Almost anyone who has attended an environment and business conference in the last 15 or so years will have heard of Ray Anderson. Interface, Inc., the company he founded in 1973, has, under his leadership, become the poster child for sustainable development in business. The company’s model is based on tiles of carpet, allowing replacement of those parts of a commercial carpet that have become worn instead of having to replace the entire carpet. The removed carpeting is recycled back into new carpet. Interface has also become the poster company for Natural Step, the most stringent environmental management program for business in the world.

Since he read Paul Hawken’s book The Ecology of Commerce in 1994, Anderson has been a regular speaker at environment and business conferences, inspiring other business leaders to follow in the Interface footsteps. Currently Interface is engaged on a program called Mission Zero, to achieve zero waste and zero environmental impact by 2020. Anderson will be sorely missed.

More information at http://www.interfaceglobal.com/