Mission Zero: Mission Possible?

13-09-2011 | How far can a company go? Interface Flooring wants to go the furthest. Mission Zero is the promise of interior flooring manufacturer Interface to completely eliminate its negative environmental impacts by 2020. Is it on track?

Most companies that set sustainability targets do so by researching, discussing policy and setting realistic goals, or at least those they consider achievable based on the knowledge they already have. They then share them with the outside world to be held accountable. There are good reputation-management reasons for publicly announcing only those goals you know you can achieve. Things didn’t quite happen that way at Interface.

The Interface vision

The company’s founder and Chairman, Ray Anderson (who sadly passed away in August this year), surprised his staff when in 1994 he shared his vision of becoming ‘the first enterprise in history to become truly sustainable, to do no harm to the environment and take nothing not easily renewed by the earth’. At that time Anderson had had over 20 years of experience producing flooring, and he felt that his business was so fossil oil-intensive that it was almost part of the petrochemical industry. Anderson decided that Interface needed to make a fundamental change, and Mission Zero was born. To this enormous challenge he then set the deadline of 2020.

What Interface told Triodos

When Triodos visited the company a few years ago, we were told that Anderson had publicly announced his vision all those years ago with no idea about how it could be achieved. The people that worked at Interface initially thought he was crazy. Yet the staff became enthusiastic and generated and debated ideas. It helped give the company direction and the employees are still determined to make the goal a reality. They have fondly dubbed their target Mount Sustainability.

Climbing Mount Sustainability

Despite the passing of Ray Anderson, his Mission Zero goal lives on, and the company continues to work hard to achieve its goal. It has deliberately chosen  to stay true to its strategy and applies for Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), as opposed to cradle to cradle certification (see article on Steelcase). EPDs are based on a life cycle assessment and include information about the environmental impacts associated with a product or service, such as raw material acquisition, energy use and efficiency, content of materials and chemical substances, emissions to air, soil and water and waste generation. 

Remarkable successes

Interface is very transparent about its progress and has shown some remarkable successes and some impressive results – waste levels are down by 77%, and water usage is down by 80%. Upon learning that nylon yarn is the material with the largest environmental impact (due to the energy-intensity of turning oil-products into yarn), Interface researched alternatives and developed a recycling process. In the last six years, the company has increased the use of organic and recycled material from 4% to 40%. Earlier this year there was another success with a new carpet tile collection made of 100% recycled yarn. In the Netherlands, the company has recently installed a recycling capacity of 2700 tons of carpet per year – equivalent to almost 150 football fields of carpet. The recycling process not only requires the technical possibility, but also needs a well-developed cost structure, logistics system, and a special relationship with its clients that support the vision behind the product.

A pioneer worth watching

Triodos Sustainability Research considers Interface to be a corporate social responsibility pioneer. It is therefore included in our Sustainable Investment Universe and the carpets of Interface have also found their way to the Triodos offices in the Netherlands.

Although impressive achievements have been made, the challenges to achieve its 2020 goal remain substantial. However, looking at the company’s success to date Mission Zero may just be possible.

Note: The issues explored in this article are relevant for sustainable investments on the stock market. Triodos Bank believes that our socially responsible investments are a powerful means of promoting our values and working for greater sustainability, while enabling us to offer a complete range of attractive investment options to customers who choose to invest on the stock market.