index > New Ideas for the Earth > A Win-Win Solution for All

A Win-Win Solution for All

Businesses can make money while making people and the earth happy

In the United States there is a carpet company called "Interface." Interface makes carpets that are used in office buildings and hotels. Normally, when these carpets got old, they were thrown away.

One day, the president of Interface realized that throwing away all these old carpets was very wasteful. "This has to stop!" he thought. "We keep taking more and more resources from the earth to make our carpets and our customers just keep throwing them away!" He thought about this problem for a while and came to the conclusion that Interface should stop selling carpets.

"What?" you might say, "That's it?" What happened to the company? Did Interface simply decide to stop selling carpets and shut down? Well, don't worry. That's not what happened. In fact, after the president decided to stop selling carpets, Interface became even bigger and more successful company.

Interface changed its image from just a carpet company to a company that "provides carpets that create a comfortable and at-home atmosphere."

Interface changed its policy from selling carpets to renting carpets to customers. The customers could get a new carpet and when the new carpet became old and worn, they could contact Interface and exchange the old carpet for a new one. When the old carpets were returned to the factory, they were broken down and recycled into new carpets.

As a result, Interface changed from being a "product-based" company to a "service-based" company. Thanks to this change, there were other positive outcomes, too:

1. Interface's materials cost went down. Because the old carpets were being recycled into new carpets, the amount of new materials the company was required to buy decreased.
2. Garbage disposal costs decreased.
3. Due to a new demand in the company for carpet-layers and carpet-maintenance staff, Interface was able to create new jobs within the company, and business grew.
4. Interface became known as an environmentally-friendly company and attracted new customers--eco-conscious companies and hotels.

Interface's business and number of customers boomed and with this, so did the staff's happiness. Interface's customers were happy too because they were always provided with beautiful new carpets and were happy to know that the old carpets didn't have to be thrown away. Carpet production requires a great deal of nylon and petroleum. Once Interface started recycling its carpets, it became unnecessary for the company to use such a large amount of these resources. The amount of garbage produced by old carpets was also reduced. So this made the earth happy too!

And so, in the end, Interface, its customers and the environment all became happier.

Send your opinion

Please let us know what you think about our website.

Is the information interesting?
Are some words or sentences too difficult for you to understand?
Do you have any ideas to improve the website?

We might share your advice with our volunteers and supporters.
They will be encouraged by your feedback.

Please note in the text box below if you don't want us to share your comments with our staff.

Thanks for your help!