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"The Interface Experience: Doing Well By Doing Good"
Remarks by Ray Anderson
Seattle, September 18, 2001

Ray Anderson is founder and Chairman of Interface, Inc. a $billion/yr carpet company, the world's largest. He is also one of the world's leading advocates for sustainable business. WCIT was privilaged to host Ray as part of our Roundtable on Corporate Social Responsibility.

Why do they hate us?:
I won't be opening with a joke today. I am admittedly outside my competence, but I can't just launch into a speech without somehow offering some comment about September 11th. Please bear with me.

My question on September 11th was: Why do they hate us so much? Do you understand that? Trying to understand, I went to the internet and read William Beeman's thoughts (specialist in Middle Eastern culture at Brown University). Following Beeman's lead, I think, with bin Laden, it is a religious war he is waging. He's a religious zealot and a radical among his own people, with a very different view of God - and, you might say, a different view of reality from ours. How many other wars have been fought because of different views of reality? And how many of them were also religious wars, each side sure that God was on its side? Some say this war dates from the Crusades when the West invaded the Middle East searching for the holy grail.

I read - to my amazement and disbelief - that bin Laden is not anti-American; he is pro-Islam. Others says he is using Islam to gather political power for himself. I don't know, but sincere or cynical, he has protected Islam against the Soviets (with our help -- our CIA even trained him for that), and against the Serbs in Yugoslavia. But why this vendetta, this jihad, against us?

It seems he feels we defiled Islamic religious sites in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War, and killed innocent Muslims in Iraq. He thinks of Jerusalem as sacred to Islam, too, so our presence there, symbolically through our aid to Israel, is another defilement of a sacred Islamic site: He hates the Saudis because of their pro-West stance, turning away from and corrupting traditions of Islam. For him it seems, this is all in the name of God! Certainly for his suicidal terrorists, it's a religious cause.

So, if you are Osama bin Laden and looking for revenge for the defiling of your sacred sites, what are our sacred sites, symbolically speaking and through the eyes of bin Laden? The World Trade Center, the Pentagon - the temples of money and power. That's his view of reality, his view of our sense of values, as he judges us and our infidel religion by the idols he sees us worshipping.

I understand there is a strong Palestinian element in his movement, too. So, our support of Israel further inflames this element.

To go a bit further, it is not a great stretch to say that Tuesday's events were about oil. Our presence in the Middle East, our support of the Saudi regime, the Gulf War, our support of Israel, oil - they are all connected, in our geo-political western view of reality. If we have seen anything this past week, it is the urgency of sustainability - to get beyond our dependence on petroleum, our umbilical cord to Earth in the Middle East, and find a better basis for our relationship to the region.

One weeps for the innocent people who were lost on September 11th and for those who lost loved ones or friends -- for America itself. Let us not forget also to weep for the innocent people who will die in our retaliatory raids, people who by pure accidents of birth are Afghan, or Palestinian, or Iraqi. In our prayers let us remember those unfortunate souls who, through no fault of their own, will find themselves in the way of the missles.

When the carnage is concentrated into one, two, three, or four vivid events, even captured on television for people to watch over and over, it is stunning and mind numbing. But when tragedy is diffuse, it hardly dents our conscience. The people on Earth who die of hunger or hunger-related illness in a year would fill 300 crashing jumbo jets every day! It's true: do the arithmetic -- 40 million worldwide, and practically none of it is shown on TV. Most of it is one miserable human being dying alone in some forgotten part of the world with hardly a whimper, 40 million times a year. Forty million times a year, a human being slips away, while barns in other parts of the world are bulging.

That's the way almost all environmental degradation happens - diffusely and inequitably. That's the way we are losing the life support systems of Spaceship Earth - in diffuse ways, and the poor feel it first. But, it hardly penetrates our conscience here in the rich North. The time scales are so long, so very long -- in our perception of time -- for much of the degradation - and for recovery when it happens. Carbon dioxide, once emitted from burning fossil fuels, stays in the atmosphere a hundred years or more.

As big and horrendous as the tragedy of September 11, there is a bigger one happening all around us, ubiquitously, but diffusely, so we hardly notice it.

