What does it take to be an eco-visionary? You don't need to reinvent the wheel and you don't have to work at a Fortune 500 company—though Sarah Severn just happens to. As Nike's Director of Mobilization for Sustainable Business and Innovation, Severn is constantly weighing the details of sustainability with the bigger picture of climate change and global consequence. In our interview she tells us what keeps her going in the face of adversity, what Nike's plans are for creating a better closed loop system and why sharing technology is good for business. 

GG: What keeps you going when you experience either internal or external setbacks in achieving your vision? SS: Doing this kind of work, you have expect there will be setbacks. You don’t expect it to be a smooth pathway. Partly, that’s because we’re trying to create a different culture. Particularly if you’re working in a company, it’s about working within your existing culture, but still  encouraging people to adopt a certain perspective, behaviors and mindsets.

Once that’s done—and I would say we’re largely done with that part of it at Nike from a leadership and senior level standpoint—there will always be the individual cases where new people come in who may need to be brought along. And it’s not about coercion or anything of that nature. It’s about making sure the people in your company have a shared vision.

Externally, I think what happens is that you’ve got the same issue, except there are many more cultures you’re working with, many different points of view—some of which are extremely valid. The task is to find common ground and a pathway forward even if it’s not necessarily what your initial vision was. We’ve learnt that there is always give and take, and there has to be some compromise to get to a certain level.

That being said, you can find that if you compromise at one point that later down the line you have to re-address the issue. It’s all about dealing with human relationships. When you get down to it, it’s messy. Sometimes rational, objective arguments aren’t effective. A lot of times it comes down to how people emotionally react to things.Understanding that and coming to terms with it, as well as remembering that you’re going to need a lot of patience, is how I keep going. The ultimate object is sustainable development, so you have to stay focused on that. 

GG: We know that you went to Copenhagen in December for the UN Summit. Seeing that governments and organizations like the UN Summit have been working for decades to come up with a global agreement on solutions to the effects of industrialization, what role does the private sector need to play to help create this change?

SS: The private sector has an increasingly important role. It’s actually leading in a lot of places and doing the most in terms of moving the economy. Now, that’s not everyone in the private sector, but there certainly is a great deal of leadership in this area. There are clearly many companies that have business opportunities there and that’s part of why they’re present—new technology and new energy entrepreneurs especially.

The private sector is a large part of what will bring investment that is required. Until you have a level playing field where you have caps in place or a price on carbon, it’s still very difficult for those investments to be made. There’s just still too much uncertainty. People want to know whether they should be putting their money into a nuclear power station or in new fuel cell technology.

If you’ve spent a lot of time on the issue and you understand it well, you can do a decent job explaining issues and what business thinks they are to the politicians who may not have had the opportunity to think things through. They’re having to think through issues that they haven’t had to address in the past plus regulations and policy in the U.S.,which has just introduced legislation on a lot of this for the first time ever. Prior to that, very few of these politicians were thinking about climate change legislation. And all of a sudden they have to create a level of expertise about a subject that’s very very complex.

I think the business sector has a role in helping them understand this issues, as do the scientists, but many of the businesses have been doing work in these industries for a long time and are in the best place to explain it. It runs the gamut from education right through to investment.

GG: Can the private sector alone push governments to action?

SS: It’s not just about the private sector, it’s also scientists and civil society pushing. If we can get a combination of civil society and business working on this, we are going to see a shift. Interesting is whether or not most of that work is going to start happening at the national and sub-national levels—which has been the pathway so far. Or whether we’re actually going to be able to get some sort of global agreement. It’s very difficult. The U.S. political process is probably not built well for the way we are right now. I believe it’s going to be very challenging to get that accomplished, but it’s something we have to strive for. 

GG: Nike’s recently pushed for sharing more intellectual property and new technologies in the name of sustainability through the GreenXChange Program. What’s the purpose and hope behind this initiative?

SS: With GreenXChange, we’ve been out there saying that trying to innovate on our own and finding solutions to some of the most pressing problems in sustainable development was not working. There’s a huge gap in knowledge and expertise. And there are also a lot of companies trying to solve the same problems—we’re all reinventing the wheel. All of these things can be viewed in isolation without any sort of real effect on the system.

To us there are two main benefits. One, we need solutions to some of our problems and we think there are companies out there that might have those solutions buried away. Secondly, the pace and scale of change that we need is currently not happening right now. Those two things were the initiating points. We partnered with Creative Commons because they had already tested this out in the area of culture and art and figured out the terms of licensing copyrights.

The interesting thing is that there are two approaches. You can take your knowledge and say that anyone can access it, but the trouble with that is if you don’t track it, you can’t see where it’s being used. Knowing that can help you measure the bigger impact and the GreenXChange will enable people to share IT—and in some cases they may want to give that away to everyone. In other cases they may say that they’re happy to let companies outside of their sector use it, but that they aren’t comfortable with our direct competitors using them.  With the GreenXChange system, you can write an agreement to license the patent on that basis. You can also provide free access for academics. One of the things that we do at Nike is to free up any of the patents to automatically go through for academic purposes. That unleashes a hastened scale of innovation, but you’re also able to track them. Your technology isn’t just out there being used in ways you won’t ever know about.

