The Interface Environmental Foundation
Interface’s commitment to sustainability extends to supporting and sustaining the local communities where we live and work. We actively seek out ways to build knowledge about sustainability into local communities and to help people incorporate the lessons we’ve learned into their everyday lives. We accomplish this in part through the Interface Environmental Foundation, Inc.
Armed with the proceeds of his book Mid-Course Correction and the Dubai International Award for Best Practices to Improve the Living Environment, Interface Founder and Chairman Ray Anderson, along with Dr. Mike Bertolucci from Interface, created the Foundation in 1999. Its mission is to inspire and financially support the creation of the next industrial revolution and to ensure a sustainable society. It seeks to encourage adoption of sustainability strategies by business and industry and foster creation of the prototypical model of the sustainable industrial enterprise. Awards and honorariums from speaking engagements by Ray Anderson are the primary source of funding for the Foundation.
Interface Environmental Foundation Grants
The Interface Environmental Foundation has awarded grants to conservation and environmental organizations to advance its mission of sustainability, including organizations like the Nature Conservancy, the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper and the Georgia Conservancy.
Environmental Education Grants Program
Since its beginning, the Interface Environmental Foundation has contributed more than $150,000 to enhance educational opportunities for more than 40,000 students in the global communities where Interface employees live and work. Each year every Interface employee worldwide is given the opportunity to sponsor a teacher for one of 30 Education Grants for as much as $500 USD each. The Education Grants have provided a broad range of learning opportunities for children in classrooms, including building outdoor classrooms, becoming stream monitors, initiating recycling programs, investigating alternative energy sources and planting vegetable and butterfly gardens.