InterfaceFLOR
DCL
Ray Anderson was named "Hero of the Environment" by Time Magazine. U.S. News and Word Report named him "America's Greenest CEO." On the back of Ray Anderson's book, Confessions of a Radical Industrialist, Paul Hawken went so far to call him the "poet-laureate of industrial ecology". By now you've probably guessed that he isn't out there saving whales…but wait, maybe he is, by radically changing the supply chain of industry. Meet InterfaceFLOR, they produce carpets with the goal of developing a zero net impact business model by 2020. They started in 1994, with the goal of reducing consumption of raw materials, take back used product and turn it into new product, while moving towards a close looped process.
I caught up with Patrick Riley, the Vice President - China at InterfaceFLOR Asia Pacific, at InterfaceFLOR's showcase room while in Shanghai to discuss what goes into making a carpet company a revolutionary leader in the sustainability scene.
Planet Green: How did it all start?
Patrick Riley: The first push to take the environment into concern happened when one of our customers kept asking what our environmental strategy was. Ray was scheduled to give a visionary kick off speech, and realized he didn't have a vision. Then a book came across his desk, The Ecology of Commerce (by Paul Hawken) which was given to him by a customer. The book showed him the impact of business on the environment and that nature's systems were in decline. That's when he realized if anyone can do it, we can do it, and why not show examples of what can be done differently.
He started by working with basic concepts, exploring the drivers behind zero waste. Anything that doesn't add value is waste. In nature there is no waste, so why should there be waste in a business? Then we looked at benign emissions, and closing the loop on materials flows. Next we examined, post consumer recycling, and resource efficient transportation. Finally we considered the biosphere, and how we can contribute to the restoration of the damage that it has suffered. The end result is that we create climate neutral products and products certified under the Sustainable Carpet Assessment Standard (SCAS or NSF-140-2007e). 100% of our product line is climate neutral Cool Carpet
Mission Zero
PG: Can you talk about the role of manufacturing in sustainable design?
PR: We figured if we can reinvent manufacturing itself while we reinvent a way to eliminate non-renewable materials then we can reinvent the business model.
There's an optimization point: to think about the challenge between making things so they can be recycled, taken apart and reused, rather than something that is made to last forever and then can't be reused. Recyclable is the mission. (for more info on this concept check out Cradle to Cradle)
PG: Why do this work in China?
PR: We're in the right place at the right time to make change that can influence the world. There's not much doubt that China will get there [sustainable manufacturing] because, 1) They have too. 2) They have the systems.To be able to make that kind of contribution...it's a thread that the holds you together.
PG: How is operating in China different?
PR: Our model in Europe and US is very different because it is easy to move and ship product from large plants, creating economies of scale. In Asia, where distances are greater and infrastructure less developed, we have a model that is developing much smaller plants, closer to our markets. From a sustainability viewpoint you get an advantage.
[b]PG: I heard that you are creating a
PR: When we decided to invest here in 2006, the plan was based on a brand new facility with all new equipment. But then, in 2008, the global financial crisis, and the world changed. So we had to come up with a plan to do it differently or not at all - the original cost plan was just too high. We looked at all our factories around the world, and looked for redundancy, and we found that there was enough base equipment available to create what we need here. By adding some clever design changes in the relocation process with a modest amount of new technology, we found a much lower impact way of creating a plant that also supported our Mission Zero
You could argue that the financial crisis was one of natures' gifts that ended a cycle because it made us look around and challenge our plans; and then as fellow companies retrenched, it created available space and buildings for us as well.
