The Story of Stuff - Annie Leonard [131]
Anderson’s complete overhaul of Interface proved that the shift of a billion-dollar petroleum-based industry toward environmental sustainability is feasible: since the adoption of its zero-impact goals in 1995, the firm’s use of fossil fuels and water, its greenhouse gas emissions, and waste generation has fallen drastically, while sales have increased by two-thirds and profits have doubled. Interface has diverted 148 million pounds (74,000 tons) of used carpets away from landfills, while more than 25 percent of its materials are renewable and recycled, a ratio Anderson says is growing rapidly. The $400 million Interface saved in costs avoided through the pursuit of zero waste has paid for all the costs of transforming its practices and facilities.16 Anderson notes that the company’s “products are the best they have ever been, because sustainable design has provided an unexpected wellspring of innovation, people are galvanized around a shared higher purpose, better people are applying, the best people are staying and working with a purpose, [and] the goodwill in the marketplace generated by our focus on sustainability far exceeds that which any amount of advertising or marketing expenditure could have generated.” The Interface example, he says, clearly “dispels the myth of the false choice between the environment and the economy... if we, a petro-intensive company, can do it, anybody can. And if anybody can, it follows that everybody can.”17
Green business experts often note that there are some potential silver linings to the huge scale of many companies today. For one thing, if a company with multiple suppliers all over the world demands greener standards—for example by banning packaging made of PVC—there can be a ripple effect throughout its supply chain, spreading the positive change as suppliers hustle to comply with the new requirements. Green business advocates also point out that bigger companies can leverage their economies of scale to finance environmental improvements as Nike, Whole Foods, and even Wal-Mart have done. What doesn’t get addressed by these arguments, though, is that the foundation of those businesses is still about making and selling more Stuff—which relies on the trashing of existing Stuff to make room for it.
So what excites me most about Interface is how they’re experimenting with shifting that fundamental paradigm that sees business’s role only as producing and selling ever more Stuff. Listen up, business-minded folks, because this is a hugely important innovation.
Interface was built on a conventional retail model: customers buy carpet. When it wears out, they pull it up, chuck it (so it ends up in the landfill or incinerator), and come buy new carpet. Ray Anderson was concerned that so much used and discarded carpet was going to the landfill each year. He also realized that most wear and tear generally only happened on about 20 percent of a carpeted area, yet the whole thing was being ripped out and thrown away. He figured out two things: (1) if carpets were designed to be modular (made of interchangeable tiles), just the worn part could be replaced; and (2) commercial carpet users only wanted the services provided by a carpet (e.g., noise reduction or attractive interior spaces) but actually had no need to own the floor covering outright. Thus, his business started selling carpet “tiles” and experimenting with leasing carpet, in the same way the copier company owns the copy machine and provides service to users who simply lease the machines.18
In 1995, Interface developed the Evergreen Lease program, which aimed to sell a floor covering