A few days ago, one of our posts discussed the steps that Interface Inc. – a carpet company from LaGrange, GA – had taken to achieve a level of sustainable business practices that places the company as an industry leader. After nearly a decade and a half of developing a sustainable business, Interface has begun to leverage their knowledge and experience in the field. Their program, InterfaceRAISE, “is a peer-to-peer advisory service for businesses that offers guidance and knowledge on how to drive business value through sustainability.” Through this program, the company teaches its clients how they have “applied sustainability as a growth platform in the best and worst of times. Much like Peter Senge’s message in The Necessary Revolution, Interface has set itself apart as a leader in the field by pursuing sustainability measures.

Several sections of Interface’s sustainability website are dedicated to education and furthering their message. Interface takes a “systems-based perspective,” which allows them to see the various cycles – much like in nature – that they inhabit. Sustainability impacts “operations and manufacturing, it guides senior management and our associates’ decision-making, and it influences our relationships with customers, suppliers and the entire web of commerce in which we conduct business.” In 2007, InterfaceRAISE produced three webinars, available on their website, to serve as a primer to running a sustainability. The final webinar on lifecycle analysis will be the focus of a future post.

Below is an interview with Chairman Ray Anderson from The New York Times in 2007.

“Interface committed to become the first name in industrial ecology worldwide. Ray set before his global team the challenge to convert Interface to a restorative enterprise. As a first step, this means reaching sustainability in our own business practices. To become truly restorative, however, will require Interface to ultimately return more than it takes. We will meet that higher goal by helping other organizations achieve sustainability. . . . Throughout our journey, Interface has surrounded itself with teachers and thought leaders in sustainability to educate us, challenge our thinking and hold us accountable. Led by Ray [Anderson], we began to think of our business through a lens shaped by the principles of The Natural Step, which asks how nature would design an industrial system.”

As discussed in previous posts, the social (and often economic) components of sustainability receive short shrift. While Interface focuses on their environmental efforts, they do dedicate a section of their sustainability page to social responsibility. They go so far as to state that “our involvement and enrichment of the communities we serve strengthens our business by fostering acceptance and adoption of a new model for business, and by educating future generations of business and community leaders, scientists, scholars, activists, educators and consumers. Fundamentally, however, we believe all of us, including businesses, simply benefit from stronger communities.”

- Eric Wilson

[image source: Interface]