Degredation of Spaceship Earth:
What if we could compress the time scale of environmental degradation and concentrate the tragedy the way the tragedy of AA Flt. #11 was concentrated into those few seconds of sheer terror on September 11, what would we see? I'm going to try to paint that picture. Emerson said . . . [Introduce seven overheads - how long can this go on?]

You understand, I trust, that the big square represents the passenger capsule of Spaceship Earth. So, what is the condition of our Spaceship Earth today, fellow astronauts? Here's the bottom line, and it's not pleasant: There is red ink. What I am about to say to you may be shocking, but it is factual. My researchers tell me that there has not been one peer-reviewed, scientific paper published in the last 20 years that would refute, even contradict, anything I am about to say:

Every life support system and all living system that make up the biosphere (where we and the other creatures live), that spherical shell that is 8,000 miles in diameter (the diameter of Earth) and only about 10 miles thick -- extending about five miles downward from sea level into the depth of the oceans, and about five miles upward into the troposphere, that spherical shell that contains and nurtures all life -- on a basketball-size Earth, tissue paper thin -- every life support system and all the living systems that together comprise the biosphere are stressed and in long-term decline, and the rate of decline is accelerating: Where is the red ink coming from?

Polluted rivers and streams from municipal, industrial, agricultural, and construction sources.

Polluted and over-fished oceans. Declining orca populations due to PCBs, bio-accumulating, endocrine disruptors. Fish stocks collapsing, coral reefs dying. Scuba divers know it's true.

Lakes polluted, many dead from acid rain and industrial pollution; agricultural runoff; forests, too, dead and dying from acid rain and atmospheric ozone, originating in our cities, drifting into our rural areas; affecting crop yields adversely, too. We don't think about this in our land of abundance, but it is of special importance to China. Increasing pollution from advancing industrialization will determine the balance of whether China can feed itself. A China that cannot feed itself is everyone's problem. Yours, mine, our children's, our grandchildren's, and theirs and theirs.

Disappearing wetlands -- the beginning of the food chain, that leads to us at the other end.

Devastated rainforests, a critical lobe of Earth's lungs; old growth forests (haven for bio-diversity) almost gone, mostly clear cut, destroying habitat for countless species.

Depleted and polluted aquifers. In a part of India and China falling five feet a year.

Spreading deserts.

Farmlands, denuded of topsoil, increasing in salinity from irrigation, and toxified by pesticides.

Range lands, pushed to the limit of their carrying capacity to feed the livestock which feed us.

Atmosphere, polluted by countless toxins, CO2 and other greenhouse gases building up, inexorably to create climate aberrations -- global warming; the scientific debate about global warming is over; the debate is now political. The science is clear and compelling. In science the only thing more nearly certain than compelling is obvious. The threat is real; 2600 scientists from all over the world agree; a dwindling handful hold out in skeptical disagreement. Another U.N. report recently published says temperatures may rise + 11° F this Century. The precautionary principle dictates: We must act as if global warming is real, the risk from not acting is just too great.

The Kyoto protocol, were it ratified into treaty, would make only a tiny dent in the total problem. It's only a beginning, and not nearly enough. Emissions must decline 70% for stable CO² at 2X. Many scientists are advising a strategy of adaptation. It's too late to prevent, so adapt to, drastic changes coming in Earth's climate in 21st Century, and work now to mitigate the 22nd Century. We have trouble getting serious about a time frame like that, that extends beyond our own lifetimes.

And even the stratosphere itself, beyond the troposphere in which ozone shields us from deadly u.v. radiation.

All severely stressed by man-made degradation. I know there are exceptions to be celebrated: You can now see across the street in Pittsburgh. The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland no longer catches on fire. There are eagles again on the upper reaches of the Mississippi. The Great Lakes have stabilized. In London, there are fish in the Thames at Tower Bridge. In many western countries, toxic emissions are down over the last 25 years. British Columbia's old growth forests are finally being protected. The fragility of the deserts is being recognized at last. Beach closings are down in New Jersey (for God's sake!). Clams are back in Puget Sound. But the salmon are disappearing from the rivers that feed Puget Sound.

