Meet the flooring firm that discovered biomimicry, cut waste and saved $372m.
The issue
In the mid-1990s, InterfaceFLOR chairman Ray Anderson wasn’t concerned about the bottom line. The company he had founded 21 years earlier to introduce carpet tiles to the US had become a leading worldwide supplier of modular flooring.
Business was good, but Anderson was deeply embarrassed when, in response to customer inquiries, he was asked to address a board meeting to clarify the company’s environmental policy. After admitting he was clueless on the issue, he was given Paul Hawken’s The Ecology of Commerce.
When we started Mission Zero, people thought we’d gone mad. It was the best decision we’ve taken Nigel Stansfield, InterfaceFLOR
One epiphany later and ‘Mission Zero’ was born, a new philosophy that would take the company away from what Nigel Stansfield, senior director for product design and innovation, calls the “take-make-waste” approach, and towards a model of sustainability.
The solution
“When we started Mission Zero, people thought we’d gone mad,” Stansfield says. “But it’s proved to be the most important decision we’ve taken.”
A company-wide initiative called Quest considered how waste and fossil fuel dependence could be reduced. Stansfield says: “We started to understand much more about the supply chain and began viewing the product in terms of impact over its whole life-cycle – and our responsibility for that.”
The company launched its Cool Carpets scheme, which gave customers the option to offset emissions from purchases. A new ReEntry programme enabled carpets to be returned for re-use and repurposing. The Evergreen Lease system takes this further. Customers lease flooring by the month, allowing Interface to maintain ownership of the product and ensure it stays in the closed cycle.
InterfaceFLOR focused on two product design principles that emerged from Quest. The first, called “Less is more”, resulted in a 10% reduction in fibre consumption in the first year of Mission Zero. Following “de-engineering”, says Stansfield, the company developed its Flatworks range, which uses less nylon while maintaining performance.
The second principle – based on the concept of biomimicry – approaches design through the study of nature. Designers were sent into the countryside to consider how nature would design a floor. This inspired the Entropy line, which fast became the company’s most popular product. As the first carpet tile to feature an entirely random design, it can be installed “as leaves would fall off a tree”, which means quicker installation and less waste – the tiles can be laid in any order and direction, and stained or worn tiles can be replaced individually.
The latest portfolio addition is Fairworks, which began life in 2004 when the company decided to develop products made from recycled or renewable, locally available raw materials, incorporating local craft influences and providing income for local people. Just, the first Fairworks product line, was launched earlier this year. It was developed in India in collaboration with the Industry Craft Foundation, which helps rural craftspeople sell their wares.
InterfaceFLOR designers worked with local experts to develop a tile made from hand-woven grass with a coconut fibre and latex backing, which Stansfield describes as “a highly technical product based in rural skills”.
The outcome
Since 1996, InterfaceFLOR has reduced its manufacturing waste to landfill by 75%. Net greenhouse gas emissions have been cut by 82%, water usage by 75% and energy consumption per unit of output by half. All energy used in its European manufacturing sites is renewable, as is 27% of global energy consumption. Mission Zero has enabled the company to save more than $372m in avoided waste costs.
The company, which employs 5,000 people and has a turnover of $1bn, is still the world’s largest modular carpet-maker and has been recognised as a world leader in sustainability. A 2008 survey of 3,000 experts by Globescan placed InterfaceFLOR first for sustainable development. In the UK, the company has recently been awarded a second Queen’s Award for Sustainable Development.
Article first published in Design Council Magazine, Issue 5, Winter 2008