Sustainability Innovation Leaders - Planet

Believe it or not, I come offering a solution to a very important part of this larger problem with the requisite focus on climate. And the solution I offer is to the biggest culprit in this massive mistreatment of the Earth by humankind and the result in decline of the biosphere. That culprit is business and industry, which happens to be where I have spent the last 52 years since my graduation from Georgia Tech in 1956. As an industrial engineer, come aspiring and then successful entrepreneur. After founding my company Interface from scratch in 1973, 36 years ago to produce carpet tiles in America for the business and institution markets and shepherding it through startup and survival to prosperity and global dominance in its field, I read Paul Hawkins' book, The Ecology of Commerce: The Summer of 1994. In his book, Paul charges business and industry as, one, the major culprit in causing the decline of the biosphere, and two, the only institution that is large enough and pervasive enough and powerful enough to really lead humankind out of this mess. And by the way, he convicted me as a plunderer of the Earth. And I then challenged the people have interfaced my company, to lead our company in the entire industrial world to sustainability, which we defined as eventually operating a petroleum-intensive company in such a way as to take from the Earth only what can be renewed by the Earth naturally and rapidly, not another fresh drop of oil, and to do no harm to the biosphere.

Take nothing, do no harm. I simply said, If Hawken is right in business and industry must lead, who will lead business and industry? Unless somebody leads, nobody will. It's axiomatic. Why not us? And thanks to the people of Interface, I have become a recovering plunderer. I once told a Fortune magazine writer that someday people like me would go to jail, and that became the headline of a Fortune article that went on to describe me as America's greenest CEO. Ceo. From plunderer to recovering plunderer to America's Greenest CEO in five years. That frankly was a pretty sad commentary on American CEOs in 1999. Asked later in the the Canadian documentary, The Corporation: What I meant by the go to jail remark, I offered that theft is a crime, and theft of our children's future would someday be a crime. But I realized for that to be true, for theft of our children's future to be a crime, there must be a clear demonstrable alternative to the take, make, waste industrial system that so dominates our civilization and is the major culprit stealing children's future by digging up the Earth and converting it to products that quickly become waste in a landfill or an incinerator.

In short, digging up the Earth and converting it to pollution. According to Paul and Anne Eilish and their well-known environmental impact equation, impact, a bad thing, is the product of population, affluence, and technology. That is, impact is generated by people, what they consume in their affluence, and how it is produced. I know the equation is largely subjective. You can perhaps quantify people and perhaps quantify affluence, but technology is abusive in too many ways to quantify. So the equation is conceptual. Still, it works to help us understand the problem. So we set out at interface in 1994 to create an example, to transform the way we made carpet, a petroleum-intensive product for materials builds as well as energy, and to transform our technologies so they diminished environmental impact rather than multiplied it. Paul and Anne Ehrlich's environmental impact equation, I is equal to P times A times T. Population, affluence, and technology. I wanted interface to rewrite that equation so that it read I equal P times A, divided by T. Now, the mathematically minded will see immediately that T in the numerator increases impact, a bad thing, but T in the denominator decreases impact. So I asked what would move T, technology from the numerator, call it T1, where it increases impact, to the denominator.

Call it T2, where it reduces impact. I thought about the characteristics of first industrial revolution T1 as we practiced it in the face, and it had the following characteristics: extractive, taking raw materials from the Earth, linear, take, make, waste, powered by fossil fuel-derived energy, wasteful, abusive, and focused on labor productivity, more carpet per man hour. Thinking it through, I realized that all those attributes must be changed to move T to the denominator. In the new industrial revolution, extraction, extractive must be replaced by renewable, linear by cyclical, fossil fuel energy by renewable energy sunlight, wasteful by waste free, and abusive by benign and labor productivity by resource productivity. And I reason that if we could make those transformative changes and get rid of T1 altogether, we could reduce our impact to zero, including our impact on the climate. And that became named the interface plan in 1995 and has been the plan ever since. We have measured our progress very rigorously, so I can tell you how far we have come in the ensuing twelve years. Net greenhouse gas emissions down 82% in absolute tonnage. Over the same span of time, sales have increased by two-thirds and profits have doubled.

An 82% absolute reduction translates into a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas intensity relative to sales. This is the magnitude of the reduction the entire global technosphere must realize by 2050. To avoid catastrophic climate disruption, so the scientists are telling us. Fossil fuel usage is down 60% per unit of production due to efficiencies in renewables. The cheapest, most secure barrel of all there is, is the one not used through efficiencies. Water usage is down 75% in our worldwide carpet tile business, down 40% in our broadband carpet business, which we acquired in 1993 right here in California, city of industry, where water is so precious. Renewable or recycled materials in that 25% of the total and growing rapidly. Renewable energy is 27% of our total, going for 100%. We have diverted 148 million pounds, that's 74,000 tons of used carpet from landfills, closing the loop on material flows through reverse logistics and post-consumer recycling technologies that did not exist when we started 14 years ago. Those new cyclical technologies have contributed mightily to the fact that we have produced and sold 85 million square yards of climate-neutral carpet since 2004, meaning no net contribution to global climate disruption in producing the carpet throughout the supply chain, from mine and well-head, clear to end-of-life reclamation, independent, third-party certified.