We need many more victories to celebrate, because the general pattern worldwide is frightening and getting worse. For every positive exception, there are huge deficits on the other side of the ledger: Beijing, Shanghai, Bangkok, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Cairo, Delhi, the Amazon, the spreading Sahara, and on and on, and eventually Atlanta and Seattle. Most of those places seem far away until we remember there is only one global biosphere. One result of the stress from human intervention is that species are disappearing into extinction at a rate unknown on Earth since the mass extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. This is not good news for our species, either, because we are fouling our own nest, too. We cannot live without those life support systems anymore than the other species can, though in our denial and arrogance, we may think we can.

And . . . as if that were not enough, you can add to that list a growing nuclear cleanup that no one knows how to deal with. What language shall we use to instruct people 20,000 years from now how to deal with this legacy of nuclear waste we are leaving them? No language on Earth is that old! Plutonium is a 500,000 year problem. And to that, add one billion of Earth's people unemployed; and to that add another billion living in starvation conditions (300 jumbo jets crashing every day); and another billion hanging on by their fingernails. Half of Earth's people in trouble, subsisting on less than $2 a day, many of much less.

Two-thirds of humanity left out by the modern industrial and economic system. Social equity (attention to human capital) like the environment (attention to natural capital) is in serious trouble as we focus myopically on financial capital. We cannot escape the consequences of that misplaced focus. We witness the ravages of AIDS and we wonder, "What's next?" Notice, I have not mentioned such obvious problems as solid waste or choking landfills where so many environmental efforts begin and end.

Furthermore, especially for companies like mine, finite, exhaustible, non-renewable resources -- natural gas, coal, and oil -- Earth's stored natural capital, capital, mind you -- being gobbled up at an obscene rate, most of it burned for energy and, in the process, converted into carbon dioxide to exacerbate the greenhouse effect. And the beat goes on -- it is a crisis: the crisis of our times and all time to come.

Because it is a funeral march to the grave, if we don't figure out and do what's necessary to reverse the deadly trend. Truly, we have done a lot of damage and, actually, very quickly! What do I mean, quickly? Let me put that statement in perspective - and that diagram (How long, indeed . . .).

Time Line:
Beginning 4½ billion years ago with the formation of our planet out of the solar nebula, let's represent the 4½ billion years since then (the history of Earth) with a time line one mile long. I suppose it would go around this room 15 times.

For the first 240 yards of that mile there is no life. This place is getting geologically organized. Then life begins, with that first microscopic, single cell anaerobic prokaryote bacterium - somewhere in the primordial oceans - and survives! And life lifts itself by its very boot straps, and proliferates into mind-bending diversity, as each species through its metabolic process, aided by sedimentation and sequestration, prepares the way for the next species and the next and the next, gradually sweetening the Earth, removing the toxic hostility of that early world's atmosphere and sending it "down there" into the Earth's crust to allow a biosphere to evolve "up here". Increasing diversity of life, decreasing toxicity, a sweeter and sweeter Earth, an evolving biosphere - mutually reinforcing, finally sweet enough that we can evolve into it and survive.

Do you know when in this mile long time line we appear? In the last 7/10ths of an inch - "homo sapien sapien" emerges to rule the Earth, eventually to create the industrial age. Do you know how much of the mile long time line is occupied by the industrial age? The last .003 inch - the thickness of a human hair in a mile-long time line.

At least six times in the history of Earth, that mutually reinforcing process is reversed. Toxicity increases and biodiversity plummets. We don't know too much about the earliest events, but when we examine the last 100 yards of our time line, we see three such reversals: 260 million years ago, something cataclysmic happened. Toxicity spiked and 96% of all life on Earth vanished - the greatest mass extinction in history. But life picked itself up and the process resumed.

