How green is green?

By John Bennett

May 14, 2007

A story by Mike Tierney in yesterday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution (subscription required) investigates “green” initiatives undertaken by Georgia-based companies and some of the executives who are leading them, including Ray Anderson of Interface Carpets. Anderson spoke last April in Savannah. His lecture was hosted by the Savannah Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council and sponsored by the Savannah College of Art and Design and Melaver Inc.

Anderson’s commitment to sustainability began with an episode of intense introspection, which is described this way in the AJC story:

Ray Anderson, founder and CEO of Interface, a carpet manufacturer anchored in Atlanta, remembers fielding questions in the early 1990s from designers and architects on what internal practices were kind to the environment.

“The answer,” he recalls, “was nothing.” Or, as his lieutenant Jim Hartzfeld translated, “I am destroying life to make money.”

Invited to deliver a speech on his environmental vision in ‘94, the West Point native realized: “I didn’t have one. I started to sweat over what to say.”

He fortuitously stumbled across a book, “The Ecology of Commerce” by Paul Hawken, that bemoaned destructive business methods while offering alternatives.

“It became an epiphanal experience,” Anderson, 73, says. “We changed then to lead ourselves to sustainability and, beyond that, to restorative.”

Members of a standing room only crowd, who listened to Anderson in Savannah last year, can attest to the power of his story. He turned his personal convictions into a plan of action for his company. While Interface’s commitment to sustainability has been profitable, according to Anderson, profit clearly was not his primary motive.

But what is motivating some of the other Georgia companies who have more recently started leaning green? What about those with environmentally unfriendly reputations? Tierney covers that angle:

Energy producers such as Southern Co., which counts Georgia Power as a subsidiary, have long been branded as environmental nemeses. Georgia Power, airing commercials with a nature setting, has tried to “green up” with programs, notably allowing customers to pay a premium for the company to purchase energy made from renewable sources.

Color Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, unimpressed.

“Within the environmental community, Georgia Power and the Southern Co. are the farthest from green than any utilities we deal with,” he said. “They are extremely aggressive in opposing any sort of regulatory action in protecting the environment. … Maximum PR with minimal benefit.”

Who’s received a letter from Georgia Power inviting enrollment in its “Green Energy” program? Mine arrived today.

Posted in Energy