We call it cool carpet, and it has been a powerful marketplace differentiated increasing sales and profits. Three years ago, we launched Carpet tile for the Home under the brand Floor, misspelled F-L-O-R. You can point and click today at floor. Com and have cool carpet delivered to your front door in five days. It is practical and pretty, too. We reckon that we are a We're about over halfway to our goal, zero impact, zero footprint. We've set 2020 as our target year for zero, for reaching the top, the summit of Mount Sustainability. We call this Mission Zero. Zero. And this is perhaps the most important fact that we have found Mission Zero to be incredibly good for business, a better business model, a better way to bigger profits. Here's the business case for sustainability from real-life experience. Costs are down, not up, reflecting some $400 million of avoided cost in pursuit of zero waste, the first face of Mount Sustainability. This has paid all the costs the transformation of interface, and dispels a myth to this false choice between the environment and the economy. Our products are the best they've ever been, inspired by design for sustainability and unexpected well-spring of innovation.

Our people are galvanized around the shared higher purpose. You cannot beat it for attracting the best people and bringing them together. And the goodwill of the marketplace is astonishing. No amount of advertising, no clever marketing campaign at any price could have produced or created as much goodwill. Costs, products, people, marketplace. What else is there? It is a better business model. And here's our 14 year record of sales and profits. There's a dip there from 2001 to 2003. A dip when our sales over a three-year period were down 17%, but the marketplace was down 36%. We literally gained market We understand we might not have survived that recession but for the advantages of sustainability. If every business were pursuing the interface plan, would that solve all our problems? I don't think so. I remain troubled by the revised Ehrlich equation, I equal P times A, divided by T2. That A is a capital A, suggesting that affluence is an end in itself. But what if we reframed Ehrlich further? And what if we made a, a lower case a, suggesting that it's a means to an end, and that end is happiness. More happiness with less stuff.

You know, that would frame civilization itself. Our whole system of economics, if not for our species, then perhaps for the one that succeeds us, the sustainable species, living on a finite Earth, ethically, happily, and ecologically in balance with nature and all her natural systems for a thousand generations or 10,000 generations, that is to say, into the indefinite future. But does the Earth have to wait for our extinction as a species? Well, maybe so, but I don't think so. At interface, we really intend to bring this prototyical, sustainable, zero footprint industrial company fully into existence by 2020. We can see our way now, clear to the top of that mountain, and now the challenge is in execution. And as my good friend and adviser, Amri Lovens, says, If something exists, it must be possible. If we can actually do it, it must be possible. If we, a petrol-intensive company, can do it, anybody can. Can. And if anybody can, it follows that everybody can. Hawken fulfilled business and industry, leading humankind away from the abyss. Because with continued, unchecked, decline of the biosphere. A very dear person is at risk here, frankly, at unacceptable risk. Who is that person?

Not you, not I. But let me introduce you to the one who is most at risk here. And I myself met this person in the early days of this mountain climb on a Tuesday morning in March of 1996. I was talking to our people as I did at every opportunity back then, bringing them along and often not knowing whether I was connecting. But about five days later, back in Atlanta, I received an email from Glenn Thomas, one of my people in the California meeting. He was sending me an original poem that he had composed after our Tuesday morning together. And when I read it, it was one of the most uplifted moments of my life because it told me, by God, one person got it. Here's what Glenn wrote, and here's that person, Most at risk, please meet tomorrow's child. Without a name and unseen face and knowing not your time or place. Tomorrow's child, though yet unborn, I met you first last Tuesday morning. A wise friend introduced us to, and through his sobering point of view, I saw a day that you would see a day for you, but not for me. Knowing you has changed my thinking, for I never had an inkling that perhaps the things I do might someday somehow threaten you.

Tomorrow's child, my daughter's son, I'm afraid I've just begun to think of you and of your good, though always having known I should. Begin, I will, to weigh the cost of what I squander, what is lost, if ever I forget that you will someday come and live here, too. Well, every day of my life since tomorrow's child has spoken to me with one simple but profound message, which I presume to share with you. We are each and everyone a part of the web of life. The continuum of humanity, sure, but in the larger sense, the web of life itself. And we have a choice to make during our brief, brief visit to this beautiful blue and green living planet, to hurt it or to help it. For you, It's your call. Thank you. It says to wait until 10:00 It only takes what it needs. It's powered from far away. It talks with the others.

With the Smart Grid, energy is more intelligent than ever. Now we can manage electricity more efficiently, save money by using energy at off-peak hours, and even distribute alternative energy from one part of the country to another, simply by listening to what the Smart Grid has to say.

It says it's sunny Arizona.

The Smart Grid, it's all around us.

