In the midst of a global financial crisis, can we still afford sustainability? As a matter of fact, we can't afford not to, argues Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface, Inc.

---

Milton Friedman was at the heart of it, but a generation of economists and bankers have blindly followed his mantra: "Business exists to make a profit." Today, we find ourselves with an opportunity to reconsider that flawed credo the fundamental mindset that underlies the global financial system. I'd like to suggest that it is time to heal the broken business model based on the first Industrial Revolution, a "take-make-waste" linear model that has contributed mightily to the crisis we find ourselves in today. You might be asking, "What does the global financial meltdown have to do with sustainability?" And I would say, quite a lot.

Trust is earned by competence and good character. And so it just might be that Milton Friedman was dead wrong, and the enlightened economist would now accept this new view of reality: "Business makes a profit to exist, and must surely exist for some higher purpose."

How about concern for the common good as a higher purpose? How does the common good relate to sustainability? The answer is, in countless ways. A big, profitable factory that spews toxic chemicals into the biosphere is pretty much the same as a big profitable investment bank that spews toxic mortgages into the global financial community. Each of them can show a healthy balance sheet for a while, but the bill always comes due in the end.

So the link between trust and confidence (on one hand) and sustainability and character, (on the other), reflected in good corporate citizenship and concern for the common good, is quite clear. And the effect of the absence of the link is proving to be overwhelming.

Bernard Lietaer, a Belgian economist who helped create the euro, also chairs a non-profit that advocates changes in currency to realign sustainability and global financial interests. Bernard says we need to look to natural eco-systems for the model for redesigning and balancing, thus optimizing, the trade-off between resilience and efficiency in the financial system. Eco-systems specialize in self-organizing resilience, based on diversity.

How interesting! That's the same place my company, Interface, Inc. has looked for its guide in redesigning an industrial company. It begins to look and sound a lot like sustainability to me.

At Interface, our now fourteen year journey to sustainability has proven to be a better way to bigger, more legitimate profits. Sustainability in all its forms, from the personal to the corporate to the national to the world at large, is and must be, our collective "better way." But at a time of crisis, can we afford to pay attention to something as esoteric sounding as sustainability?

We cannot afford not to. I think we re in the early days of a New Industrial Revolution, where enormous opportunity is waiting for us. But where do we begin? How do we pick up the pieces of the old, unsustainable business model and generate new jobs, new wealth, and a new economy? Here s a beginning:

We have homes to insulate.

We have energy-efficient appliances and industrial machinery to invent and sell.

We have benign chemistry to develop to eliminate toxics from our waste streams and products.

We have recycling technology to invent, build, install, and operate to get rid of the waste streams and give precious energy intensive molecules life after life.

We have unlimited, renewable power from that marvelous fusion reactor eight minutes away (at the speed of light) to tap into and distribute from one end of our country to the other.

We have a world waiting to buy our renewable technologies.

We have hybrid and all electric vehicles to pioneer, to breathe life into our auto industry, and bring back skilled jobs that pay good wages.

We have a financial system to re-think and re-design.

We have a leadership vacuum to fill.

You may be familiar with my story. The story of how, in 1994 at age 60, I steered my company on a new course one designed to reduce our environmental footprint while increasing our profits. I wanted Interface to be the first corporation in history to become truly sustainable; to shut down its smokestacks, close off its effluent pipes, to do no harm to the environment, and to take nothing from the earth not easily renewed by the earth. We aimed to turn on its head the myth that you could do well in business or do good, but not both. Our goal was to prove by example that you could run a big business both profitably and in an environmentally responsible way.

An impossible dream, said some. And today we are two-thirds of the way up that high, high mountain, the metaphorical one we call "Mount Sustainability." Will the way ahead to the summit be difficult? Certainly. Impossible? Not a chance. And . . . if we can do it, anybody can. If anybody can, everybody can.

That is our challenge. That is our opportunity. It s time we all got to work to find for ourselves that better way.

____________________

Ray Anderson is a leading pioneer in driving world-wide business innovation for sustainability. His company, Interface, Inc., is working to eliminate negative environmental impact in the petroleum-intensive carpet manufacturing industry.Hear Ray Anderson speak live at Sustainable Brands International!