Sharing Our Progress: The Importance of Transparency
Many companies today are making green claims. Among these are companies that are "greenwashing" - making claims about their environmental record that aren’t supported by their actions. In this type of environment, it is increasingly important to be open and honest about our progress toward sustainability. We are committed to keeping our progress toward Mission Zero™ transparent and we are implementing several strategies to disclose, verify and share our information.
Since sustainability is embedded in our business, our stakeholders should be able to assess what this means and how it affects them. Information and disclosure is one way we can help our stakeholders navigate. Transparency on our progress is also a way we can share our knowledge and experience and provide a model for other businesses on their journeys toward sustainability. In this way, we hope to achieve the bigger goal we’ve set for ourselves: to become a restorative company by the power of our influence. It is through the collective impact of thousands of companies on sustainable journeys that Interface can go beyond being a green company to being a catalyst for change.
Interface approaches transparency in many forms. We released a
Sustainability Report in 1997, which, to our knowledge, was the first of its kind. We share extensive information on our sustainability mission and progress to many interested stakeholders on the sustainability section of this website. We share our annual progress – good or bad – toward our aggressive Mission Zero goals through our
EcoMetrics results. And we disclose important product information for some of our key products in
Environmental Product Disclosures.
Interface also belongs to voluntary reporting initiatives globally that allow us to collect, verify and disclose important environmental data, such as greenhouse gas emissions and energy usage. To ensure we report the information stakeholders want and need to know, we follow the protocols developed by stakeholder organizations, such as the WRI/WBCSD Greenhouse Gas Protocol.
You, however, have the ultimate power to drive transparency. You can ask us and other companies for more information, and you can make your purchasing choices based on our answers.
Click here for a list of Ten Questions we think you should ask when trying to specify a green product.