KEIRA HENNINGER (RUNNER): When you’re running 100 miles, you’re running for 21, 22, 23 hours, a lot of stuff can unravel when you’re out there running for a long time.

KEITH MALLY (SURFER): You put yourself in a situation where you really don’t think you’re going to make it, and somehow you do. And after a wave like that, beer tastes good, food tastes good.

TOMMY CALDWELL (CLIMBER): These rugged mountain environments are not made for life, there’s nothing living. There’s not even a speck of lichen.

KEIRA HENNINGER (RUNNER): I always say, going for a run clears your mind, but running an ultra clears your soul. I think I’ve completed 42 ultras and 5 hundred-mile races. Running gear is probably one of the most essential parts of running ultras, whether it’s being comfortable in the shorts and all the chafing in all the right places. I would never go start a 100 mile race without having worn a certain piece before. I’ve had these for about 2 years. These shorts have probably seen 5000 miles on them. These are like my handy-dandy best friends.

KEITH MALLY (SURFER): With modern day high-performance surfboards, you’re lucky if it lasts 3, 4, 5 months. This surfboard’s 9 years old and doesn’t have one single ding in it. I’ve taken that board to Indonesia, Canada, the Wedge, a trip to Fiji, the Cloud Break, Tahiti, the Chofu, Washington, I took it to Norway, and Iceland also. I just have confidence in that board, and the reason why because I know it so well. The amount of good waves I’ve had on that board it makes me smile when I think about it.

TOMMY CALDWELL (CLIMBER): Last January, with a good buddy of mine, Alex Honnold, we managed to traverse the entire FitzRoy massif. We climbed for four days, about 18 hours a day. Seven different major summits, 12,000 feet of vertical gain, groveling through cracks for days, just getting our arms in there. The reason that we can exist for days at a time is because the clothing that will make it work. Yeah. Beautiful. The most important thing is that morale is high. A lot of people when they’re intimidated, they just get scared. They want to go down. [Well, I am quite scared. And you know why? Because of this.] It’s hard to articulate exactly why one piece of clothing becomes a favorite. I think the experiences you’ve had, like if you’ve used it over and over again and it’s worked for you, you just know it’s going to work.

KEITH MALLY (SURFER): I mean naturally you don’t even think about the board, because you trust it so much.

TOMMY CALDWELL (CLIMBER): There’s a little bit of superstition involved.

KEIRA HENNINGER (RUNNER): I tend to have an emotional connection to certain pieces.

TOMMY CALDWELL (CLIMBER): You like, "oh man, I’ve worn this jacket on all my biggest climbs for the last couple of years, I better bring it or I might not descend."

KEIRA HENNINGER (RUNNER): These shorts I have won 8 races in.

TOMMY CALDWELL (CLIMBER): I fell in love with this jacket and I’ll continue to wear it. Now it’ll always be attached to this climb which was one of the most rich experiences of my life.

KEIRA HENNINGER (RUNNER): They’re getting a little, they're getting worn.

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JAMIE EMMERSON: My grandmother said being responsible is doing the right thing when no one's looking. And it's a choice we make as an independent company working and living here in Hood River. We want people to continue to be able enjoy the natural resources of the gorge just as we do.

In 1987 we started brewing in the fruit juice press plant of the Diamond Fruit cannery building. Part of our idea at the time was to recycle these old buildings as opposed to demolishing them and build something new, and trying to save those resources. The benefit to being in Hood River was that it also had a wonderful water source. Cold Spring and Stone Spring up in the slopes of Mount Hood feed the city of Hood River, and in turn, our brewery.

Classic brewing cities are known for their water because beer is mostly water. And Hood River's water source is impeccable. Because we're an employee-owned company, we're able to invest in projects that reflect our values and priorities, like using recycled glass, recycled packaging, wind power. And the outcome for the brewhouse is the Meura mash filter.

As brewers, we need to address our water consumption is our number one priority. And the mash filter is a reflection of our responsibility to the environment. Also, the outcome from the brewhouse is the ability that the Meura provides, such as dry spent grains. Those spent grains are recycled into cattle feed, so used to feed dairy cows, which make cheese for our cheeseburgers in our pub.

The Meura 2001 is an interesting machine because it replaces a traditional ladder tug, which is essentially a giant strainer. The biggest benefits the Meura provides are that it's fast, efficient, makes very dry spent grains, and most importantly, very high quality beer. Last year, we were able to reduce the number of truckloads of spent grain by 77 trucks more than one a week. So that was just reducing the amount of diesel, reducing the amount of truck hauling on the highways, all side benefits of reducing water.

Last year, we averaged a savings per brew of over 800 gallons, so more than a million gallons of water savings. Most craft breweries use between 6 to 10 gallons of water to brew every gallon of beer. Our current average using the Merua is 2.5 gallons for every gallon of beer, quite a substantial reduction. After 25 years of living the dream, brewing in beautiful Hood River, Oregon, it's very important for us to be good stewards of the environment so that other people can enjoy this area as much as we do.