Mba Focus Paper- Interface

Unit 2 (Individual) MBA Focus Paper

Hattie Morse

Kaplan University

Leadership Strategies for a Changing World

GB600-02NA

Professor Schiro

October 26, 2010

Ray Anderson is the founder and chairman of interface, Inc. His company manufactures commercial floor coverings for 110 nations with plants in 6 counties, which makes it the largest of its kind in the world. This man as an revolutionists has lead this industry towards sustainable products and processes. “His petrochemical-intensive $1.5B company is profiting from their commitment to zero waste, throughout their supply chain,” (The Paula Gordon Show, 1999). After reading, “The Ecology of Commerce, Mr. Anderson dedicated his company to the vision of creating a way in which they would maintain the earth instead of causing more harm. Keep in mind prior to reading this book, he was just like everyone else, very content to only comply with law on environmental problems.

Within four years of this vision, Interface has managed to save around 80 million dollars just in eliminating waste. Ray Anderson’s two part definition of sustainability requires that companies take nothing from the earth that is not renewable and do no harm to the biosphere. His key to getting this started was by eliminating waste. How, by the redesign of the company’s products and processes by ensuring everyone focused on sustainability. “Mr. Anderson describes the next Industrial Revolution as a mountain with seven “faces” to be scaled:

* Reduce waste, which pays for all the rest

* Permit only benign emissions and cyclical processes throughout the supply chain

* Close the loop on recycling/reclaim molecules now in landfills

* Drive all processes with renewable energy

* Use the most resource efficient transportation possible while planting trees to offset the inevitable carbon transportation creates

* Interface plants a tree for every 4,000 passenger miles its people fly on commercial jets...