Confessions of a Radical Industrialist – Study Guide 1
Confessions of a Radical Industrialist:
Profits, People, and Purpose – Doing Business by
Respecting the Earth
Ray C. Anderson
Study Guide
In 1994 Ray C. Anderson, the founder of Interface, Inc., the largest manufacturer of carpet tiles in the world, set an audacious goal for his company: to take nothing from the earth not easily renewed by the earth – to make his company environmentally sustainable. This book describes his path in achieving this, and challenges all of industry to share that goal.
Carpet manufacturing, employing the traditional “take-make-waste” philosophy, has been a toxic, petroleum-based process, releasing immense amounts of air and water pollution and creating tons of waste. But 15 years after Anderson’s “spear in the chest” revelation about the need for sustainability, Interface has
· Cut greenhouse gas emissions by 82%
· Cut fossil fuel consumption by 60%
· Cut waste by 66%
· Cut water use by 75%
· Invented and patented new machines, materials, and processes
· Increased sales by 66%
· Doubled earnings
· Raised profit margins
Anderson demonstrates that profit and sustainability are not mutually exclusive or conflicting goals, and provides practical ideas and measurable outcomes that other industries can use to improve their bottom line and do right by the earth.
About the Author
Ray C. Anderson founded Interface, Inc., the world’s largest manufacturer of modular carpeting, or carpet tiles, in 1973, and was CEO and Chairman of the Board until stepping down as CEO in 2001. He is now the non-executive Chairman of the Board. He is recognized as a leader of efforts to develop ecologically responsible, sustainable enterprises. He was appointed by President Clinton to the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, and served as its Co-Chair.
He was born in West Point, Georgia in 1934, and attended Georgia Tech on a football scholarship. In 1994 he began thinking about what Interface was doing for the environment, and read Paul Hawken’s The Ecology of Commerce, which argued that the industrial system is destroying the planet, and only business and industry are large and powerful enough to stop it. This was, as Anderson said, like a spear in the chest, a realization that his success in building Interface and simply meeting all the current environmental regulations wasn’t enough. He resolved that Interface would be the first enterprise in history to become truly sustainable – to shut down its smokestacks, close its effluent pipes, to do no harm to the environment and to take nothing from the earth not easily renewed by the earth. In 1998 he published a book, Mid-Course Correction, relating his company’s initial plan and steps toward that goal. The present book continues and updates that story, based on another 10 years of progress toward his goal.
Note to Instructors
This book is written by a successful businessman who came from a background in industrial engineering. Given this, it is not surprising that the primary audience for this book is people in those fields. The descriptions of industrial processes and products is fairly technical, but the underlying message is clearly stated in each chapter. Anderson’s success as a businessman gives added credibility to his persistent theme – that efforts to make his company sustainable have not been at the expense of profits or success. On the contrary, he argues, his company’s success at cutting waste, saving on energy, increasing involvement in the community, and constantly looking for ways to reduce the impact that his company has on the environment, has made Interface lean, mean, and ready to succeed in the 21st century. It is his hope that this book will inspire others to make the same choice that he did – to make his company environmentally sustainable – before it is too late for everyone.
While directed primarily toward business school and engineering students, the lessons and ideas presented here are also relevant to other disciplines such as biology/ecology, industrial psychology, political science, journalism, communication, economics, ethics, and any class in which focuses on finding ways to make people aware of and motivated to solve environmental problems. Anderson has some trenchant points to make about the current status of higher education and its role in helping to deal with global warming and climate disruption, and these observations serve as guideposts for faculty and students seeking to change the institution to have a greater positive influence on environmental policies and practices.
The comprehension and discussion questions at the end of each chapter summary are intended to direct the students’ attention to the primary points that are being made, to get them to understand the arguments, and to look behind the information to understand the underlying values and beliefs.
Teaching Ideas
Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of what Anderson presents as the “climb up Mount Sustainability.” The instructor can select chapters most relevant to their own courses for particular emphasis, and have students engage in independent research to seek further information on these issues. There are also a number of websites dedicated to global warming that can add to this discussion including www.theclimateproject.org which follows up on Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, and provides a number of projects to raise environmental awareness. An interesting web video, “The Story of Stuff,” raises issues related to Anderson’s concerns with consumption and the “growth at all costs” philosophy. This 20-minute video can be found on YouTube, or through the website of the same name: www.thestoryofstuff.com. There are discussion questions at the end of several of the chapter summaries that ask students to examine these issues at their own institution, to see what environmentally sustainable policies are currently in place, or to think of steps that could be taken to improve on current practices and procedures. Additional class discussions of related points could be very beneficial.
About this Guide’s Writer
Liane Bryson teaches in the Rhetoric and Writing Studies Department at San Diego State University. She has created study guides for the SDSU Common Experience Freshmen Summer Reading books, Three Cups of Tea and The Ape and the Sushi Master, as well as for the KPBS One Book, One San Diego selections The Zookeeper’s Wife and Outcasts United.
Prologue
Anderson recounts his thoughts as he observes the financial meltdown of October, 2008, and the increased relevance of the ideas presented in this book to the future of business and industry. The experiences of his company in shifting toward a business model based on sustainability should, he hopes, provide an example and template for others to inspire and instruct others to make the changes that are not just good for the earth, but also good business.
Questions:
1. Why does Anderson detail the size and success of his company, Interface, Inc. in this introduction?
2. How could the economic crisis of 2008 serve to increase the value of moving toward environmentally responsible business practices?
3. Why did Anderson mention profits first in the subtitle of this book – Profits, People, and Purpose – Doing Business by Respecting the Earth?
