flooring

Interface sells carpet to the tune of $1,100,000,000 each year. That is just one reason why the business world listens up when Ray Anderson speaks. Ray describes his ecological awakening as “a spear in the chest,” a wound he has used to both his company’s advantage, and the planet’s. Giving rebirth to 133 million pounds of carpet is just the beginning. Anderson and his design teams are hard at work studying nature’s delicate technologies—like the sticky feet of geckos—to make products better, cleaner, and more beautiful. Here, the founder of Interface share his insights on biomimicry, right-brain thinking, cradle-to-cradle design, and our innate “biophilia.” :...

Ray Anderson started his company, Interface, back in the 1970s to make carpet. Like any business man, he wanted to shake up the market and make a healthy profit, which he’s done, and Interface now has 17 manufacturing locations on four continents. But this is not business as usual. Not anymore. Since having a sustainability epiphany, as he calls it, Ray has starting steering Interface toward one hell of a goal: zero negative effects on the planetary ecosystem by the year 2020, a goal he admits no corporation has yet reached. TreeHugger has long found inspiration in Interface’s elegant design solutions—products li...

Not a lot can be done with concrete that has not already been done. Aside from some innovations in concrete strength, weight and lighting, concrete is what it is, hard and cheap.

Transparent House Studio is not ready to throw in the towel just yet, they just introduced a beautiful alternative to your basic sealed concrete flooring. “Concrete Art” is a beautiful way to enhance any room with pretty much any design you can think of. Contrasting the cold austerity of concrete, these floral designs are a great way to enhance any room. This design concept allows for the application of any pattern to the surface, either when pouring or afterwards when the concrete has set.

File this one in the 'how to do it right' category: earlier this week, Interface Inc., the world's largest manufacturer of modular carpet tiles, released their 2007 "ecometrics," measuring the impact of their operations on the planet. Among the impressive numbers: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are down 82 percent from the 1996 baseline, while total energy intensity (use per unit of output) is down 45 percent from 1996. In a nutshell, these numbers mean that they've learned how to make more carpet with less energy, emissions and pollution.

In addition to typical financial metrics like profit and loss, Interface began tracking their ecome...