Mount Sustainability
It's higher than Everest, says the Atlanta businessman who, more than any other capitalist, has been scaling it for more than a decade. And he says time is short before humankind plunges into the abyss.
October 31, 2008
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W
hen you're driving down the road at 70 mph and come upon a blind curve, you slow down.
That's the precautionary principle at work; the risk of not changing your approach far outweighs
the cost of changing. Sure, it costs a little bit of time to slow down, but the risk of not slowing
down is enormous.
"We are destroying the earth. It is finite, in terms of what it can supply and absorb. Instead of thinking about today, tomorrow, next month, next year or even the next five years, let's think in evolutionary time. There is no way human beings can go on for another 1,000 generations the way we have for the last 10. No. Way."
More than any
other businessman in the world, Ray Anderson, founder and chairman of Interface Inc., has been at
the forefront of sustainability and the environmental movement, as it relates to free enterprise,
for more than a decade. His story of conversion to sustainability is well-known; the "spear in the
chest" epiphany he experienced when he first read Paul Hawken's The Ecology of Commerce, seeking
inspiration for a speech to an Interface task force on the company's environmental vision. And how
he has led Interface -a manufacturer of modular and broadloom carpet, and panel and upholstery
fabrics, and a company as heavily dependent on natural resources as any other - more than halfway
toward Mission Zero, the company's promise to eliminate any negative impact it may have on the
environment by 2020.
Now, 14 years, hundreds-of-papers-read and more-than-1,000-speeches-given later, Anderson sat down with Editor Tim Darnell to discuss sustainability, whether global warming is a man-made hoax, Atlanta's recent gasoline shortage ... and the reindeer of St. Matthew's Island.
Were you in Atlanta this past weekend when all the gas stations were closed?
Actually, I was in upsate New York at a retreat. I drove my Prius to work this morning.
When you passed by those long lines at gas stations, what went through your mind?
I'll tell you what goes through my mind; those long lines were all because of a hurricane that was very intense. Now, why was it so intense? Why are the Gulf waters so abnormally warm? It can't be just happenstance; there has to be some cause and effect.
Every year, we humans in our global technosphere are emitting greenhouse gas measuring 10 billion tons of carbon, which translates into 37 billion tons of carbon dioxide, CO2. Three-fourths of that is remaining in the atmosphere, and the earth is sequestering about one-third of that. The sequestration capacity of the earth is declining; oceans are warming, and the same way a warm Coke won't hold its fizz, the warm oceans release CO2. As the CO2 levels increase, the oceans become acidic.
The atmospheric content of CO2 is increasing two-to-three parts per million every year. We're at 385 now; during pre-Industrial Revolution times, we were at 280. Next year, we'll be at 387 or 388; the year after that, 390 or 391. The scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) say 450 is a critical point, because we'll then see increases in the earth's temperature of 2˚ C or 4˚ F. That will trigger positive feedback loops that will feed on themselves, and we'll see catastrophic climate change.
You've said that 14 years ago, your customers began asking you, what was Interface doing for the environment; what was its environmental policy. Why do you think you began hearing that question at that specific point in time from so many people?
It was because a tiny handful of people had found their way into the architecture and community design professions who had the sensitivity to love the outdoors. It wasn't everyone asking that question; it was a small group who began asking that recurring question.
But soon after, that same group got together and formed the U.S. Green Building Council. In 1995, it was fledgling organization, and when I made a presentation to the group's third annual meeting in Big Sky, MT, I counted the number of people who attended - 135, including Jane Fonda.
Just 12 years later in Chicago, more than 22,000 people signed in; an estimated 40,000 showed up. That's a growth curve to die for. It's the most amazing movement you'll ever see, and the fastest-growing organization I've even been part of.
And the LEED certification effort has become mainstream, and it's being driven by the same people who were asking those questions of us. When I began to speak on this issue publicly, the audiences were generally the environmental movement, which was big already. But over the last 13 years, the audience has become primarily businesspeople. This is an example of the power of the people - the customers, the voters - and who are hearing the same message from their customers.
When [GE Chairman] Jeffrey Immelt commits to doubling GE's clean technologies' R&D budget from $750 million to $1.5 billion, with the expectation of doubling his revenues from $10-$20 billion a year in the sale of clean technologies, he's not doing it for altruistic reasons. He's heard his customers say, "You have to do this. We want these clean technologies." Hawken says it's the fastest-growing movement on earth, comparable to the growth of religious extremism ... which is an interesting dichotomy.