In time the giant reptiles came to rule the Earth, until 65 million years ago, when that comet (or possibly that asteroid) struck the Earth in the region of present day Yucatan, and toxic hostility exploded forth again to encircle the planet, and 75% of life on Earth disappeared - vanquished into extinction - including the mighty dinosaurs. If it can happen to them, it can happen to any creature that walks the earth. But life picked itself up again and the process resumed, and mammals got a chance! And eventually we -- self?named "wise, wise man" -- emerge to occupy our tiny sliver of time, 7/10ths of an inch, so far - and to create our industrial age, to bring forth into the biosphere once more in .003 inch of time the toxic hostility nature has so painstakingly put away down there. So much damage so quickly!

And the result? Seven out of 10 biologists of the American Biological Association, polled three years ago, agreed. The third mass extinction in Earth's "recent history" is underway; as we meet in this place, this day -- underway, now, as species are disappearing at a rate unknown on Earth since the last mass extinction 65 millions years ago (biologists tell us, 1,000 - 10,000 times the normal rate over that span of time). Does anyone think that is OK - not a problem for us?

All the others were the unavoidable results of natural disasters; but this one is different. It is the largely unconscious act of the highest form of intelligence yet to evolve and the fruit of that intelligence - the industrial age.

Who Will Lead?
Once one understands this crisis, deeply understands it, no thinking person can stand idly by and do nothing. Denial is alluring and seductive and natural, but when you get past denial, you know you must do whatever you can. [Book/title: Mid-Course Correction. My Story. Title suggests our Spacecraft (humankind) needs a mid-course correction.] But, what must be done? And who will lead?

In such a crisis, would you not look to your strongest institution to step up, but who? Government? I don't think so. Governments follow, they don't lead. Church? Not the church I know. Education? Too slow and ponderous. All have roles, to be sure, but can they lead?

I got my wake-up call and found the disturbing answer to this question in August 1994. My personal "Mid-Course Correction" came while reading Paul Hawken's book, The Ecology of Commerce. It was a spear in the chest for me. An epiphinal experience. I agreed completely with Hawken's central thesis, and I still agree: business and industry, the largest, wealthiest, most powerful, most pervasive institution on earth, and the one doing the most damage -- my institution, [your institution] -- must take the lead in directing the earth away from man-made collapse -- to turn us away from the abyss, to stop the mass extinction that, unchecked, will surely, in time, claim our species, too. Government, church, education all have vital roles, but if business and industry don't step up and lead -- forget it!

When all of this became clear to me seven years ago, I (a confessed plunderer of the earth), looking for leadership, felt I had no alternative but to look in the mirror. Then, I asked my people to join me and lead. "To lead what?" they asked and you may ask. To lead in pioneering the next industrial revolution, that's what! But, why? My central message to you today is that the first industrial revolution, of which we are all a part, and beneficiaries, I as much as most anyone, is not working; it is unsustainable ; it is a mistake. It began 289 in England years ago with Newcommen's stream-driven pump, which pumped water out of the English coal mines, so the miners could get to more coal to mine.

Newcomen's steam pump harnessed and turned nature on nature as never before, to exploit nature through the power of a machine. Then the Industrial Revolution just happened (more coal per man-hour, more steel, more everything per man-hour) without any plan except the invisible "hand" of the market - and it came out wrong because the "invisible hand" is also blind. The Damage to Benefit Ratio has gotten out of whack when every life support system of Earth is in decline. So, I believe we must have another and better industrial revolution, and this time we must get it right. Time is running out on industrialism as we have known it. Does this sound too radical, too outrageous? Would you rather not listen to this stuff? Denial is a whole lot easier. Would you rather not believe me; or does that sound like enough of a challenge to devote the rest of our lives to solving? It will take that and more. But will we solve it from the same mind-set that created it? Let's take a different tack and talk about that.

Intervening In A System:
Dana Meadows was one of the smartest people I have known (she died early this year). A biophysicist, an expert systems analyst, author, syndicated columnist, college professor (Dartmouth), and farmer, Dana published an elegant paper entitled: "Place to Intervene in a System." In David Letterman style, she has listed these in increasing order of effectiveness: #9, 8, 7, down to #1, the most effective place to intervene. Number 9 on the list is to adjust the numbers, more of this, less of that (taxes, subsidies, resources). Working down the list, you find such things as adjusting the regulating negative feedback loops, driving positive feedback loops, and changing the goals of the systems. However, number one on the list, the most effective place to intervene: Challenge the mind set behind the system in the first place -- the paradigm, the perception of reality, the view of reality -- if you will -- the mental model of how things are, that underlie the system. Dana says that this is the most effective place to intervene, but also the hardest.

