To our founder and Chairman Ray Anderson, the journey to a fully sustainable Interface would be like summiting “a mountain higher than Everest” – difficult, yes, but with a careful and attentive plan, not impossible. As we created a framework for our climb, we identified Seven Fronts™ on Mount Sustainability through which we’d ascend.
For many companies, the most difficult step on the climb is first admitting that the mountain exists and then, that it can be traversed. At Interface, we see the mountain. We know the Seven Fronts through which we will pass. And we are climbing toward the summit of Mount Sustainability.
Select a “Front” pin for detailed information.
Eliminate Waste
Eliminate all forms of waste in every area of business. For Interface, this means redesigning products and processes to reduce and simplify the amount of resources we use, so that material "waste" will no longer be "waste" but instead will be remanufactured into new resources, providing technical "nutrients" for the next cycle of production.
Benign Emissions
Eliminate toxic substances from products, vehicles and facilities. Interface has moved aggressively toward eliminating all its emissions into the ecosphere, striving to create factories with no smokestacks, effluent pipes or hazardous waste generated.
Renewable Energy
Operate facilities with renewable energy sources – solar, wind, landfill gas, biomass, geothermal, tidal and low impact/small scale hydroelectric or non-petroleum-based hydrogen. Interface seeks to ensure that by 2020, all fuels and electricity to operate our manufacturing, sales and office facilities will be from renewable sources.
Closing the Loop
Redesign processes and products to close the technical loop using recovered and bio-based materials. Interface is redesigning its processes and products to recycle synthetic materials, to convert waste into valuable raw materials, and to keep organic materials uncontaminated so they may be returned to their natural systems.
Resource-Efficient Transportation
Transport people and products efficiently to eliminate waste and emissions. We are working diligently to make our transportation more ecologically efficient and are participating in voluntary partnerships focused on reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and offsetting the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions associated with our travel, including employee commutes.
Sensitizing Stakeholders
Create a culture that uses sustainability principles to improve the lives and livelihoods of all of our stakeholders – employees, partners, suppliers, customers, investors and communities. Interface believes that when stakeholders fully understand sustainability and the challenges that lie ahead, they will come together into a community of shared environmental and social goals.
Redesign Commerce
Create a new business model that demonstrates and supports the value of sustainability-based commerce. Interface is creating new methods of delivering value to customers, changing its purchasing practices, and supporting initiatives to bring about market-based incentives for sustainable commerce, and has developed a model for other companies to chart their own evolution to a prototypical model of a 21st Century sustainable business.