Meet Ray


The story is now legend; the “spear in the chest” epiphany Ray Anderson experienced when he first read Paul Hawken’s, “The Ecology of Commerce” seeking inspiration for a speech to an Interface task force on the company’s environmental vision. Fifteen years and a sea change later, Interface, Inc., is approximately half way to it’s target of “Mission Zero,” the journey no one would have imagined for the company, or the petroleum-intensive industry of carpet manufacturing, which has been forever changed by Ray’s vision. His Georgia-based company, Interface, Inc., was recently ranked number one in The Sustainability Survey, a survey of sustainability thought leaders (from across the world conducted by GlobeScan and SustainAbility). The once captain of industry has eschewed his luxury car for a Prius and built an off-the-grid home, authored a 1998 book chronicling his epiphany, “Mid-Course Correction,” and has a new book chronicling his journey, “Confessions of a Radical Industrialist” coming in September 2009. He has become an unlikely screen hero in the 2004 Canadian documentary, “The Corporation.” He was named one of TIME International’s “Heroes of the Environment” in 2007. He’s a sought after speaker and advisor on all issues eco, including a stint as co-chairman of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development and as an architect of the Presidential Climate Action Plan, a 100 day action plan on climate that was presented to the Obama Administration.

Ray on the Screen...Large and Small

CNBC: People, Planet & Profit

Tech Key to Sustainability, July 2009

So Right, So Smart

A documentary film by Magic Wig Productions, 2009

The 11th Hour

A documentary film from Leonardo DiCaprio, 2007

The Corporation

Documentary film by Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott & Joel Bakan, 2004