GG: How does that fit in with Nike’s business model? It seems, at least on the surface, a bit anti-competitive. SS: If you look at what some companies are doing now in sourcing innovation—they’re going outside the company because they can’t get the technology they need to help them get ahead by just doing R+D within their own four walls. There are some companies doing amazing things with how they pull in entrepreneurs from different places and work with them.

Our viewpoint has been that having a competitive advantage boils down mostly to the area of timing and how long you hold your patents. So you don’t have to put everything out there on the GreenXChange. There are no requirements to put your patents into this system. You can choose what patents you put in, or don’t put in. Many of these patents may have been in existence for quite some time. If you believe they could be used more broadly by non-competitors, but you still don’t want your direct competition using it, you can write the rules that way.

Giving the choice to define how IT is used is how you get over the competitive issue.  For instance, if we put out a patent we have on a more environmentally sound rubber, it could be used in many different places other than the footwear industry. At some point we might also say that we’re quite happy for our competitors to use this technology as well, because consumers aren’t making their buying decisions based on how green the rubber is—they’re making their decision based on the design and function of the shoe. This is something that makes that possible and we think it’s beneficial for everybody to be able to do.

GG: This seems like it’s a pretty huge shift in thinking—for companies to be collaborating on various technologies and for corporate focus to be on a triple bottom line. How has your thinking evolved at Nike? SS: The thing about Nike is that it’s always been headquartered here in Oregon, where people have a really strong environmental ethic. So when I arrived in 1995, the Nike Environmental Action Team—which has since gone through many versions—had already been set up two years earlier. That team was a result of some grassroots efforts of Nike employees back in the late 1980s. It emerged of its own accord. It wasn’t mandated and that’s based on where we are. There has always been that culture here and we got into it early.

But this is a long road. It’s a long journey. Even when you do start early, sometimes you find that you just don’t have the resources out there.  Over time people have realized that this isn’t just a nice thing to do, but that it’s also a source of growth for a company and of innovation. There’s been a shift from sustainability being something that’s nice to do, and something that is focused on avoiding risk, to being a source of innovation and profitability for companies.  That happened because within the context in which we’re operating, it has become much more apparent to people that we’re in a closed system here on this planet. And we can’t continue to do business as usual when we’re faced with significant resource issues.

GG: Are there times when sustainability comes before profit margins?

SS: There’s always trade-offs. We will always try and make the business case for it. Sometimes you do have to make decisions. Let’s say there’s a bio-based material that you want to use, but there aren’t large enough amounts of it available at a good cost margin. So we would try to balance that cost increase with more efficiency to lower the overall cost. There’s still a very tight control on things like pricing, but at times that decision will be made, when it’s the only solution we’re happy with even though it’s going to be a bit more expensive. We’ll absorb those costs for a short time in order to make that happen.

Other times, the decisions are more about asking whether investing some seemingly large amount of money now is worth it because it will lower our operating costs substantially in three to four years. If you’re doing any facilities renovation, your always looking for a payback period within about three years and in some cases you might push that out if you think it’s a particularly good project.  Companies that aren’t publically held, like Nike is, have a little bit more discretion in how far they go for sustainability’s sake. But we still make a lot of decisions that make more sense on the sustainability side than the financial side.

What you have to do is look at it more from a long-term perspective. You have to weigh whether a decision looks like the right one to make considering the here and now, or whether circumstances are going to change in the future that warrant a different path. That’s why you always need to have a forward-looking agenda.  For instance take the issue of oil prices. We’ve seen them go up once, we know they’re going to go up again. We need to be doing things to reduce our dependence on oil in our entire value chains. Investing in something like wind energy, considering we’re going to see higher prices in oil over the next 20 years, makes that most likely a smart investment.

GG: What’s next on your to-do list at Nike?

SS: I’m very focused on climate work, the world of policy and intersections with civil society on that. My goal is to do a lot of work in coalitions and try to see what some of the game changing policies would look like—climate and energy obviously being the key issues at the moment—but there could be others too looking at resources like water and toxins.

For Nike, in general, our ambition is to move into a more closed loop business—where we really reuse materials back into shoes and apparel. We want to keep everything in cycles and prevent waste. We’re also looking to shift from a negative environmental impact to a positive one, where we can do things like return the water we use back to its source in better condition than when we took it out.

Sarah Severn is the Director of Mobilization: Sustainable Business and Innovation at Nike, Inc in Portland, Oregon. Sarah is also a speaker on the Eco-Visionaries Panel at GoGreen '10 in Seattle, April 21. To learn more about her work and Nike's sustainable roadmap visit: http://www.nikebiz.com/responsibility/.

GoGreen 2010 Seattle is a full-day sustainability conference geared towards businesses seeking actionable steps to greening their operations. The conference takes place April 21, 2010 at the Olive8 at the Hyatt (LEED certified Silver). Early Bird tickets are on-sale now through April 1, 2010. Tickets are $175 each for single Early Bird Full Day Admission and $150 Early Bird Full Day Admission for Groups of 2 or more. More information can be found at: http://www.seattle.gogreenconference.net/registration/

Join the GoGreen Conference on Twitter:@gogreenconf. We’re also on Facebook! Become a fan + get the latest in GoGreen and sustainable news: www.facebook.com/gogreenconference

Gabriel Scheer is a both an adept problem-solver + skilled community-builder—one whom those in the sustainability movement are lucky to have as an ally. Through his work with Seattle Greendrinks (which he founded in 2003) and Re-Vision Labs (a strategic partnering + community-building organization for world-changing projects in global development, education, government, and finance), Scheer has melded together the concepts of social responsibility and environmental activism with far-reaching success.

