If you haven’t heard Ray Anderson’s story, you need to. His journey is chronicled in a book authored by Mr. Anderson, Founder and Chairman of Interface Inc., the world’s largest manufacturer of modular carpet. Mid-Course Correction is the title of his book, which shares in its pages the challenges and the financial successes Interface has had on its way to sustainability. We had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Anderson for the inaugural issue of TerraChoice’s new publication, eQ: Environmental Marketing Intelligence + TerraChoice News.
During this interview, we were lucky to have Mr. Anderson share some great advice from his experience as the sustainable business leader of a billion-dollar global corporation. We want to share one of those great stories with you.
Taking on sustainability initiatives can be a daunting yet highly rewarding task. When asked how employees are talking about Interface’s environmental shift, Ray Anderson told us this great anecdote:
“In response to Interface’s consulting arm’s work, we took 15 people from a big multi-national food company and came to LaGrange, GA, to a carpet factory for a cultural exposure. They wanted us to show them what the culture of sustainability is like.”
“One woman in the group, who was head of engineering, did not want to be there. She did not understand why a multi-national food company would be coming to a rinky-dink carpet factory in Georgia. She was antagonistic and sceptical for the first half of the first morning. Then the mid-morning break came. The group was meeting in a conference room in the middle of the factory and to get to the ladies room, she had to actually walk through the factory.”
“On her way back to the conference room, she encountered a fork truck driver with a big roll of carpet on his fork truck. She stopped him and asked rather directly, “What do you do here?” And he said, “Ma’am, I come to work every day to help save the earth.” She was astonished, so she started to draw him out and ask him more questions. After a minute or two he said, ‘Ma’am, I don’t want to be rude, but if I don’t get this roll of carpet to that machine over there in the next minute, our waste and emissions are going to go out of control. I have to go!’”
“She came back to the meeting and no one knew this had happened. The Interface staff member who was running the meeting said she took her seat a visibly different person. After a while, she began to challenge her own people saying, ‘Why aren’t we doing this? Why are we doing that?’ and then she told the story of what happened on the factory floor. She said, ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’ This is the best demonstration I have ever seenof the alignment of a company from the very top to the factory floor. She added, ‘There is only one word I can think of that describes it – love.’”
Love on the factory floor. There you have it. Mr. Anderson tells us this and other stories in his new book (due out this September) on the nature-based technologies and designs Interface has adopted and created. Its title: “Confessions of a Radical Industrialist.”
Visit www.interfaceglobal.com to learn more about Interface’s journey toward sustainability.
And to read our interview with Ray Anderson, click here.
Posted by KateRusnak in Green business, Green office, Green products