At one of our BTB events, one speaker said there is no scientific evidence that global warming exists.
There's no question it exists. The evidence is abundant. More than 2,000 scientists make up the IPCC, and every report is grimmer than the last, and the actual results are always worse than the reports, which are conservative themselves. Anyone who says what you just said is telling an absolute lie.
Maybe it's because his or her company is dependent on natural resources for continued profitability and even survival.
That's exactly where we were 14 years ago. But we didn't turn a deaf ear of denial to what we read and heard. I read both sides; I read the side you're talking about, the side that said: there's no problem; everything's getting better.
Ninety-seven percent of what goes through the global industrial system is material taken from the earth and deposited as waste. Only 3 percent has any value, six months later. So our industrial infrastructure is a waste-making machine, wasting the earth and destroying the biosphere in the meantime. We're digging up the earth and using it for waste.
Now, where do you look for leaders on an issue of such magnitude? The church doesn't get it. The educational system is way too slow. Government? Governments don't lead; they follow. The only institution on earth powerful, wealthy and pervasive enough is the one doing the damage, that being business and industry. I took that very personally.
So we've had a vision ever since, a vision of climbing Mount Sustainability, a mountain higher than Everest, and at the top is zero footprint: operating a petro-intensive company that takes nothing from the earth that isn't renewable, with zero environmental impact.
What do you say to a CEO of a company who's totally obsessed with keeping the organization profitable, with making next quarter's numbers, who has to answer to a very demanding board? How do you convince that CEO to buy into this when there is no immediate, short-term ROI?
As we studied this mountain, we didn't just jump onto it. The first face of the mountain, for us, was to attack waste, and eliminate the very concept of waste.
And we define waste very broadly. It's more than scrap, more than any off-quality product. It's anything we don't do right the first time, and we measured ourselves against absolute perfection. We found 10 percent of the sales dollar going down the drain, most of it allowable and expected, and we said, "No more." We are striving for zero waste. Find a use for that scrap that's going to a landfill. We've saved $372 million over the last 12 years on that face of the mountain alone. It was an immediate quick win for us.
And we took some of those savings and invested into R&D, searching out renewable energy sources. We built a photovoltaic system in California. The accountants told us that in no way did it pencil. But in fact we won a big contract with the university system on the basis of that plant. If you ask the accountant, "Does this pencil?" He says no, and then you ask the marketing people, was this a good investment? I guess it was!
Without a doubt, this business model is a better one. Our costs are down, not up, which dispels the myth there is some sort of tradeoff between the environment and the economy, if you go about it smartly.
By 2007, we had reduced our net greenhouse gas emissions 82 percent since 1996. The business is two-thirds bigger, having survived the deepest, longest recession in our industry's history, and profits have doubled. That two-thirds growth makes that 82 percent become 90 percent in terms of carbon intensity. That's the magnitude of the change that has to happen in global economy; the global technosphere has to reach 90 percent reduction by 2050. Here we are, a petro-intensive company, and we're at 90 percent reduction in carbon intensity. If we can do it, anyone can. If anyone can, everyone can. What's needed besides the willpower? Strong signals from the market will drive industry faster than anything.
Are you optimistic?
I think there will be an awful lot of pain before we humans shed our hubris and come to grips with reality. If the rest of the world lived the way America lives, we'd need five earths. That's not an exaggeration; that's an absolute fact.
From a domestic political standpoint, there's the mindset that rejects the Kyoto Protocols. It says, we're the most powerful nation in the world; we have the highest standard of living in the world; we've freed millions of people from tyranny and repression; and we protect millions of people. Is it realistic to think the American political demographic will ever accept curtailing our standard of living?
I can answer that question with a question. Would you say there's a lot of happiness in America?
Now we're getting into an individual, spiritual realm.
We can produce everything we produce today, with more efficiency, and less impact on the earth. There are fortunes to be made in developing the new technologies of this new industrial revolution: the solar revolution, the hydrogen revolution, the carbohydrate revolution. All of this lies before us, and there are fortunes to be made just like during the first industrial revolution in 1712.
The earth will endure just so much. In 1944, someone decided to introduce reindeer to St. Matthew's Island, which is in the Bering Sea. There was a weather station there, I think maybe operated by the Coast Guard, and the idea was if supplies got short, the men stationed there could go out and shoot a reindeer for dinner.