Today, we chat with Gabriel about the necessity of evolving how we approach "going green" and the ways we must change our lifestyles if we are both to save our planet from peril, and benefit from the economic + social opportunities that will come from such a shift.

GG: When/What was your “a-ha!” moment regarding sustainability? What drives you to make this a central focus of your life?

GS: I don't know as I had an "a-ha" moment. My parents brought me up respecting our natural environment and other people, and lived a thrifty life that naturally included recycling - both for cost avoidance (buying used/making do to avoid buying new) and for income (via aluminum cans we'd collect alongside the roads around our house). The closest thing I had to an "a-ha" was working as manager of a coffee shop and realizing there were myriad inefficiencies that could be eliminated that would concurrently save money or offer new revenue opportunities. That led me in a new direction in terms of learning and research and eventually, career.

GG: How important is the social element to winning the war on inefficiency, waste, pollution and limited resources?

GS: Crucial, of course. If people can't feed themselves, they're very unlikely to be concerned about something as remote-seeming and impossible-to-affect-personally as climate change or dying polar bears. Van Jones has, of course, led the way on this thinking, and I think he's absolutely right - we must focus on the social element of the environment if it's ever to truly become a global movement.

GG: You’ve founded not one, but two very successful organizations that connect people—have you seen a change in the public mentality on sustainability?

GS: Yes and no. Of course, green has been the new black the last 4-5 years, and it's been fascinating and exciting to see "the choir" grow to be so big. That is, years back, Seattle's "green scene" seemed to be so much smaller and more insular; that may be my perception, as compared to reality, but that perception has certainly shifted. That said, I think many people still struggle to take big ideas and belief systems and integrate them into daily living - for example, it's very easy to complain about large-scale problems and yet not make the personal changes that will likely be required to affect those problems. Needless to say, I hold myself up as an example of this paradigm; despite my many efforts to reduce my deleterious environmental footprint, my family lives all over the US - meaning I fly reasonably often.

GG: It seems that we’re pushing toward a “tipping point” in awareness + urgency to act regarding the environment. How close are we?

GS: That's a huge question; by "the environment," do you mean climate change? If so, I hope we're close. Tom Friedman has recently been pushing the idea of looking at environmental problems as economic opportunities in an effort to more effectively leverage market dynamics to environmental problems. Of course, he's been preceded in this view for ages, not least by people like Amory Lovins. I love, though, that someone as popularly read as Friedman is now pushing this view, and of course, wholeheartedly agree - I don't see climate change as a threat to our economy, but rather, am endlessly baffled by why more people - in particular, business people - aren't seeing this as an opportunity for innovation and new global leadership.

GG: What do we need to do to get to that tipping point?

GS: Make it personal - people are more likely to act when they understand the personal dimensions/ramifications of a challenge.

GG: Where do you think the major push needs to come from? From the people or from government, or elsewhere?

GS: Government can be very useful in creating a level, transparent playing field (e.g. carbon floor/ceiling/taxes) and in seeding (through funding, legislation, etc.) innovation. Business can step up and innovate, in particular, in collaboration with government. Academia is likewise poised to add significant value. Finally, people will need to change how they live - and some of those changes will save money and make life richer and more fulfilling.

GG: Why are partnerships + collaborations so effective when it comes to sustainable enterprise?

GS: Because without collaboration challenges, we often devolve to zero sum games; that is, "we're concerned about "x' problem, help us fund it/volunteer/etc." With collaborative partnerships, organizations can recognize the systemic problems, seek and attain systems-level funding, and solve bigger problems, to the benefit of all.

GG: How do social responsibility + sustainability intertwine? Can we have one without the other? GS: I'd suggest they're the same thing.

GG: What do you hope to see at the end of this fresh, new decade we’re approaching? Where do we need to be in 2020?

GS: A world that has recognized its interdependence and taken steps to build global networks capable of solving global problems in a quick and effective manner. Those challenges will doubtless still include global warming, but will also include water shortages, education barriers, health, and more. My hope is that as people connect more powerfully together, they will realize not only how similar our respective desires and concerns are, but also discover opportunities to collaborate around developing solutions to those challenges.

Gabriel Scheer is a speaker at the GoGreen Conference 2010 in Seattle, Washington. GoGreen 2010 Seattle is a full-day sustainability conference geared towards businesses seeking actionable steps to greening their operations. The conference takes place April 21, 2010 at the Olive8 at the Hyatt (LEED certified Silver). Early Bird tickets are on-sale now through April 1, 2010. Tickets are $175 each for single Early Bird Full Day Admission and $150 Early Bird Full Day Admission for Groups of 2 or more. More information can be found at: http://www.seattle.gogreenconference.net/registration/

For more information about Gabriel Scheer, Re-Vision Labs and Seattle Greendrinks, please visit: http://re-visionlabs.com/ and http://www.seattlegreendrinks.org/

Join the GoGreen Conference on Twitter:@gogreenconf. We're also on Facebook!

