Recycled Thought

Ray Anderson: Sustainable Carpet

I had a revelation about what industry is doing to our planet. I stood convicted as a plunderer of the earth. In the future, people like me will go to jail.

Ray Anderson has been called a “born-again environmentalist.” He is an industrial engineer by training and is the founder, chairman, and chief operating officer of Interface, Inc., the largest commercial carpet manufacturer in the world. Anderson relates that he had never really been concerned about the environment or sustainability until he read Paul Hawken's The Ecology of Commerce in 1994 and had what he calls an "ecological epiphany," literally crying while reading the book.

Since then, Anderson has taken steps to make Interface a sustainable corporation. Currently, it practices in-house recycling, makes carpet from recycled soda bottles, and even recycles discarded carpet from other manufacturers. However, unlike some corporations with "green" programs, Anderson admits that these steps are not enough. He hopes to attain "closed-loop recycling," in which there will be no waste products or pollution produced.

Anderson has quickly become a world-renowned advocate for sustainable industry. In 1997, he was named co-chair of the President's Council on Sustainable Development. In 1999, he published a book, Mid-Course Correction: Toward a Sustainable Enterprise -- The Interface Model, about his conversion to sustainability. He now travels the world, spreading the "gospel" of sustainability with an energy and dedication reminiscent of the Baptist preachers of his Georgia childhood.

Watch Ray Anderson Video

posted by Tom @ 7:42 AM