Costs are down, not up - those waste savings dispel a myth by exposing the falsity in the idea that businesses must make a choice between the environment and the economy. A surprising two-thirds of the company's greenhouse gas reductions have come from cost-reducing efficiencies.

Interface products are widely recognized in a competitive industry as cutting-edge - not only environmentally but aesthetically as well. The move toward sustainable design, especially biomimetics, which refers to creating designs that mimic those in nature, has produced a wellspring of innovation and products that would never have been imagined 12 years ago. Interface designers routinely ask themselves such esoteric questions as: How would nature design a floor covering? How does a gecko cling upside down to a ceiling? From such questions have come some of the most strikingly successful products in the history of the carpet industry.

The people of Interface are galvanized by the shared higher purpose of sustainability. Better people are applying; the best people are staying and working with purpose. In my 51 years of working in this industry, I have never seen anything equal to sustainability as far as attracting, motivating, and bringing people together.

And the goodwill of the marketplace is just astounding. No amount of advertising or marketing expenditures could have generated as much, or meant as much, to sales and the bottom line as the public's goodwill has - as impossible as this might have seemed in 1994.

Perhaps the most amazing result is that this initiative has produced a better business model, a better way to bigger and more legitimate profits. It is a business model that outcompetes its competitors in the rough-and-tumble of the marketplace, but not at the earth's expense or at the expense of future generations. Rather, it is a business model that includes the earth and generations not yet born in win-win relationships.