Writing Your Sustainability Plan was one of the most popular sessions at GoGreen 2009—and for good reason. Not only is a sustainability plan a crucial step in achieving your green goals, but James Curleigh/KEEN, Clark Brockman/Sera Architects, Mark Morford/Stoel Rives teamed up to be wildly entertaining as well. They left us with several key takeaways:

• Every industry and business is different. To achieve success, outlining a list of goals that are relevant for your situation is the important second step (the first being to decide you want to pursue a more sustainable path).
• Sometimes making sustainable decisions is easy (switching to paper with recycled content, purchasing more energy efficient equipment, etc.). Other times it's not—like when Stoel Rives removed trash cans from their lunch room in an effort to get their employees to rethink their habits. But we adapt and change to fit our environment, and most times your talent will be energized by green ventures. There is no shortage of people out there who want to work for a sustainable company.
• Have fun with going green! You're doing good things—enjoy the journey, even if it's challenging at times.

We were thrilled to see a video from the "Writing Your Sustainability Plan" session of GoGreen '09 up on KEEN's blog the other day. KEEN CEO James Curleigh joined Clark Brockman of Sera Architects and Mark Morford of Stoel Rives to discuss the crucial elements to include when integrating sustainability into your overall business model. We've got select video footage coming from the 2009 Go Green Conference in Portland, but here is your sneak peek courtesy of KEEN. Thanks guys!

Anne Weaver has been a Portland business owner for 30 years. In that time, she's pushed the home-grown Elephants Delicatessen to soaring heights as an exemplary sustainable business. With four locations, Elephants is dishing their hand-made green menu to a grateful crowd of eco-minded citizens and picking up some sustainable bling along the way. In this episode of The Green Line Series, Weaver details the advantages and challenges of being a small business with a deep commitment to sustainability, points out the importance of engaging your employees and community, and reminds us that the little things add up to big results.

GG: You’re a small business owner. In what ways does working on a smaller scale help you achieve sustainability faster than a big corporation?

AW: One great thing about being a small business like Elephants Delicatessen is that there aren’t too many layers between the people who make our fresh foods every day and those who run the company. In a large corporation it could take quite an effort for one employee to be heard, but here at Elephants everyone from the top down is interacting with all of our employees daily. This is especially important for our managers because they very quickly can let upper management know when someone has a suggestion or a great idea. Sometimes something as simple as a tiny tweak in our kitchen can equal huge returns in terms of sustainability.

We also have a Green Team that is made up of employees from all levels and departments. These team members become ambassadors of our company’s message and help spread the word throughout the company. Because we’re small, our staff pretty well knows each other by name. That is really important for us. We’re not a business where everyone sits at a computer and reads company emails. We’re working together, face to face, every day, and that means we don’t have too much of a delay from suggestion to implementation. 

GG: On the flip side, what are some road blocks to being sustainable that you’ve run into as a small business? How have you overcome them?

AW: Elephants Delicatessen is in a unique position in that we are not too small, but we’re not the big dogs either. If you’re a paper supplier and Starbucks wants a certain type of compostable cup, the suppliers can’t wait to make it happen. A business of our size can ask, but at the end of the day, the bigger account may get more attention. Instead, what we have chosen to do is work to forge strong relationships with vendors. We outline our own sustainability goals and ask them to partner with us in meeting them. 

GG: How does making your food from scratch provide an advantage to Elephants in terms of keeping things green?

AW: The closer you are to your food, the more control you have over its impact on the environment. One example is reduced packaging on the front end because we buy individual ingredients such as flour, sugar and butter. Then, we use those bulk ingredients to make our own breads, cakes, cookies and pastries. Since the finished products are made fresh daily, we use minimal – if any – packaging to transport foods to our retail stores. These simple steps save a lot of unwanted waste. 

GG: What are some of the most important, most impactful components of your business that help you be more sustainable (recycling, power conservation, etc.)

AW: In the food business, composting is huge. It sounds like such a small thing, everyone’s doing it in their backyard, right? Well, when you produce the volume of food that we do, every day, it adds up to a lot of waste. We have compost bins throughout our kitchens, and we train staff about what food waste can go into those bins.  Energy conservation is another huge opportunity for us. Through PGE’s Clean and Green program, the electricity used to power our entire operation is generated from wind farms in Oregon and Washington. We also purchase high efficiency food service equipment through Energy Trust of Oregon, and energy efficient fluorescent light bulbs from Pacific Lighting. 

GG: How viable is purchasing wind power for small businesses? Is it affordable?

AW: As we mentioned, we participate in PGE’s Clean and Green program. That means 100 percent of our power is generated from a renewable source – wind farms in Oregon and Washington. One challenge small businesses can face is determining how to make the switch to wind power when you are one tenant in a large building. We fought that fight, and we’re proud we did. We think it helps raise awareness for everyone involved.  Wind power was more expensive when we first signed up, but we assumed power rates would rise in general. We were right, and we are proud to have been among the first local businesses to pursue wind power. 

GG: Has being an award-winning sustainable business helped your bottom line?

AW: We think so. We think our customers appreciate our efforts. It certainly means that we have to put some energy into rethinking things at times, but ultimately, being sustainable isn’t a cause we’re into – it’s simply our business standard. 

GG: Going green is sometimes an overwhelming concept. Do you have to go big to go green?

AW: It certainly can be overwhelming. We have a Green Team committee that meets weekly to discuss our sustainability efforts. We can spend weeks debating the merits of one type of green packaging versus another. Ultimately, starting with a few small things can really get a team moving, though. Start with the closet full of cleaners. Do a little research and find more environmentally-friendly alternatives. Then, train your staff to use them appropriately. Before you know it, everyone in your company starts to think in the green mindset. Then, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect your employees to start coming forward with their own suggestions. We have absolutely taken advantage of how easily we are able to make changes because of our smaller size. 