Chapter 1. Mission Zero
A brief outline of Anderson’s background and present day circumstances. Coming from humble beginnings, he started Interface in 1973 and has grown it to the world leader in modular carpets. In 1994 he steered Interface on a new course – to reduce environmental impact while increasing profits – despite doubts both within the company and from the outside. He outlines the environmental challenge we all face and the resistance to change in business practices that could make us more sustainable. His own experience has shown that shifting from the “take – make – waste” attitudes by using less fossil fuels, reducing industrial waste, and developing new production processes has made his company more competitive and profitable. He briefly describes the plan to climb “Mount Sustainability” through the Mission Zero initiative, and introduces many of the ideas that guide the rest of this book.
Questions
1. How did Interface’s sustainability efforts help them to ride out the marketplace decline at the beginning of this century?
2. How are the epigrams – the quotations at the beginning of the chapter – related to the arguments Anderson is making?
3. How does Anderson use analogies to make his argument more effective?
Chapter 2. The Power of One Good Question
Anderson founded Interface in 1973, after recognizing the promise and potential of modular carpeting, and grew his company to a dominant position over the next 20 years. Then, in 1994, he received a question relayed from a customer by one of his salesmen, “What is Interface doing for the environment?” Because he felt that his company must be responsive to customer concerns, this question led him to reconsider his own business practices which, while completely consistent with existing laws, standards, and regulations, failed to consider their environmental impact. Seeking an environmental vision, he read a book, The Ecology of Commerce, by Paul Hawken, that indicted the current industrial system for its failure to realize the environmental consequences of the take – make – waste practices. Anderson was struck by the story of St. Matthew Island, where 29 reindeer were introduced to a “reindeer paradise” – ample food and no predators: rather than growing to and maintaining a sustainable number, the reindeer population exploded and then collapsed, leaving a barren island and no reindeer. This story was “a spear in the chest” for Anderson, a metaphor for the earth and humankind, which made him realize that humans could no longer go on using up resources without regard to replacement. Hawkens went on to point out that not only was business and industry the principal instrument leading us to global destruction, it was the only institution large and powerful enough to lead us away from that path. This gave Anderson a vision and a new purpose in life: to make Interface not just into a sustainable enterprise, but to make it restorative – to put more back than we take, and to do good for the earth, not just to do harm, and make this good for their business. He challenged his executives to make this happen. Initial resistance and confusion ultimately led to a dedication to make changes that could lead to that goal.
Questions
1. How is the larger question of resource depletion even more serious than the situation described on St, Matthew Island?
2. Why were the attendees at the conference initially hostile to Anderson’s ideas and challenge?
3. Why was Interface uniquely situated to make other businesses and industries pay attention to the promise of sustainability?
4. Do you agree with Anderson’s dismissal of colleges as not being effective institutions in changing environmental practices?
4. What rhetorical techniques did Hawken employ to make his arguments effective?
Chapter 3: One Small Digression and Six Lessons
Anderson begins with a description of growing up in West Point, Georgia, and the lessons he learned from football and from his experiences at Georgia Tech – to never be a quitter, to compete and achieve more than you thought possible, that there is always a better way, that your word is your bond. After graduation Anderson went to work for a textile company, Deering-Milliken, but felt frustrated by the inflexibility of its operations. He switched to a position with another textile company, and was on a promising career path, but becoming increasingly aware that he wanted to build a company on his own. Then Milliken bought out the company he was working for, and he was once again stuck in a large, rigid corporate structure. Through his new position in Milliken he was introduced to a new European product – carpet tile – and he became a leader in introducing this to the United States. Over time he decided that he wanted to take the entrepreneurial plunge and start his own carpet tile company. The uncertainties of this step created serious challenges for him and in his personal life, but he determined to make it, to become the “captain of his fate.” The financial and emotional costs of starting this company made it even more precious to him.
Questions
1. How did Anderson’s experiences in West Point, Ga. Influence his later life? How might he have been different if he had quit football?
2. Why did Anderson begin this chapter with the quotation from one of his professors at Georgia Tech?
3. What are the qualities and traits that are essential to becoming an entrepreneur?
4. What is Anderson referring to when he writes, “I landed on the other side of my personal Rubicon”?
5. What are the six lessons Anderson referred to in the title of the chapter?
Chapter 4: Mountain Climbing
Anderson describes the difficulties of defining and operationalizing a concept like sustainability, and how this confusion has allowed companies to misrepresent themselves as “green.” He offers a definition: “Sustainability is all about coming up with ways to meet or needs (not wants – needs) today without undermining the ability of other folks to meet their needs tomorrow.” In the case of his business he emphasized using only renewable resources (i.e., no new oil) and not harming the biosphere, or “Take nothing. Do no harm.” Anderson argues that we must consider all of the costs of doing business, including the price of damage to the environment – what he calls “God’s currency” -- and recounts several examples of failing to consider these environmental costs and focusing only on immediate economic value. This kind of thinking is now growing, despite resistance caused by a flawed view of things – focused on acquiring, on short-term profits, on assuming that the world is ours to conquer, that technology will solve everything, that the market is an honest broker. The market is good at setting prices, but has no concept of costs. How do we get business to pay attention to these larger costs? Anderson argues that it will come from the force of enlightened self-interest – the payoff is survival, while earning a solid, ethical profit. He and Interface hope to demonstrate that reaching for sustainability can lead to bigger and more legitimate profits. This will be done one small step at a time, with each step making them more sustainable and more profitable. These steps focus on three ecological challenges: what we take from the earth, what we make and the damage caused by making it, and what we waste. An improved business model addresses these as seven paths to sustainability: