Case Study - Interface Carpets Incorporated

The climb to the top of Mount Sustainability is an arduous but rewarding journey. Every foothold gained begins with a self-questioning analysis of our processes and materials and the determination to achieve even better results with less, and ultimately, no impact on our environment.          Ray Anderson, Chairman, Interface Inc  Source
 

Interface Inc is a huge multinational US company that makes carpet tiles. Since 1994 the company has been striving to change how they do business, moving form a one-way process of selling carpets, to a cyclic system where old worn out carpets are returned & remade into new ones.

This means that Interface:

• powers its boilers from landfill gas.
• uses old carpets to provide the raw materials that can be made into new carpets.
• recycles the oil based backings from old carpets so that it doesn't have to use new oil.
• recycled 3.6 million kgs of carpet in 2005

As a result, the company both makes money in a sustainable way AND protects itself from future crises or price increases in the supply of energy or materials.

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