GG: Do all the little things—things that businesses can add in stages—add up to dramatic changes?

AW: Absolutely. We did not start out doing all of this at once, and I’m pretty sure we’ll always have more to do. We bought an efficient machine to clean our Central Kitchen floors. It uses significantly less water and cleaning solution than traditional mopping. That may sound like a small thing, but when you think about how we clean that 10,000-square-foot kitchen 365 days a year, that adds up to a lot of savings.

GG: How did you get started making these choices?

AW: Since opening 30 years ago, Elephants Delicatessen has aimed to be a green company. Our business took off the same time as the major green movement in our area. It was a perfect match, just making sense that our business follows the regional green motto. We have made it a point to include thinking green into our decisions as business has grown. When we need a new appliance, we choose Energy Star. When we need new packaging, we research recyclable or compostable materials. As delivery business grew, we sought out alternative fuels and ways to reduce vehicle emissions on the road. Our next step is to deliver by bike. It seems there is always a way to improve. 

GG: How do you recommend other small business owners get started down a path to sustainability?

AW: Start taking action immediately. Small, simple steps will lead to bigger ones. Open the closet and check out the chemicals used in your business. Put out recycle tubs. Take away the paper cups near the water cooler and coffee pot and ask employees to use their own, reusable cups and mugs.  Companies must invest in bringing their employees on board. Think of it as a group effort. Training and spreading the word through the company has a trickle-down effect. Eventually everyone from your vendors to your clients will see your efforts. 

GG: Why is it so important for America’s small business owners to get on the sustainable side of the green line? What is their impact on the greater whole?

AW: Being green is the new business standard. Small businesses have the advantage of being close to their customers, and customers are more and more savvy about what it means to be a green business. We have to make sure our community knows we care about sustainability, and once customers are able to see a business’ efforts, we believe they’ll respond with return business. Small businesses making sustainable efforts puts pressure on larger businesses to take action. It proves that it doesn’t have to take deep pockets, just a genuine effort.

Anne Weaver is a speaker the GoGreen ‘09 Conference, October 7th, 2009 in Portland, Oregon. To hear more from Weaver and our other 40+ eco-visionary speakers on embedding your business with a sustainable commitment , register today at www.gogreenpdx.com/registration to get our early bird rate of $150 per person or $125 for groups of two or more (rates good through September 1, 2009.

For more information about Anne Weaver and Elephants Delicatessen, please visit: http://www.elephantsdeli.com

To get the latest Go Green ‘09 news, green news and innovative ideas join us on Facebook (Go Green Conference) + Twitter (@gogreenpdx)!

What does it mean to be sustainable? To be deeply green? Not to mince colors, but there's a lot of gray surrounding the green scene. With that much uncertainty, how do you go about augmenting a genuine corporate pigment? There are a million things that go into it, but one crucial element is putting as much emphasis on "the green line" as you do on the bottom line.  In the Green Line Series, we interview representatives from government, non-profits, corporations and consulting firms to get the dish on how they've put sustainability up front and center.

This week's interview is with James Curleigh, CEO of the pioneering footwear company, KEEN Footwear. Curleigh talks about the trailblazing responsibility that comes with being a young company, the importance of balance in your business model and living the Hybrid Life, both as a person and a corporation. If you are looking to start a business that has sustainability in mind from day one, his advice is invaluable. Already an established company? Learn how to take risks that will pay major dividends down the road.

GG: You came into KEEN somewhat recently and it’s a company that already has a connection to the environment. What kind of experience has that been? Has it been a “kid in a candy shop” scenario or are there challenges?

JC: We’re a six-year-old brand, and when you’re only six years old you do tend to think a bit differently. There’s a lot out there. The world is a big, bold, exciting, chaotic place when you’re a six-year-old—and you typically have way more questions than you have answers. That’s how we think at KEEN. We believe that the outdoors in any place without a ceiling. To be successful, we have to understand how to make the outdoors successful and that’s across products we make, across environmental causes and also encouraging people to get outdoors as well.

GG: We know KEEN is a brand that is publicly on the path to sustainability. We know that you’ve got a plan in place and that it’s award winning. Can you tell us about your plan and how it came to be?

JC: It started off with something that is one of our major philosophies and the position that we take as a company. We encourage everyone to live, what we call, “The Hybrid Life.”  That can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but we summarize it by saying that it’s encouraging everybody to create, to play and to care.  The create side is to create something interesting, something cool—whether you’re an artist, whether you’re a physician, whether you’re an outdoor enthusiast—that’s interesting to you and the people around you. In terms of play—just get out there and play more often. Life is serious enough as it is, so we encourage people to play. The caring side of that equation is probably the most important, and it involves considering the actions you take, and their effects on others and on the planet. Take a stance on something that you care about and believe in, and then engage and take action. That’s our definition of “The Hybrid Life.”

Living The Hybrid Life is what we try to do to encourage people and then we also bring that attitude in-house. So when we start designing products for the future, we start by thinking about the Create-Play-Care dynamic. We ask, "what is that product going to be used for?" Then we create something cool and we try to take care with the way that we design it, produce it and bring it to the market. And that means thinking about the materials we use, where the product gets made, what its end use is going to be and how the product gets places—physically. It’s not just one easy, simple solution. It’s a bit of an obstacle course that we’ve set up and run everything through and hopefully get through to the other end. 

