The choices businesses (and, by extension, consumers) make have tremendous impacts on the environment. The amount and type of energy and water they use, the way they handle the waste they produce, the raw materials they use—these decisions affect not only business operations themselves but also Earth as a whole, especially considering the magnitude of the resources and waste that some large businesses use and produce.

Businesses that are environmentally mindful aren’t limited to simply trying to minimize their impact on nature; they can actually look to nature as an economic model from which to learn and model their choices. After all, economics—the social science that deals with how we allocate scarce resources—is not just about money. Most of the resources we depend on actually come from the environment. Environmental resources like timber and water can be considered ecosystem goods. And ecological processes like water purification, pollination, climate regulation, and nutrient cycling are essential and economically valuable ecosystem services, according to work published by Robert Costanza, an ecological economist currently at Australian National University. We take many of these services and resources for granted, but some are priceless because there are no substitutes—such as the oxygen produced by green plants, which we need in order to survive. INFOGRAPHIC 6.1

When ecosystems are intact, they are naturally sustainable: They rely on renewable resources and also provide services that help relplenish and recycle these resources. But ecosystems will only be able to provide us with their valuable goods and services as long as we let them. As Anderson came to realize, when we degrade ecosystems by using more from them than can be replenished, we threaten our planet’s ability to provide the services we need, and this ultimately threatens our own future. By using nature as a model, businesses can lessen their impact on the environment and still make choices that support a viable industrial economy.

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Like many other businesses, Interface Carpet has a large ecological footprint—that is, the land needed to provide its resources and assimilate its waste (typically expressed as hectares [ha] or acres [ac] per person or population). The ecological footprint is a value that businesses, individuals, and populations use to quantify their impact on the environment. INFOGRAPHIC 6.2

The United States, for instance, has a particularly high per capita (per person) footprint, in that it requires much more land area to support each person than it actually possesses. The country is forced to import resources from other countries and even to export some waste. In fact, if the 7 billion people who populate the planet all lived like the average person in the United States, we would need the landmass of six or more Earths to sustain everyone. According to the World Wildlife Federation’s 2012 Living Planet Report, humans use 50% more resources than is ultimately sustainable. This means that unless we stop using them so quickly, we are going to run out.

What kinds of essential resources does Earth provide us? Considered in financial terms, our natural capital includes the natural resources we consume, like oxygen, trees, and fish, as well as the natural systems—forests, wetlands, and oceans—that produce some of these resources. Our natural interest is what is produced from this capital, over time—more trees and oxygen, for example—much like the interest you earn with a bank account. Natural interest represents the amount of readily produced resources that we could use and still leave enough behind to, in time, replace what we took. Natural interest might be represented by an increase in a fish population, for instance, or new growth in a forest—basically, the extra that is added in a given time frame. INFOGRAPHIC 6.3

If we only withdraw resources equivalent to (or less than) the natural interest, we will leave behind enough natural capital to replace what we took. When Anderson spoke to his employees in the summer of 1994 about his new plan for sustainability, he stressed that his goal was to begin putting back more than the company took from the planet; in other words, he wanted Interface to be what he called a “restorative enterprise.” Up to that point, the company was using up far more natural capital in the form of resources like petroleum and water than was ultimately sustainable. Anderson realized that if we take more than is replaced, capital will shrink and therefore produce less the next year. Essentially, by taking 50% more resources than is sustainable, we are taking resources away from the future, in what eco-architect Bill McDonough calls intergenerational tyranny. When we liquidate our natural capital more quickly than it can be replaced and call that “income,” the question becomes this: Where will future income come from?

This can be an especially big problem with commonly held resources like water: Once we remove it from wells or rivers, we have to wait for the next rainfall to replenish it. When many users are accessing the resource, it can quickly become degraded if they do not work together to manage it—a tragedy of the commons (see Chapter 1).

From 1994 to 2006, Interface made major changes in order to achieve its new goals. The company cut the amount of energy it derived from fossil fuels by 55% and reduced its total energy use by 43%. It did this in part by maximizing energy efficiency in its facilities, installing skylights and solar tubes to replace artificial, electricity-dependent lighting, and installing more energy-efficient heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems. In one of its factories, Interface also installed a real-time energy tracker that displays energy use prominently for its employees to see, inspiring them to think of new ways to conserve energy. Although Interface declined to reveal how much money it invested in such improvements and technology, the company has ultimately recouped its costs in energy savings, according to a company spokesperson.

Researchers often use the IPAT model to estimate the size of a population’s ecological footprint, or impact (I), based on three factors: population (P), affluence (A), and technology (T). The premise is that as population size increases, so does impact. More affluent and technology-dependent populations use more resources and generate more waste than do less affluent and technology-dependent populations; technology allows us to build more things, dig deeper, and fly higher, all of which drain the environment. INFOGRAPHIC 6.4

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One caveat with regard to this model is that technology can have the opposite effect: Some technologies can decrease, rather than increase, environmental impact. In 2006, for instance, after deciding to become sustainable, Interface invented a new technology called TacTiles—2.5 × 2.5-inch squares of adhesive tape that join carpet tiles together. The adhesive is made from the same plastic used to make soda bottles. In contrast with traditional “spread on the floor” adhesives, Interface’s new tape does not contain any volatile organic compounds, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recognizes as a health risk. TacTiles also make it possible for customers to replace single carpet tiles easily, when, for instance, there has been a spill. Although resources are still required to make TacTiles, they present fewer health risks and produce less waste than other approaches. When technologies such as TacTiles reduce the environmental footprint rather than increase it, the equation used to describe their impact changes to I = (P × A)/T.

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In 2007, to further reduce its impact, Interface launched a major carpet-recycling initiative called ReEntry 2.0. More than 2 million metric tons (2.5 million U.S. tons) of carpet are pulled up and discarded globally each year, and less than 5% of that has historically been reused or recycled. With ReEntry 2.0, Interface developed a way to recycle carpets—both its own and those made by its competitors—to make new carpet, using only a small amount of virgin materials to do so. With ReEntry 2.0, Interface has diverted about 90,000 metric tons (100,000 U.S. tons) of material from landfills. Interface has promised to eliminate any negative impact it has on the environment by 2020, in a plan it calls “Mission Zero.”