.S.). As an early adopter of sustainability, Anderson has created a new business, Interface Raise, a consulting firm that helps companies use its trademarked program, Mission Zero, to become a sustainable model of using natural resources. 

“We have created a new paradigm,” says Anderson. “Doing well by doing good.” While he was initially a lone gun, in the past five years there has been a tectonic shift in boardrooms across North America. “Since 2005, General Electric has committed to doubling its research into renewable technologies,” he says, “and Wal-Mart has made a commitment to greening its stores.” Anderson expects a huge ripple effect will occur throughout their supply chains as they demand that the goods they receive also comply with new standards. 

Along the way, Anderson has developed a new career for himself as a motivational speaker. Last year he gave 85 presentations, and in the first four months of 2007 his count had hit 52. In May he was in Halifax to speak to members of the Nova Scotia Association of Architects, which was celebrating its 75th anniversary with a month-long collaboration of design and sustainable thinking. 

One reason for Anderson’s popularity is that while he preaches environmentalism in industry, he never points fingers at individual sinners. When asked if he had any advice for Atlantic Canadians, he replied, “I would never do that. That’s presumptuous.” He did suggest the region might have an interest in developing “terrestrial offsets,” (the land- and sea-based version of carbon offsets for airborne pollution) to help restore ocean ecosystems where the numbers of plankton are down globally. 

Anderson maintains that governments have a huge role to play by creating the framework in which sustainability can emerge. “At the moment, there are perverse subsidies everywhere,” he says. “For instance, there is an incentive to buy SUVs because they can be registered as commercial trucks and get a subsidy, so you have yuppie housewives driving them around.” In Atlanta Anderson drives a Toyota Prius, while his wife, Pat, drives a Toyota Highlander, two fuel-efficient cars that explain why the Japanese firm recently replaced General Motors as the world’s largest automaker. 

Anderson won’t reveal his political leanings but says he’d love to be “secretary of the environment,” a currently non-existent position. He notes that it would require the unification of the Departments of Energy and the Interior, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency. His hope is that the next president “will have to address this issue as part of her or his platform. Then, after the election, he or she will have to deliver.”