The innovative sustainability efforts of InterfaceFLOR, long time partner of The Natural Step, were recently highlighted in an article from Guardian Sustainable Business. InterfaceFLOR has been a leader in sustainable business as they continue to work towards their ambitous target to eliminate all of their negative environmental impacts by 2020.

To read more about what inspired InterfaceFLOR and how they implemented their sustainability plan visit the InterfaceFLOR case study.

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Randomised tile design and the war on waste campaign are just two InterfaceFLOR initiatives to eliminate waste, leading to an 80% reduction in landfill and savings of $433m

In 1995 InterfaceFLOR, a carpet tile and commercial flooring company, launched mission zero, a promise to eliminate all of its negative environmental impacts by 2020.

Born from an "epiphany" that founder and chairman Ray Anderson had on reading Paul Hawken's The Ecology of Commerce, the mission moved the company away from the "take, make, waste" cycle of manufacturing towards a more sustainable business model.

It revolutionised Interface's business strategy and today reaches into every aspect of the company's business and operations.

The path to mission zero is made up of seven clear and ambitious goals, ranging from eliminating waste and using wholly renewable energy to maximising recycling and using resource-efficient transport.

For InterfaceFLOR, eliminating waste meant eliminating the concept of waste, not just incrementally reducing it. Recycling is seen as a last resort and only considered in cases where waste cannot be prevented or reused in any way. It's an approach the judges thought eminently replicable.

"For us, waste is any cost that does not produce value to the customer, whether that's a process or scrap materials" – Ton van Keken, senior vice president of operations for InterfaceFLOR in Europe

It's the company's employees who come up with the solutions. In 1995 the company set up a waste elimination programme called Quest (Quality Utilizing Employee Suggestions and Teams) and through this, InterfaceFLOR has established cross-functional teams of employees around the world who are charged with finding ways to address waste in the company.

As a direct result of Quest, several waste-reduction programmes have been introduced at its factory in Shelf, Halifax.

The company's Vermont range of carpet tiles is a good example of its innovative approach to reducing or reusing waste and making sure products have as little impact on the environment as possible.

The tiles' random designs were invented by InterfaceFLOR and inspired by biomimicry. However the tiles are laid the patterning is random, resulting in faster installation and less waste: around 1-2%, compared with 3-4% in non-random carpet tiles and between 12-15% in broadloom carpet.

All Vermont products also include recycled material in both the pile yarn and backing. The company recently pioneered a process which re-uses post-industrial and consumer waste to make backing for new carpets.

A trademarked Cool Green machine can recycle carpet trimmings from the manufacturing process, which goes back into making backing for new carpets.

This saves roughly 2,700 tonnes of material a year from ending up in landfill or incineration through redesigning processes and products so that all of a resource can be recovered and reused, creating a natural loop.

Other measures include fitting sensors on production lines to detect seams and eliminate creasing; fine tuning machinery to deliver the correct amount of backing compounds; and installing sensors to reduce water consumption.

An ultrasonic cutting machine based on Nasa technology reduces the trimmings produced when cutting tiles by 80%, or several hundred tonnes of waste a year.

Encouraging customers and employees to reduce waste

The judges were particularly impressed with InterfaceFLOR's efforts to collect waste back from its customers.

The company's mission recognises the need to influence and involve stakeholders. Under its ReEntry 2.0 scheme, InterfaceFLOR helps customers reduce their impact on the environment by taking back carpets that have reached the end of their life and either re-using or recycling them.

Since its launch in 1995 the scheme has prevented 91,000 tonnes of carpet tiles from going to landfill. Some of the returned materials are now used to make carpet backing in the cool green machine.

InterfaceFLOR's success in getting its employees on board also made an impression on judges. Recognising that meeting the goals of mission zero demands the commitment of all employees, from the shop floor to chief executive, the company has a structured training programme that encourages staff to relate sustainability to every stage and process of its business.

On the waste side, a management programme that runs as part of Quest, trains people to look for ways to reduce or eliminate waste in specific parts of the manufacturing process.

War on waste campaign

The company has embedded sustainability within the organisation to an extraordinary degree. It influences every business, manufacturing and design decision that the company makes and is a fundamental part of it's approach to people, processes, products and profit.

Inspired by the natural step set of principles, InterfaceFLOR has developed a systems-wide approach that includes using life-cycle analysis and biomimicry in the design of its products and closing the loop in manufacturing.

But InterfaceFLOR's war on waste doesn't stop at its front door. A key focus of its mission is encouraging other companies to follow their example.

In 2010, the company launched its war on waste campaign, a call to arms to change waste legislation for the flooring and construction industry across Europe.

"InterfaceFLOR's efforts to change European legislation through its war on waste campaign are inspirational" – The Guardian judges

With no clear EU legislation, flooring waste continues to end up in landfill. It costs less to send waste to landfill than it does to recycle it and throwing waste away is seen as the cheap and easy solution in many countries. In addition, there is no law holding manufacturers responsible for their end-of-life products.

InterfaceFLOR wants a future where it's illegal to send flooring waste to landfill, and where all carpet manufacturers operate a closed loop manufacturing process, getting companies to adopt their own schemes to help customers return waste to re-enter the manufacturing process.

With support from the industry in the UK, InterfaceFLOR is set to take the battle to Brussels and push for real change in the flooring industry.