I was quite taken by that paper, as you can tell, and thinking about it, I realized the obvious: We have systems all around us:

We have:

Our transportation systems
Our communications systems
Our computer systems
Our regulatory systems
Our production planning systems
Our systems of government
Our accounting systems
Our banking system
Our systems for managing our households
Our educational system
And . . . the industrial system that has arisen out of the industrial revolution.

An Old Paradigm:
I asked myself as I ask you: What is the mind-set - the view of reality - behind the modern industrial system? If you look at how the industrial system operates, you know it originated in another day and age, and it still views (or acts as if it views) reality as it did then. Here are a dozen examples:

1. The earth is so large. It's an inexhaustible source of materials (natural resources). We'll never run out.

2. There will always be substitutes available.

3. The earth is so large; it's a limitless sink, able to assimilate our waste, no matter how much, no matter how poisonous.

4. Relevant time frames: why, maximum, the life of a human being; more likely, the working life of a human being; sometimes, especially in business, just the next quarter; in government, the next election.

5. Earth was made for man (by God!) to conquer and rule; homo sapien sapien (self-named, "wise, wise man") doesn't really need the other species, except for food, fiber, fuel -- maybe shade on a hot summer day.

6. Technology is omnipotent, especially when coupled with human intelligence. What do you mean human intelligence? Why, left-brained intelligence: practical, objective, realistic, pragmatic, numbers-driven, results oriented, unemotional, Board Room thinking. These will suffice, thank you very much.

7. And how about this one: Adam Smith's invisible hand of the market is an honest broker; or this one:

8. Labor productivity -- increasing labor productivity -- is the only route to abundance for all. [Natural enough to think this way when people were scarce and natural resources plentiful.]

9. Happiness is to be found in that abundance, i.e., affluence/material wealth/stuff the trappings of affluence.

10. For the real estate developer: Undeveloped land is "empty" land.

11. For the business people: Business exists to make a profit.

12. For the economist: The environment is a sub-set of the economy.

A New Paradigm:
Paul Hawken's book, The Ecology of Commerce, which I read in 1994, and many others since, together with my own late-blooming common sense, have convinced me that every element of that paradigm is wrong, dead wrong; and that survival of our species, no less, depends on a new industrial system developing, the sooner, the better, based on a new paradigm -- a new and more accurate view of reality that acknowledges, for example, juxtaposed against each of those wrong elements, a new set of elements -- elements of reality -- a different world view, if you please:

1. The earth is finite, not infinite, you can see it from space; that's all there is. It is finite, both as a source (what it can provide) and as a sink (what it can assimilate and endure).

2. There will come an end to the substitutes that are possible. You cannot substitute water for food, air for water, food for warmth, energy for air, air for food. Some things are complementary.

3. Relevant time frames are evolutionary, even geologic in scale. We must, at least, think beyond ourselves and our brief, puny time on earth -- so brief -- and think of our species and the other, not just ourselves, across evolutionary and geologic time. Earth has another mile to go. Is, say, a whole inch too much to hope for our species? That is 1000 more human generations, to go with the 2500 past, for just one inch in Earth's 2?mile time line.

4. Humankind was made for Earth, not the other way around, not Earth for man, and the diversity of nature is crucially important in keeping the whole web of life (including us) going sustainably over geologic time.

5. Technology must fundamentally change if it is to become part of the solution instead of continuing to be the major part of the problem -- [construction technology in particular]. From and extractive, linear take-make-waste, fossil fuel driven, abusive, wasteful, and focused on labor productivity. To a renewable, cyclical, solar/hydrogen driven, benign, waste-free (nature), focused on resource productivity.

6. What about human intelligence? Well, the right side of the brain: the caring, nurturing, artistic, subjective, sensitive, emotional side (in business, the "soft side" of business) is at least as important as the left side, perhaps a good bit more important, since it represents the human spirit. If something doesn't feel right, it's probably not right, regardless of what the numbers say.

