In memory of a true sustainability leader: Ray Anderson, Founder of Interface

Submitted by The Natural Ste... on August 10, 2011 - 11:25am

Ray Anderson, the founder of Interface and the world’s most famous sustainability expert in the business community, passed away on Monday after a battle with cancer.

Ray generously offered The Natural Step and me personally his friendship and support some 15 years ago. He called himself a pupil of The Natural Step, inspired both by our way of systematic strategic thinking around sustainability and by the principles which he used to define sustainability for Interface. But at The Natural Step, we certainly consider ourselves his pupils when it comes to responsible, inclusive, faithful, humorous, humble leadership—one that brought soul into business.

Ray showed that it is possible to take a big competitive corporation working in the old un-sustainable paradigm, create a new sustainable vision of a restorative corporation, and then have the boldness and unwavering commitment to systematically move step-by-step toward that end goal—one that he called the Top of Mount Sustainability. Ray gave us all hope and his legacy will be forever.

It was a great privilege to be his friend and colleague for so long and he will be sorely missed.

Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt
Founder, The Natural Step

***

A selection of other tributes to Ray Anderson: