Suffering through a long morning and a long afternoon on the commute, you notice the large swaths of trees coming down for new development, you bob and weave in the SUV-laden, bumper-to-bumper traffic, and you try not to worry about the noxious fumes you’re inhaling.

The Jetsons made it all seem so cool, didn’t they? But what mankind seems averse to realize is that progress is an entirely relative concept. With the industrial age, we ushered in a host of phenomenal advances and conveniences, but with them came pollutants, depletions, and greedily irresponsible behavior.

Fortunately for us, one certainty of this world is that change is inevitable and the new millennium has brought innovative thinking on how the economy is dependent on ecology and how being environmentally conscious and profitable are not mutually exclusive. A leading advocate of this trend toward replenishment and renewal is Paul Hawken, whose theory of natural capitalism is now world-renowned and will likely serve as the basis for the next industrial revolution.

Ushering in that revolution by putting Hawken’s words into practice is founder and former CEO of Interface Inc. Ray Anderson.

It’s one thing to act when your back is against the wall. It’s quite another to make moves when you know it’s in your and everyone else’s best interest in the long run. No one was holding a gun to Anderson’s head more than a decade ago when he was introduced to Paul Hawken’s The Ecology of Commerce. His multinational floor covering and fabric company was doing fine. But Anderson was deeply affected by the tenets of sustainability and is now deeply committed to its success.

As head of one of the only major corporations that has any kind of sustainability program in place, Ray Anderson has a lot to be proud of … and a hell of a lot to do. His pioneering efforts even landed him a position as co-chair of the former Council on Sustainable Development in the late 1990s. Named one of the 2006 Top Brands with a Conscience by the international think tank The Medinge Group, Interface has been advancing on a sustainability model since 1994.

For the uninitiated or uninformed, sustainability is the concept of improving quality of life while protecting and enhancing the Earth’s support systems. As Anderson defines it, it means taking nothing from the Earth that’s not renewable and doing no harm to the biosphere in the process.

“We’ve made enormous progress, but every step is a new step,” says Anderson. “We’re climbing this mountain, but we’re maybe 40 percent away from our objective, which is a lot better than where we were.”

In addition to efficiency initiatives at all its locations around the world, Interface has arrangements with Dow Cargill enabling it to use carbohydrates as energy (You’ve seen the corn commercials.) and British Petroleum to use rebates on gasoline for planting trees to offset emissions.
“We’re also incorporating the carbohydrate polymer into some of our products,” Anderson adds. “This is a polymer … that’s displacing petro-intensive nylon and polyester in both carpets and fabrics.”

Interface has kept 84 million pounds of carpet out of landfills and incinerators with its recycling efforts, incorporating that material into the backing component of its carpet tiles. The company has planted more than 80,000 trees to offset 135 million passenger miles in commercial emissions. The nonrenewable energy it uses to produce a square yard of carpet is down 43 percent, and roughly 12 percent of its energy is coming from renewable sources. This may not sound like a lot, but if they keep that rate each year, they’ll reach 100 percent (which is their objective) in a little more than eight years.

Janine M. Benyus’ book Biomimicry provided even more inspiration for Anderson and his team and led to an entire line of carpet products now known as the i2 Collection. The collection is based on the design principle of no two tiles being alike – a kind of randomness and diversity that can be found in nature, say, on the forest floor.

Not only was the Biomimicry-inspired collection a hit with customers, but it has also proved to be a hit with the company’s bottom line and its sustainability mission because there is almost no waste and no off-quality with the product. “You get this deliberate imperfection of no two alike; it’s in complete defiance of the traditional paradigm that every manufactured product has to be cookie-cutter the same – that idea of perfection. Here you have the idea of deliberate imperfection – no two alike, and it’s just amazing,” says Anderson.

Although the company celebrates achievements each year toward its goal of complete sustainability by 2020, there are many challenges that remain.

“There are huge technological hurdles yet to be solved. It’s going to take new inventions one way or the other – either new inventions to recycle the present components or new inventions to replace the present components, to give us materials that are recyclable. And, of course, renewable energy really does need to come down in price so we can afford to go all the way to renewables.”

All this talk of zero waste, renewable energy, and benign emissions is great for the tree huggers, but what about the shareholders? No one could honestly expect sustainability to catch on or carry on in the business of big business without a profitable outcome. Well, it turns out that they’re taking it very well due to Anderson’s mantra of doing well by doing good. And based on Interface’s year-end earnings for 2005 that were released in February, they’re right not to worry.

“As we think of climbing the mountain of sustainability, the first face of the mountain that we really identified and attacked was the face of waste. And as we attacked that face of the mountain, we had real dollar and cents savings very rapidly. So from day one, we made money with this initiative – far more than we’ve ever spent on all the rest of the climb. So from our shareholders’ point of view, it’s been a good thing. And today with $60 oil, a 43 percent reduction in the fossil fuel component of your product is looking pretty good. …It’s turning out to be a better way to make a bigger profit, and a legitimate profit at that – not at the expense of Earth and not at the expense of our grandchildren’s grandchildren.”

As for the longevity of this practice, Anderson has no doubts. As far as he’s concerned, if there is to be industry, there must be sustainability.

“I don’t think there’s any choice. Ultimately, industry has got to go through this same transformation or we will kill the goose that lays the golden egg. If we concentrate just on eggs (profits) and don’t think about the earth as the ultimate source of those profits, then there won’t be a goose and we will have undermined the basic infrastructure of civilization itself – the natural world. …The value of the economy is absolutely dependent on nature.”

And what of this country’s government and its responsibility for perpetuating and supporting such issues? “I really think that the people in industry are ahead of the politicians on this one. But we’ll pull them along just like we always have. What’s the old saying? When the people lead, the leaders will follow. The world needs alarm clocks to wake it up.”

Being that alarm clock means being a beacon for the rest of industry, a responsibility this self-proclaimed Sherpa embraces wholeheartedly. “We’re actually finding that some of the biggest companies in the world are approaching Interface to see ‘how are you doing this and what can we learn from you.’ …If we can lead others and shorten their learning curve, it’s a big win-win.”

But despite recognizing the unique position he holds in what remains a largely take, make, waste industrial world order, Anderson is not so keen on the idea that he’s an underdog.

“I don’t feel a bit like an underdog. We’re on top of all the dogs. A minority maybe, but not underdogs.”

Monica Elliott is a writer living in metropolitan Atlanta. She is also a poet and a raving cinephile. Her current inspirations include Imogen Heap, Peter Facinelli (cursed Fastlane reruns), ZZ Packer, sublimation and fresh flowers.