Ray Anderson’s story is seen by many as truly inspirational. In 1994, after reading The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken, Ray felt a ‘spear in the chest’: he realised that his company, billion-dollar carpeting manufacturer Interface, Inc, was plundering the environment with its unsustainable business practices, and he needed to steer it on a new course.

Thoughtful and winning, Confessions of a Radical Industrialist shows just how Anderson revolutionised his company, and includes the 'seven faces of Mount Sustainability' they are currently climbing:

1. moving towards zero waste
2. making emissions benign
3. using renewable energy
4. instigating closed-loop recycling, imitating nature's way of turning waste into food
5. ensuring all transportation is resource-efficient
6. creating a corporate ecosystem, with cooperation as its founding principle
7. assessing costs accurately in order to set real prices

By setting unprecedented targets for cutting waste, instigating revolutionary recycling initiatives, and encouraging employees at every level of the company to contribute ideas on how to save resources, he has succeeded in cutting Interface's greenhouse gas emissions by 82%, and the goal is to reach zero emissions by 2020. Not only that, he has also brought down costs, improved quality, made Interface one of Fortune’s ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’, and increased profits.

What Confessions of a Radical Industrialist proves is that running your company sustainably isn't radical at all - it's just good business.

REVIEWS
"Part cheerleader, part scold, part dreamer. Anderson is the rarest of hybrids: a born-again green industrialist."
Fortune magazine

"The leading corporate evangelist for sustainability."
New York Times

THE AUTHOR
Ray Anderson is chairman and founder of Interface Inc. He's a sought after speaker and adviser on environmental issues and serves on many boards, including that of the David Suzuki Foundation. In 2007, Time magazine called him a 'Hero of the Environment'. Widely viewed as America's greenest CEO and the heroic focus of award-winning documentary The Corporation, he makes the urgent, compelling case that sustainable business pays.

DETAILS
Confessions of a Radical Industrialist: How Interface proved that you can build a successful business without destroying the planet
Author: Ray Anderson
Published by Random House Business Books
Paperback
Priced £11.99
ISBN: 1407059742

Posted on Environment Times online on 1st March 2010.