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Interface reconstituted its Dream Team, “a collection of experts and friends who have joined with me to remake Interface into a leader of sustainability,” as Anderson wrote in the company’s 1997 sustainability report.The original team included Sierra Club executive director David Brower; Buckminster Fuller devotee Bill Browning, then with the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI); community and social activist Bernadette Cozart; author and entrepreneur Hawken; Amory Lovins, RMI co-founder and chief scientist; L. Hunter Lovins, RMI’s other co-founder; architect and designer William McDonough; John Picard, a pioneering consultant in green building and sustainability; Jonathan Porritt, co-founder of Forum for the Future; Daniel Quinn, author of Ishmael; Karl-Henrik Robèrt, founder of The Natural Step, a sustainability framework; and Walter Stahel a resource efficiency expert. (Additional members would be added over the years, including Biomimicry author Janine Benyus.)

One example is Net-Works. Launched in 2012, it helps turn discarded fishing nets into the raw materials for nylon carpeting in some of the world’s most impoverished communities.

But Ray Anderson’s sustainability vision was always about more than just a “green manufacturing plant.” He wanted Interface to be a shining example, an ideal to which other companies could aspire, a test bed for new ideas that stood to upend how business is done — and, not incidentally, an opportunity to stand above the crowd in the world of commercial flooring.Climate Take Back is the noise the company wanted to make.

BioBased Xorel

create the world's first bio-based interior textile that doesn't compromise performance, value or aesthetics.

In 1981, Carnegie introduced a polyethylene (PE) textile under the brand name Xorel that, at the time, was one of the few healthier alternatives to vinyl (PVC) for interior panels, wall coverings and upholstery. Thirty years later, that product has received an eco-friendly update with the launch of BioBased Xorel, an interior textile made from plants.

Today, McDonald’s announces that it will begin purchasing verified sustainable beef in 2016, the first step on a quest to purchase sustainable beef for all of its burgers worldwide.

The land management initiative led the company to commit to source-only palm oil certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil by 2015. All of its fish worldwide come from fisheries certified by the Marine Stewardship Council. McDonald’s requires its suppliers to source 100 percent Rainforest Alliance certified coffee for its espresso in the United States, for all of its coffee in Australia and New Zealand and all of it in Europe except for decaf.

Langert says McDonald’s isn’t yet ready to commit to a specific quantity it would purchase in 2016, or when it might achieve its “aspirational goal” of buying 100 percent of its beef from “verified sustainable sources.” (The company only will say, “We will focus on increasing the annual amount each year.”) Realistically, it could take a decade or more to achieve the 100-percent goal.