Ray C. Anderson (Interface Inc.): Confessions of a Radical Industrialist

In 1994, Interface founder and chairman Ray Anderson set an audacious goal for his commercial carpet company: to take nothingfrom the earth that can’t be replaced by the earth. Now, in the most inspiring business book of our time, Anderson leads the way forward and challenges all of industry to share that goal.

The Interface story is a compelling one: In 1994, making carpets was a toxic, petroleum-based process, releasing immense amounts of air and water pollution and creating tons of waste. Fifteen years after Anderson’s “spear in the chest” revelation, Interface has:

• Cut greenhouse gas emissions by 82%
• Cut fossil fuel consumption by 60%
• Cut waste by 66%
• Cut water use by 75%
• Invented and patented new machines, materials, and manufacturing processes
• Increased sales by 66%, doubled earnings, and raised profit margins

With practical ideas and measurable outcomes that every business can use, Anderson shows that profit and sustainability are not mutually exclusive; businesses can improve their bottom lines and do right by the earth.

The story is now legend; the “spear in the chest” epiphany Ray Anderson experienced when he first read Paul Hawken’s, “The Ecology of Commerce” seeking inspiration for a speech to an Interface task force on the company’s environmental vision. Fifteen years and a sea change later, Interface, Inc., is approximately half way to it’s target of “Mission Zero,” the journey no one would have imagined for the company, or the petroleum-intensive industry of carpet manufacturing, which has been forever changed by Ray’s vision. His Georgia-based company, Interface, Inc., was recently ranked number one in a GlobeScan survey of sustainability experts.

The once captain of industry has eschewed his luxury car for a Prius and built an off-the-grid home, authored a 1998 book chronicling his epiphany, “Mid-Course Correction,” and has a new book chronicling his journey, “Confessions of a Radical Industrialist” coming in September 2009. He has become an unlikely screen hero in the 2004 Canadian documentary, “The Corporation.” He was named one of TIME International’s “Heroes of the Environment” in 2007.

He’s a sought after speaker and advisor on all issues eco, including a stint as co-chairman of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development and as an architect of the Presidential Climate Action Plan, a 100 day action plan on climate that was presented to the Obama Administration.