Business Lessons From A Radical Industrialist: How A CEO Doubled Earnings, Inspired Employees And Created Innovation From One Simple Idea

Business Lessons from a Radical Industrialist: How a CEO Doubled Earnings, Inspired Employees and Created Innovation from One Simple Idea

In 1994, Ray Anderson was 60 years old and at the top of his game as founder and CEO of Atlanta-based Interface, Inc., a modular carpet company that makes those clever carpet tiles that you may have underfoot in your office or coveted via the company's residential brand, FLOR.That was 17 years ago - before 'green' was the compelling business imperative that it is today (for reference, oil was then $18/bbl), and frankly, the environment was nowhere on Ray's radar. An Interface associate asked Ray to give a speech to a task force that was forming to answer customer concerns about environmental impacts, and though he had not a clue what he would say, he accepted. As the date for the speech grew closer, he began to sweat -- and then Paul Hawken's book, The Ecology of Commerce, landed on his desk. The rest is green business history -- Ray read the book (he's called it a 'spear in the chest' epiphany), his outlook was radically transformed, and he gave a speech that would put the petroleum-dependent carpet company on a path to zero environmental footprint.What's happened in the intervening years has made Interface the poster child for green business, and Ray's become a bit of an eco rock star. He ditched his gas-guzzling Jaguar in favor of a Prius, built an off-the-grid home, and today, at 76, his life is radically different than what he would have imagined for himself at age 60. This is his story.ReviewSustainability, argues Anderson, makes just as much business sense as it does a liberal crusade, and he even makes absorbing reading out of the process that transformed his operations.--Publisher's WeeklyHe may be 'radical' but he's also a profit-seeking businessman. Ray has found a new path that's good for the planet and great for his business. --Andrew Winston, environmental strategist, author of Green Recovery and co-author of Green to GoldIf we had a lot more businessmen like Ray Anderson, the planet would be neither bankrupt or overheated. He is a hero, and this book makes clear why! --Bill McKibben, author of Deep EconomyWe are in desperate need of hope, but if hope is to be credible and trustworthy, it has to walk a straight line. No one does this better than Ray Anderson. --Paul Hawken, author of The Ecology of Commerce, Natural Capitalism, and Blessed UnrestRay put everything he has built at his company on the line for what he believed and created a model of profitable sustainability and humanity. This tale of how and why is a great story. --Jonathan Lash, President, World Resources InstituteFrom the AuthorFrom the Prologue:My company, Interface, Inc., has just marked an important milestone - 10 years until our target year for Mission Zero, for zero environmental footprint, a goal for which we have set 2020 as our deadline. I'm immensely proud of Interface, and encouraged about our future.You may be familiar with my story - the epiphany I experienced in 1994 when I read Paul Hawken's book, The Ecology of Commerce, seeking inspiration for a speech to a task force that was organizing at Interface to answer customer concerns about the environment. That change of world view led me down a road I had never imagined for myself or my petroleum-intensive company - eventually to get off oil.Distancing ourselves from the wellhead requires that we re-imagine the antiquated, linear, take-make-waste industrial system of which we are all a part. And instead, to become part of a thoughtful, cooperative, cyclical system that mimics nature in the way that we design, source, manufacture, sell, install - and eventually reclaim and recycle - our products. This ambitious undertaking requires new technology, new inputs, new thinking. It is intensely complicated and, at the same time, completely liberating to think outside the traditional confines of design and manufacturing. Somewhere along the way, the idea that what we were doing was so right - so right, and so smart - emerged to propel us forward.A