Ray Anderson
Ray Anderson
business years names
During the last five years, those four advantages-costs, products, people, goodwill-have been the salvation of Interface during a recession that saw our primary marketplace shrink by 38% from peak to trough-38%! As a heavily leveraged company with over $400 million in debt, we might not have made it without the sustainability initiative and, especially, the support of our customers. This revised definition of success-this new paradigm-has a name: "Doing well by doing good". It is a better way to bigger profits.
business different needs
If we somehow put a value on species extinction and factor that into our costs that bottom line would look very different. IF we put any resource depletion into costs our bottom line would change. So what we have is a dishonest market that does not take into account all the costs when it establishes its prices. We need an honest marketplace before we can let the market work for sustainability rather than against it as it works today.
jobs business responsibility
I used to think that my job didn't have anything to do with the environment. Then I realized that my job, as well as everyone else's job, impacts the environment in some way. And now advocating for sustainability has become my No. 1 responsibility.
powerful responsibility years
The status quo is a very powerful opiate and when you have a system that seems to be working and producing profits by the conventional way of accounting for profits. It's very hard to make yourself change. But we all know that change is an inevitable part of business. Once you have ridden a wave just so far, you have to get another wave. We all know that. For us, becoming restorative has been that new wave and we have been riding it for 13 years now. It's been incredibly good for business.
vision
"Comply" is not a vision.
zero responsibility climbing
For nearly 11 years, now, we have been on this mission; we call it, "climbing Mt. Sustainability", a mountain higher than Everest, to meet at that point at the top that symbolizes zero footprint-zero environmental impact. Sustainable: taking nothing, doing no harm.
earth next revolution
The new course we're on at Interface ... is to pioneer the next Industrial Revolution: one that is kinder and gentler to the earth.
teacher educational teaching
One of the biggest things that needs to change is the educational system. Universities are still teaching a system to students that destroys the biosphere.
business people purpose
I always make the business case for sustainability. It's so compelling. Our costs are down, not up. Our products are the best they have ever been. Our people are motivated by a shared higher purpose - esprit de corps to die for. And the goodwill in the marketplace - it's just been astonishing.
beautiful hurt motivation
We have a choice to make during our brief visit to this beautiful blue and green living planet: to hurt it or to help it.
business thinking organization
...there is no more strategic issue for a company, or any organization, than its ultimate purpose. For those who think business exists to make a profit, I suggest they think again. Business makes a profit to exist. Surely it must exist for some higher, nobler purpose than that.
accomplish apparently appears asset belongs city control existing funds houston parks pitch situation taking texas wildlife win
The city of Houston could have made more of a pitch that they are going to be able to accomplish something other than just taking control of an existing asset that belongs to Texas Parks and Wildlife. Texas Parks and Wildlife apparently has no funds to do anything, so this appears to be a win situation for the city and for the park.
areas billing building business company future progress support
The company has made significant progress in all areas of the business and, in particular, in building the international billing infrastructure that will support future growth.
ahead brian chance decisions final help personnel project
You've got to project ahead and see what's going to help you win. Brian didn't think he'd get as much of a chance to be influential in personnel decisions in Cleveland, and I think that made the final decision.