Radical Industrialist is Rock Star of environmental ethics

An audience more passionate than Shakira fans after a satisfying concert stood and clapped. And clapped. And clapped. Minutes later, the crowd of business people, academics, students and government workers was still clapping. Who was the self-styled Radical Industrialist inspiring such an exuberant standing ovation?

Ray Anderson.

I first learned about the Founder & Chairman of the Board-Interface from the book and movie, The Corporation. As a Dwell Magazine subscriber, I’ve long desired his eco-friendly FLOR™ modular carpeting.

His Friday breakfast presentation, “Mid Course Correction,” was sponsored by the Silberman College of Business’ Institute for Sustainable Enterprise at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Now a “recovering plunderer of the earth,” he began transforming his company in 1994. While the status quo is “a powerful opiate,” Anderson notes that complying with the law is not an environmental vision. Already reducing net greenhouse gases by 10 percent since 1994, Mission Zero compels Interface “to eliminate any negative impact ... on the environment by the year 2020.”

The Kyoto Protocol calls for industrialized nations to reduce their collective greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% below their 1990 baseline from 2008 to 2012. My country refuses to ratify the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, stating it “would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States.” Meanwhile, Interface’s sustainable design provided a “wellspring of innovation,” not to mention good PR and profit.

Anderson tells us, “We are each part of the web of life and we have a choice to make during our brief time on this planet: to hurt it or to help it.” Now I must determine my role in helping.