So 29 reindeer were brought in. There were no natural predators, and the reindeer proliferated. Now, the scientists originally had calculated the island's carrying capacity of reindeer at 2,000. In 1966, there were 6,000. Three years later, the population was 42. That's collapse. And that's a metaphor for the earth.
Hawkens' central point is, only business and industry can lead. But over the years I've modified that to say, unless business and industry lead, it is over for humankind. We are in system of destruction; it digs and drills up the earth, converts it to stuff, and what's left ends up as waste. We are making a waste heap of the earth. Biodiversity is plummeting; any biologist will tell you we're in a period of mass extinction rivaled only by loss of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
There are three terms that scientists use: carrying capacity, overshoot and collapse. The earth has a carrying capacity for us humans, and our global footprint network says we're already exceeding that capacity by 25 percent and climbing. And overshoot leads to collapse.
Life University Goes Green
Life University in
Marietta is going beyond the typical initiatives aimed at making college campuses greener. Life
aims to plow up its open parking lots and replace them with green space, with students and staff
walking or biking to classes.
This summer, Life broke ground on a new student housing and parking complex. Dr. Guy Rickeman, Life president, says the facility will include 300 housing units, a day care center, café, post office, banking and a parking deck with 600 slots. When the deck is completed, Life will replace its current open asphalt lots with grass and develop weather-protected walkways connecting all the buildings on the 100-acre campus. The university plans to give each new student a bicycle to lessen automobile emissions on campus.
Life was one of the first 75 institutions to sign the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), in which the colleges agreed to reduce their carbon footprint to zero percent through a variety of "green" initiatives. Several Life campus buildings have already undergone reconstruction in compliance with ACUPCC. Other initiatives underway include a rainwater recapture system and a "living green wall" that will help cool the Center for Health and Optimal Performance.
When Life signed ACUPCC in February 2007, says Nita Allen, administrative assistant to the president, "we committed to a green campus and reducing our carbon footprint." She says all construction projects will meet the Gold LEED standard, including "green" building and energy conservation standards. "The new student housing and parking garage, when completed, will enable us to have more green space," another key part of the ACUPCC pact, she adds.
When Life's architect was looking at plans for the campus, says Dr. Shawn Ferguson, a Life board member, "he told us that while other colleges grow buildings, we grow parking lots. There's a lot of asphalt here." Ferguson says Life wants to concentrate parking on one side of the campus, convert the existing parking lots into green space, and build covered walkways. "That's better than driving between buildings to change class, as we had to do when I went to school here," he says.
Life leaders understand that having new buildings comply with LEED and other "green" standards do not add that much to the cost of new construction, although renovating existing buildings can be expensive. "We're told it adds 3 - 5 percent to construction costs, and you can recoup that through energy cost savings fairly quickly," Provost Brian McAulay says.
- Bobby L. Hickman
Georgia-Pacific: Built On Sustainable Principles
Bill Frerking, VP and chief sustainability officer, says the company views sustainability from three dimensions: societal, environmental and economic. "We take the term 'sustainability' to mean meeting the means of today without jeopardizing the future. We're a global business, so we need to understand how our business impacts the world in which we operate, both the benefits and any perceived detriments."
The company's presence in wood products led G-P to use renewable biomass energy early on, Frerking says. "We currently obtain 53 percent of the energy used in our manufacturing operations through renewable biomass." The company burns tree bark, limbs, sawdust, chips and other residuals to generate electricity as well as steam for its manufacturing processes. U.S. Energy Department statistics indicate
G-P makes up more than 10 percent of the national biomass market, he adds.
Recycling is another major area of activity. The company recovers wood fiber from gypsum board and pegboard, and recycles it through G-P's operations. Harmon Associates, a G-P subsidiary, recycles almost eight million tons a year of paper, making it the largest trader/broker of recycled paper in the world.
"These are all things we've done over time because they made good business sense to do," Frerking says. "They're in the long-term best interest of our business."
G-P also has undertaken a number of initiatives that target sustainability. One is a packaging systems optimization program, a service G-P provides to help its packaging customers modify their packaging processes. During 2005-2006, Frerking says, "we made recommendations that reduced fiber usage in our customers' packaging by 40,000 tons. Not only did that save fiber and trees on the front end, but the energy savings along the supply chain (such as manufacturing and delivery) totaled almost one billion BTUs of energy."
A model for how G-P
approaches sustainability is the enMotion automatic paper towel-dispensing product, which is used
at the World of Coca-Cola, Georgia Aquarium and Hartsfield-Jackson. Consumers wave their hands in
front of an enMotion, which dispenses a section of paper towels.