7. The market is not always an honest broker. The "invisible hand" is also blind. It can be at least opportunistic, it not outright dishonest, in its willingness to externalize any cost that an unwary, uncaring public will allow it to externalize. It must constantly be redressed to keep it honest and give it sight. Here's what I mean: Does the price of a pack of cigarettes, established by the market in its wisdom, reflect its cost? Not close, considering the societal costs! A barrel of oil? Of course not. Who pays for the military power projected into the Middle-East to protect the oil at its source? You do, through your taxes, and, after September 11, there's a new externality. And what about the cost of hurricanes, tornadoes, gales, typhoons, mudslides? Who pays? You do, again, through your insurance. Global warming -- 9000 sq. miles of USA will disappear under rising sea levels in the 21st Century. Who will pay those costs? Our descendants, that's who. Some have called this intergenerational tyranny, the worst form of remote tyranny: taxation without representation levied by us on generations not yet born.

8. Resource Productivity, the productivity of all resources, not just labor productivity, is the route to abundance for all. We must figure out how to put one billion unemployed people to work, conserving scarce/diminishing, resources.

9. Happiness lies somewhere other than in material things and the trappings of affluence.

10. Undeveloped land is full, teaming with life, and life must be respected.

11. Business makes a profit to exist. It exists for a higher purpose. Here, we have the contrasts: "Necessary (profit) vs. noble (purpose);" and "success vs. significance."

12. Number 12, I'll come back to it in a moment.

So, there's a problem, an immediate, a proximate problem. The life support systems of earth are in decline. Species are disappearing at a rate unknown on Earth in the last 65 million years -- 1,000 - 10,000 times faster! And we, too, as a species are threatened, ultimately in extremis, given enough time. The unbelievable, the undeniable, is true!

And there's a problem behind the problem, an industrial system that is based on a totally flawed view of reality, a discredited, disproven world view. The ultimate problem is the mind set behind the system -- the old, flawed view of reality. Six billion minds must change -- one at a time. The real crisis of our times, and what stands in the way of the next industrial revolution, therefore, is in our heads, the mind set behind the system. My friend, David Crockett (Chattanooga), calls for "lobal" change.We must get our heads straight. An industrial system based on a flawed view of reality will crash, given enough time. I'll say it again: I think time is running out on industrialism.

["Watson, you idiot . . ." Meaning: Watson overlooked the obvious, and got lost in the details of the firmament. Meaning: Tim Wirth: Don't overlook the obvious.] This is my #12: In this new world view, there is one great truth: The economy is the wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment, not the other way around. The economy is a sub-set of the environment. [Indicate Overhead diagram.]

We cannot hope to have a prosperous child without a healthy parent. Or, to put it another way: What CEO, given a subsidiary that required a constant and continual infusion of capital just to keep it going, would keep that subsidiary? None that I know, and nature is a better manager than any CEO I know, and capable of being far more ruthless if she needs to be. How long, indeed, can this go on? 1000 more generations? Not possible. 100? No way. 10? 250 years like the last 250 -- I don't think so. Then, one? Maybe. That is the time scale of the urgency.

Mid-course Correction:
You wouldn't know it from what I have said so far, but I am in the solutions business, trying to find a way out of this mess we've made, and guided by a song we sang in Sunday School when I was a child: "Brighten the corner where you are . . .".

First, you must understand the problem. The modern industrial system is destroying the biosphere. Then you realize it is all a design problem; i.e., a challenge to our creativity. I believe it falls our lot in our allotted sliver of time on Earth, to intervene in the system, to challenge and change the mind set behind the modern industrial system, to create a mid-course correction for ourselves, for humankind and for our spacecraft Earth, to heal the abuses of the industrial age, the last 3/1000 of an inch, and to design and develop a new industrial system to replace the old one, to move beyond the first industrial revolution with its extractive, linear, fossil fuel driven, abusive, wasteful technologies of the present system, to the renewable, cyclical, solar and hydrogen driven, benign and restorative technologies of a new age.