GG: What are some of the challenges that you’ve come across in designing and implementing your obstacle course? JC: One of the challenges is that as a young brand, we tend to be pioneers on things. When you’re a pioneer, there are a lot of risks. Think about the guys with Lewis + Clark who blazed a trial out West. Do you think there were any risks and obstacles? They’d probably have said that we couldn’t even imagine the level of risk and, of course, reward that come with it.  Another challenge is that there are so many emerging solutions out there in terms of materials and the design side of things. And not everything is going to work. When you pioneer, you take risks, but those risks can become rewards. 

GG: As a young company, why do you think it's easier for you to take risks than, say, an established company that’s been around for one hundred years and wants to start down a path of sustainability?

JC: A lot of established companies have probably come at environmental and sustainability undertakings from a fear-based stance. They don’t want to get caught doing something wrong. They don’t want to get called out by the consumer. They’re nervous about what their shareholders are going to say. So they feel like they need to get somebody in there whose green and can make their company greener. And that’s where green-washing can come into play sometimes, but I’m not a believer in being cynical about companies at least putting it on their agenda and trying to do something better than what they otherwise would have done if there wasn’t a movement on sustainability.

We're able to do it because, first of all, we’re privately owned. We don’t have to talk about everything we do with shareholders. When you’re a big organization, you have to get so many people internally to believe in what you’re doing, that you end up mitigating and reducing the impact you could make into a very watered down solution. The reasons for that being because it costs money, because people don’t fully understand it and because you probably don’t have the expertise to do it.On our side, we might not fully understand it, but we can make fast decisions and we’re prepared to invest in it. That’s what separates us from the pack. 

GG: You mentioned taking care with your actions. What are some of the specific programs going on within KEEN right now that address that idea?

JC: You’ve probably heard about this “people, profit and planet” angle or if you want to put it in order, “people, planet, profit.” We take a slightly different angle. We talk about people being the community, the planet being the environment and profit being growth. With our growth, we’ve been able to set up our Hybrid Care Program. Our Hybrid Care Program supports programs beyond just the obvious in order to grow awareness for other programs to make a positive impact on the environment. That includes groups like The Conservation Alliance, The Waterkeeper Alliance, and smaller organizations like 1 Kg More. It also includes new initiatives that we’re working on, such as a project with One Revolution, who is headed by an individual trying to get to the top of Kilimanjaro for the first time unassisted. 

GG: What is your current primary goal in regards to sustainability?

JC: The main goal is to try and remain balanced. There are some companies that are so focused on being on the forefront of sustainability that they forget that the consumer is not there yet. Name one brand that 100 percent leads with sustainability and is highly successful. Who is it? Even brands like Whole Foods—which is a really interesting, progressive concept for a grocery store—they have beautiful merchandising, they have great product, they have an organic dynamic to it, but there is still a value proposition there that is interesting to the consumer without leading 100 percent with sustainability.

The important thing—at least for us—is to stay on the front end of that sustainability dynamic, but to remain balanced in the way we run our business and the way we evolve our brand and speak to people. That’s very very important. If you’re out of balance, you’re either behind the sustainability curve and you’re always going to play catch up, or you’re so far on the front side that consumers won’t understand what you’re trying to do. I could list a few brands that have done that and are no longer here or a shadow of what they thought they would be, because they lead with sustainability and the consumer isn’t there yet. We live in Portland, Oregon where the Hybrid Life consumer is all around us, but you go hang out in Cleveland, Ohio, New York City, parts of Florida, even California and you’ll find that not everybody is in that Hybrid Life movement.

GG: Tell us about the KEEN Report Card. Why did KEEN decide to go public with this kind of information?

JC: One of our values is to be transparent. Again, six-year-olds still run around naked sometimes and don’t see any problem with it. As a six-year-old brand we say, “Why not tell everyone what we’re up to? We don’t have anything to hide.” We truly want to build a relationship with our fan base beyond, “Here’s some shoes and thanks for your money.” We have to let them know what we’re doing in our world and we thought the best way to do that was to create a report card to set a benchmark for ourselves to understand where we’ve been, where we are, and more importantly, where we think we can go. 

GG: What did KEEN learn from that process?

JC: What we learned is that there are, quite literally, hundreds and hundreds of points of consideration when you put a report card together for your organization. Some of them are highly quantitative, some of them are highly qualitative and lot of them fit inside that gray area between science and art. One of the most important things you realize is exactly where you are today, which helps you focus on the areas where you think you can make the most difference in the future.

An example of that: We make some shoes with a production process called “Direct Inject,” which eliminates the need for glue. Now we have a benchmark for making 10-12 percent of our products using Direct Inject. And now we can set specific targets for making 20 percent of our products with Direct Inject within three years.  Another example is shifting your production. If 93 percent of your production is in a certain place in China, look at maybe sending some to the Dominican Republic. That could possibly reduce your environmental footprint, transportation and logistics, and at the same time help a community to thrive and survive, plus use a manufacturing process that has less of an impact on the environment. The point is that there’s not just one dimension of approach, they all roll into one another in a solution that lands somewhere between science and art.

GG: Can you have sustainability and extreme quality in the same product?