The system is popular with individuals (who no longer touch dirty surfaces) and the companies that lease enMotion machines. Frerking says G-P can demonstrate that someone who leases the machine will buy and use less paper. He adds the product "combines societal value with environmental stewardship and money savings. And it's a more profitable product for us. We sell less paper, but we make more money on a per-unit basis."
G-P also has taken steps to improve the sustainability of its corporate campuses in downtown Atlanta. Those include turning off non-essential lighting during night and weekends; automatically powering down computer monitors, printers and copiers during idle periods; efficient lighting; and subsidizing MARTA ridership. James Malone, a G-P spokesperson, says a headquarters recycling program recovered 115 tons of waste paper in 2006 and 202 tons in 2007.
- Bobby L. Hickman
Skanska And The Streets Of Buckhead
When construction company Skanska USA decided to consolidate its Atlanta employees into one location, it retained Jova/Daniels/Busby as master planner/architect for its new headquarters. Skanska
USA's headquarters had expanded haphazardly through the years. Goals for the project included reduced expenses and improved employee comfort, health and productivity.
Skanska's new headquarters at Allen Plaza covers 35,000 square feet, much less than the previous 85,000 square feet on multiple floors in multiple buildings. The facility received the LEED Gold Certification this past summer. The project incorporates such features as natural daylight; environmentally friendly carpets, paints and other materials; and using regional materials to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Similar approaches are seen in the Streets of Buckhead, a $1.5-billion mixed use real estate project under development by Ben Carter Properties LLC. The project, located in the former Buckhead Village area, covers nine acres spanning multiple city blocks. The first phase is due by fall 2009 and includes luxury retail, restaurant, residential, hotel and office space. The walkable city streetscape will have more than 80 shops and restaurants covering 600,000 square feet.
To tackle sustainability issues and work toward LEED Silver status, the owners retained CxGBS (Commissioning and Green Building Solutions), an Atlanta engineering and architectural firm. H. Jay Enck, CxGBS CEO, says the firm is involved in projects from initial design through operation of buildings years after construction is completed.
Enck says the Streets of Buckhead project particularly focused on energy and water use efficiencies. The project is 21-percent more energy efficient that current code requirements, he says. Factors helping to accomplish this goal include increased insulation in the building envelope; a heat pump system for each unit of the project; high efficiency interior lighting; and demand-based ventilation. The latter system increases or decreases the ventilation rate based on the number of occupants and CO2 levels present in a building.
The project also went beyond the usual approaches of efficient plumbing features to reduce potable water use and wastewater output, Enck continues. "The water table is high in that part of town and water in that aquifer is contaminated," he says. "Instead of just throwing that water away, they're treating it and feeding it into the heat pumps' cooling towers, replacing potable water that would otherwise be used for the towers."
Enck says CxGBS uses a holistic commissioning approach to integrate sustainability into projects. "The process ensures sustainability is being delivered in a realistic and economic fashion," he adds. "It all has to make economic sense."
- Bobby L. Hickman
UPS: Optimizing Operations For Efficiency
UPS "looks at sustainability as a balance between economic, environmental and social factors," says spokesperson Elizabeth Rasberry. While many companies mainly focus on environmental issues, she says, "We see as much value in balancing environmental and economic initiatives."
The company's 2007 sustainability report outlines key performance indicators in both social and environmental areas. Social factors include reducing auto accidents and time lost due to injuries. On the environmental side, "We have the largest private 'green' fleet in the entire transportation industry," the report stated. "Since 2000, our alternative fuel fleet traveled more than 144 million miles making deliveries to homes and businesses."
Rasberry says UPS is constantly tweaking its operations to improve performance. One area that gets considerable attention is route planning for UPS' delivery vehicles to reduce fuel usage. "We've been doing this for years but in the past, it was manual. Now we have sophisticated technology that does that for us." Simple approaches, such as reducing the number of left hand turns, bring big results, Rasberry adds. "Last year we saved more than three million gallons of gas and shaved 29 million miles off our routes."
Rasberry says the efficiency changes are found throughout UPS, such as modifying airplane routes to allow them to land using less fuel. "We've optimized the entire network," she says. "Whether you have a package coming by ground or if someone sends it next-day air - whether it's coming from Kansas City or Paris, coming to your home or your business - it all comes to you on the same network and is delivered by the same driver." That approach allows UPS to be more efficient than competitors, saving fuel and reducing emissions.
- Bobby L. Hickman
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