I believe we must design and build a new system based on a new mind set that acknowledges a finite Earth, a system that will put Earth's billion unemployed people to work -- people, what we have in over-abundance today, working to conserve what we have in diminishing supply, precious natural resources. This is so clear if we but apply the perspective of a species thinking in the truly long term, in evolutionary or even geologic time (at least beyond our own lifetimes), about how to live sustainably into the indefinite future on a finite Earth.

I think we can and must do both - heal the abuse and put people to work -- profitably, harnessing the power of the market to do it, but it must be an honest market. I believe we can satisfy the imperatives of the environment, of social equity, and of economics. And I don't think it has to be done balancing the trade-offs. I don't think we have to sacrifice one here to gain a bit for the other there, and hope to sort of meet somewhere in the middle with the best compromise we can devise. That is the three-legged stool that has often been used to describe sustainable development - balancing the three Es (economy, environment, equity). Trade-offs and compromise result in incrementalism. Incrementalism has brought us to where we are today, but the life support systems and the living systems of Earth are still in decline. Half of Earth's people - human beings - are destitute, and getting worse.

Am I calling for more regulation? No. We need more initiative, more innovations, more creativity.

We need breakthroughs on top of incremental progress. And new ways of thinking. We need the three E's to become mutually reinforcing and synergistic, not competing. In the next industrial revolution, which has already begun (thanks to Rachel Carson), we must get this part right. Instead of a three-legged stool, I believe we can build a three-stage rocket, in which each stage boosts the others, E x E x E = true prosperity! Building capital -- in all three of its types: financial (economy), natural (environment), and human (equity) -- in a virtuous positive feedback loop. Doing well by doing good is a better way to make a bigger profit, and move beyond success to significance.

But, how to do this? That's the question. It is a mountain to climb. In our company, since that day in August 1994, we have been trying to figure it out for our company and beginning to climb that mountain. What has become so clear is that there is a huge opportunity in "doing well by doing good." It is not only right, it's smart, and with our customers' support, we believe we can do it, and pioneer a new industrial system. [O/H -- Mt. Sustainability] [Seven faces of Mt. Sustainability.] 1) Eliminate waste, 2) Benign emissions, 3) Renewable energy, 4) Closed loop material flows, 5) Resource efficient transportation, 6) Sensitivity hook-up (communities), 7) Reinvent commerce.

I'm out of time. Mid-Course Correction lays out our plan for achieving sustainability - "zero footprint." If you see fit to read it, I welcome your critique and suggestions as to how we can get there faster. Our progress - [Overhead chart] shows a 31% reduction in carbon intensity.

Tomorrow's Child:
Why is all this so important? Here's the ultimate reason. Let me close with this personal story. If we listen carefully we can hear a distant cry from someone we know but may not have met. Let me tell you how I came to know this person. On a Tuesday morning in March 1996, I talked about all of this to Bentley Mills (one of the Interface companies) sales force during their sales meeting. A few days later, over my e-mail, totally out of the blue, came the following original poem. It was one of the most encouraging moments of my life, because it told me that at least one person in that Tuesday morning audience (and I think he surely represented many people) "got it." Here's what Glenn Thomas wrote:

Tomorrow's Child

Without a name; an unseen face
and knowing not your time nor place
Tomorrow's Child, though yet unborn,
I saw you first last Tuesday morn.

A wise friend introduced us two,
and through his shining point of view
I saw a day which you would see;
A day for you, and not for me.

Knowing you has changed my thinking,
for I never had an inkling
That perhaps the things I do
might someday, somehow, threaten you.

Tomorrow's Child, my daughter-son,
I'm afraid I've just begun
To think of you and of your good,
Though always having known I should.

Begin I will to weigh the cost
of what I squander; what is lost
If ever I forget that you
will someday come to live here too.

Glenn Thomas, ©1996

Tomorrow's Child says to us across the generations: "We are all part of the web of life. During our brief visit here, we have a choice to make: we can either help it or hurt it. The old mind-set or the new? Exploitation or restoration? Which will it be? It's your call."