JC: I believe so. The early days of sustainability were a bit of rough start. The pioneers came in and it was probably similar to when cars were introduced. Automakers said, “I know you’ve been using this horse and buggy for a while and you’re comfortable with it. You know your horse and you know your buggy, but here’s this thing called an automobile. It’s got an engine and you can get rid of the horse.” And it didn’t work perfectly. It took people out of their comfort zone. I think what happened with the sustainability movement when it launched 10 years ago or so, was that some of the product features and benefits—apart from being sustainable—weren’t up to snuff. They cost more and delivered sub-standard performance, whether it was in fit, feel or comfort. That’s come so far in the last 10 years. The gap really has been closed and we’re seeing a lot of products out there that perform to very high standards AND have a sustainability dimension built in. 

GG: Is that sustainability dimension going to help KEEN grow as a brand?

JC: Absolutely. It’s not going to, it already is. When we’re in product meetings and when we go over to factories, we sometimes become the accidental environmentalist. We see a factory with a bunch of scrap aluminum and we ask what they’re going to do with it. They tell us they’re just going to sweep it up and throw it away. So instead, we ask if we can have it and the next thing you know, the eyelets in many of our shoes and buckles on our bags are made from recycled aluminum. We didn’t design that into the front side of our product. We saw an opportunity with some scrap material and turned it into a finished product. That’s just one way that it already is helping us in measurable ways.

Another example is our Harvest Collection bags. Those were literally rice paper bags on their way to the landfill and we turned them into re-purposed messenger bags and wallets, etc. That line has been a huge success for us.

GG: There are a lot of businesses out there that want to start on a path to sustainability. Any advice for them? Must dos. Actions to avoid at all costs?

JC: For anyone who wants to make sustainability the center point of their business or their brand, take one hour or one day in your business model and ask, “would this business or brand still thrive and survive if we don’t build a sustainable nature into it?” If the answer is yes, then chances are you can take advantage of sustainability. If you’re putting yourself out there purely on the advantage that you’re more sustainable than the next brand, expect to have some challenges getting that message across to the consumer.

James Curleigh is the CEO of KEEN Footwear and a featured speaker at the Go Green Conference '09, October 7, 2009 in Portland Oregon. To register for the Go Green Conference '09, please visit: http://www.gogreenpdx.com/registration. Go Green '08 sold out early, so make sure to sign up soon! Curleigh and our other 40+ eco-visionary speakers are going to rock your green world.  For more on Keen and The Hybrid Life, please visit: http://www.keenfootwear.com

In this episode, we sit down with Mark Brady, Sustainable Development Liaison at the Oregon Business Development Department. Mark shares his thoughts and expertise on getting local, state and federal support for your projects + tells about what Oregon’s State Government is up to on the sustainable business front.

Mark Brady is a speaker at the GoGreen ‘09 Conference in Portland, Oregon on Wednesday, October 7th. Join us for a day of sustainability inspiration and education! GoGreen ‘08 sold out, so get your tickets soon to get serious about greening your business. Visit http://www.gogreenpdx.com/registration to register.

For more information on the Oregon Business Development Department and The Oregon Way, please visit: http://www.oregon.gov/OBDD/

Carpet tiles aren’t the first thing that come to mind when we hear the words “sustainable products,” but they darn well should be. Forget bio-dynamic wine, hybrid cars, solar panels and organic bamboo for a minute and focus on the awesome reality that a carpet tile manufacturer–Interface Global to be exact–is leading the way with long-term, sustainable planning and actionable steps to becoming a eco-neutral company.

It’s pretty incredible.

Interface has a great vision when it comes to seeing the big environmental picture. They’ve spent ample time and effort cutting down on waste, finding ways to be more sustainable and investing in their people. Interface Americas Senior Vice President of Marketing–and point person for their sustainability efforts–Joyce LaValle, was kind enough to share some insights on where to start, what’s important and why we should all be re-evaluating our business plans with sustainability + equity in mind.

GG: How did your career lead you to the sustainability leadership role with Interface Americas that you hold today?

JL: Well that’s a whole long story, but let me give you an abbreviated version of it. I began working for Interface about 22 years ago. At that time carpet tile was a new concept in the American Marketplace, and so it was fascinating because it was a very entrepreneurial company with very unique idea. So I began with them—began selling—and have been here ever since. I’ve had many roles. I ran a manufacturing company, they bought a small, high-end broadloom line and I ran that, I’ve run the HR part of the business, I’ve run the organizational learning part of the business; right now I’m Senior Vice President of Marketing, but that too is a position that I’m in because as time has gone on, I’ve come to know the company very well and it’s easy to slide me into slots. If there’s an issue, it’s easy to send me because I’ve been around a long time and I know the parts and pieces. My background is not Marketing, but with all these things that I’ve done, I know the company, the culture and the sustainability story well.

I was there when the sustainability vision came. I was in sales, I was part and parcel of the group that saw this as a new horizon. My daughter has her masters in solid waste management and she was my inspiration. She actually sent me the book, The Ecology of Commerce, which through some serendipity I got Ray Anderson [Chairman + Founder of Interface Global] to read and that set a new path for Interface. I didn’t set Ray in a new direction, all I did was give him a book that then set the whole corporation in a new direction.

GG: What are some of the initiatives that Interface has put into place? Can you talk a bit about “Mission Zero”?

