“The recycling saves on landfill, and it also reduces the amount of energy used in a highly energy-intensive industry.”
Under the traditional arrangement, purchasers simply buy carpets and, when they are worn out, throw them away, and they usually end up dumped in landfill sites. Interface pioneered the practice of carpet leasing under its “Mission Zero” concept, whose objective is to “ensure that very creative, manufacturing and building decision we make will move us closer to our goal of eliminating any negative impact [we] may have on the environment by the year 2020.” The company leases the carpet out to customers for a yearly fee, recycling it into new product when it’s worn out. The recycling saves on landfill, and it also reduces the amount of energy used in a highly energy-intensive industry.

China – Government forecloses on unsustainable practices
Around the foreshores of Lake Tai in Jiangsu province, China, thousands of finishing, dyeing and chemical plants use the water and discharge waste water back into the lake, although the lake is also used as the source of drinking water for a wide area. In May the state of the lake became so bad that drinking water for 2 million people was cut off for several days, and in June the local government ordered more than 2,000 companies to close or relocate to avoid further contamination.

“In May the state of the lake became so bad that drinking water for 2 million people was cut off for several days…”
The case was a striking example of the impact of unsustainable business activities across environmental, social and economic aspects. As well as the environmental damage, the pollution of the lake had a substantial social impact by affecting the health and living conditions of millions of people, and ultimately had an economic price, with the closure of thousands of businesses that believed they were benefiting from the pollution in the first place.

The government’s response, and the public awareness of the event, will only add further to the growing pressure for sustainable practices in business all around the world.

“Chairman Jeffrey Immelt has pledged to make GE one of the leading companies addressing climate change.”
General Electric – Balancing conflicting priorities
As a conglomerate selling everything from aircraft engines to light bulbs, General Electric faces serious challenges in becoming a force for environmental sustainability. However, Chairman Jeffrey Immelt has pledged to make GE one of the leading companies addressing climate change.

His commitment has been met with resistance from some big customers, along the lines of “Can’t you just shut up and sell us stuff?, as well as scepticism from employees over whether carbon-dioxide emissions are a proven cause of climate change.

Immelt admits there are limits to how far he can push the company, which continues to sell coal-fired steam turbines and engage more deeply in oil and gas production. However, he is pushing ahead with a $1 million-a-year campaign to find innovative solutions to environmental challenges.

Under this “ecomagination” campaign, GE is on track to sell $14 billion of what it describes as environmentally friendly products this year, projecting that the total will grow by more than 10 per cent a year to 2010. The company also says it reduced its own greenhouse-gas emissions by 4 per cent between 2004 and 2006, while revenue grew by 21 per cent.

Hindustan Lever – Going local
The experience of Hindustan Lever, the Indian subsidiary of Unilever, in breaking into the rural Indian market for home detergents is a good example of how fresh thinking on sustainable lines can be used for clear commercial advantage.

The first step the company took was requiring all management trainees to spend six to eight weeks living in rural villages, eating, sleeping and talking with the locals. The intimate insights into the needs and preferences of the market provided by this programme were fed into the company’s research and development process, resulting in changes to products and formulas that made the products more appealing to the market as well as cutting costs.

While its leading competitor had adopted a centralised mass-production approach to the market, Hindustan Lever used the social and economic sustainability of the local communities as the key to further innovation, setting up small local factories and using local labour. As well as producing a trained local labour force, this also cut transport costs.

This strategy aimed at meeting the everyday needs of local people and taking a sustainable approach to its operations resulted in Hindustan Lever generating 55 per cent of its Indian revenue from rural areas.