Conscious Business of the Week: Interface Modular Carpet Tile Manufacturer on “Mission Zero” to Eliminate Environmental Impact

Interface Carpet and Flooring:  Blazing the Trail for Eco Conscious Business Worldwide

Conscious business is about the realization there is always a win/win solution to problem solving and that a conscious business model and profit can go hand in hand.  Interface Carpet and Flooring, the world’s largest manufacturer of modular carpet tile for home or office, is demonstrating just how true this is.

With vision and dedication, Interface has turned their high waste-producing operations to a superior model of eco-consciousness and efficiency.  What’s more is that their efforts have multiplied their savings and profit exponentially. If a company in one of the most environmental polluting industries can do this, anyone can.

High Design Modular Carpet Tile for a Healthy Planet

Interface’s revolution began with their introduction of modular carpet tile to the American market in the ’70s.  This groundbreaking approach to carpet design was more flexible while reducing waste… and just the beginning in everything they have done both through their operations and design innovations to create a sustainable future.

Using the principles of biomimicry, Interface has sought sustainable solutions by using nature as a model.   Interface both considers how nature would have manufactured flooring as well as designed it.

Combining performance, responsibility and beauty, Interface tiles come in a large variety of colors and patterns that vary from one to the other, like leaves in nature, “yet come together to form a beautiful floor.”

Interface products have high performance durable face construction and backing options, create less installation waste and are created to have a high resistance to mold, mildews and stains.  They are also created using the first resource of post-consumer nylon – including type 6 and 6,6, containing up to 75% recycled content that reduce their use of virgin resources. And this is just a sliver of what this eco modular carpet tile manufacturer is doing.

Passivity Turned to Eco Business Pioneering

Interface wasn’t always the eco conscious business leader they are today. In the early 90s, Ray Anderson, the Interface founder and chairman, began to receive inquiries around their environmental responsibility.  Interface had two successful decades behind it yet like many others, they were without a particular eco-friendly vision or mission.

It was at this very time when the book of eco business leader, Paul Hawken, serendipitously landed on Anderson’s lap. Reading “The Ecology of Commerce” proved to be an epiphanal moment for Anderson who took the message very seriously and set out to eliminate the concept of waste in his company.

What began as a simple question on how to turn waste into something useful, has now revolutionized both Interface and the global face of business innovation.  Here are just some of the far-reaching outcomes that have resulted from Interface’s dedication:

- Using renewable energy, Inteface has reduced their green house gas emissions from the production of their modular carpet tile and other products by more than 50%
-  Through their innovative use of waste products, Interface has kept more than 100 million lbs of carpet out of landfills and incinerators
-  Financially, their waste elimination has resulted in a savings of over $300 million dollars cumulatively
-  Their Canada factory is operating today with 93% less water and their U.S. based factories are pretty close behind

Now these are figures that are making both environmentalists and Interface shareholders very happy.

Interface Carpet and Flooring:  Committed to Zero Waste

And Interface is not stopping at the impressive figures stated above.   Anderson and his team have realized that they have just touched the tip of the iceberg for what is possible when it comes to responsible design and environmentally conscious business practices.

As such, they have renamed their entire eco-friendly movement “mission zero” with a vision to get Interface to zero footprint by 2020.  Anderson feels Interface is very much on track at more than 40% toward this goal.

Ultimately, as Anderson says, “we know that it is a better business model… we are doing well by doing good, doing good by doing well.”  And we couldn’t agree more.  This modular carpet tile manufacturer has proven that with dedication and care, anything is possible and a conscious business model does result in tremendous benefit for all.

To learn more about Interface, click here.

Tweet This