JL: “Mission Zero” is an outward branding. We’ve been on the path to sustainability for over 16 years now and when we started, we began with a full-blown plan to create a sustainable enterprise. And we continue—16 years later—to work the same plan. If you go on the Interface, Inc. website and look under sustainability, you’ll see the plan with seven fronts. So until about five years ago, we had been quietly working the plan and then it became clear that our competitors were talking about themselves being green and we chose to brand the journey that we were on as “Mission Zero.” It was an outward promise—along with the obvious internal promise—that by 2020 we would have no adverse effect on the earth by virtue of our business. So we took a very deep plunge to show to the people in every piece that we put out that this is our vision and “Mission Zero” is now a brand. We’re going to lessen our footprint all the way to zero by 2020 and we have plans in place to make that happen.

Now we not only sell carpet, but we bring carpet back into carpeting and backing. So lots of things have happened inside the Interface organization based on the fact that we have a strong driving—you know you could say vision, but it’s really a mission. It’s an extraordinary culture that’s here because of the path that’s been laid out, I mean there’s nobody here that isn’t on the path. Obviously it brings great personal value and satisfaction to work for a company where you make a product that is—I mean there’s no such thing today a product that’s completely sustainable—but that you work for a company that has a plan to move in that direction. It’s a very exciting. It’s a very worthwhile place to be. Our chairman speaks all over the world, he’s a recognized leader and nobody would have expected that from a small, carpet company. We do have an effect that we can bring. We educate and inspire our associates and our customers and I think we’ve had a real effect on the world by virtue of our vision.

GG: Has your experience in taking the path to sustainability proved that one can save the planet and the bottom line at the same time?

JL: Absolutely. Absolutely. Interface has been extremely successful in that. Obviously, we’re affected by the marketplace, but without sustainability as our siren call, we would have been in much worse financial condition in a number of times. Take 2001, which was the last downturn, and this downturn, we’re really weathering the storm in a very good way and we can tell you that it’s all based on that vision. And it’s not altruistic, it’s just good business. When you take the old nutrients from used carpet and make them back into new carpet, that’s a very smart business model, especially when you think about the fact that you’re no longer mining for new materials and you’re cutting yourself off from virgin materials and virgin oil. It’s actually very very smart business.

GG: You spoke briefly about the quality of people working at Interface, how big is that human element in these matters?

JL: Almost immeasurable—though we do actually take a measurement each year. The engagement factor inside Interface around our vision is more powerful—measurably powerful—than many other highly recognized companies. People are very clear on what the vision is and what the mission is and are very drawn to it. I’d also say that—well no young person would wake up and say they want to go to work for a carpet company and yet we have some of the best and brightest who desperately want a job at Interface. We only wish we had enough place for all those people. Recruiting is not an issue, because young people also want their work to be meaningful. They’ve heard of us, because Ray Anderson and about 30 others speak continuously. We are highly desired on college campuses and all of us go with great glee to campuses because, frankly that audience is pre-prepared for that conversation—they’re anxious for the conversation. It’s been quite extraordinary. It certainly wasn’t an intent, but it turns out that it really does matter to people where they work and what kind of company they work for. All the money in the world can’t buy the kind of reputation Interface has. And that reputation has been earned alongside this vision.

GG: So what’s the next step for Interface?

JL: There’s a next step that is always around and that’s innovation. We’ve also just launched an initiative called missionzero.org, which is a gift to the community; one that needs to form and would like to form and take the sustainability journey. It has no advertising. It is not a place for any business to take place, not even ours. It is a welcoming place for the sustainability vision to be discovered—not our vision, but other people’s vision. So people can find their place in that. We’d very much like that community to grow. We believe that within this community, for us, and for many others, there will be solutions discussed and we’ll have our finger on that pulse—because we’re listening for where this conversation is taking us all. Where is the next place? Again, now we can make carpet back into carpet. Our investments at Interface will continuously improve that concept. We believe there could be reclamation sites all over the country and the world, so we get close and closer to getting all the collectable carpeting back into new carpeting again. We have that closed-loop system available, now all we need to do is expand it.

GG: What are the biggest misconceptions about going green with your business?

JL: I think the biggest misconception is around providing better education for people about “green” in order for them to make good choices. Today, everybody is green, supposedly—that is if you believe everything you’ve read. So the challenge is: how do you separate the wheat from the chaff? And for a new designer or buyer, it’s not immediately apparent. Everybody kind of looks green. We know that this isn’t true, but it’s hard to be always in the leadership position because there are always many followers.

GG: What advice would you give to a business that wants to take a new direction towards a more sustainable future?

JL: I recommend them to START. And of course, I’d recommend having a plan. And if they did nothing else, and not even call it sustainability, just say in their business that they’re going to reduce waste, they can get on the path. They’ll need to expand it of course, that’s not really enough, but the one thing about reduction of waste in any corporation or company, is that if you go after waste, what you will find is money. And that will fund all the rest. But a full-blown plan about how you are going to lighten your footprint on a continual basis is what I would love for all corporations to do—and be serious about it.

For more information on Joyce LaValle, Interface Global and the Mission Zero project visit: http://www.interfaceglobal.com and http://www.missionzero.org

Joyce LaValle is a featured speaker at the GoGreen ‘09 Conference in Portland, Oregon on Wednesday, October 7th. Join us for a day of sustainability inspiration and education! GoGreen ‘08 sold out, so get your tickets soon to get serious about greening your business. Visit http://www.gogreenpdx.com/registration to register.