Creating a Climate Fit
For Life

How can we create a climate fit for life?

We need to start the path to reversing global warming by changing how we think. Many solutions exist and others are rapidly coming online. We believe we can reverse global warming if we focus on four key areas:

1. Live Zero – Do business in ways that gives back whatever is taken from the Earth.

2. Love Carbon – Stop seeing carbon as the enemy, and start using it as a resource.

3. Let Nature Cool – Support our biosphere’s ability to regulate the climate.

4. Lead Industrial Re-revolution – Transform industry into a force for climate progress.

We've identified businesses and organisations that are taking action for climate change on these fronts.
Find out what they're doing below.

Live Zero

It’s the very definition of sustainability: doing business in ways that give back whatever they take from the earth.

For Interface, this is expressed as Mission Zero® and it’s become our business as usual. With a bulls-eye focus on taking only what can be replaced, we’re accelerating toward our 2020 goal and transforming from a company built on oil to one built on renewable energy.

For other organisations, like London's Heathrow airport, it means paving the way for "sustainable flight" while engineering ways to become a Zero Carbon Airport. And for municipalities like Yakushima, Japan, it means generating energy solely from renewable resources.

Love Carbon

It’s time to stop seeing carbon as the enemy and start seeing it as a resource. We must help this building block of life do the job nature intended.

At Interface, we are actively exploring raw materials that use waste carbon or sequester carbon to make our products. In fact, we've created a prototype of our first carbon-capturing tile.

And we’re doubling down on monetary support for research to fuel these processes. As an original funder of Project Drawdown, we’re investing in technological, ecological, and social solutions to bring about the reversal of global warming.

Of course, changing our relationship to carbon isn’t something that can happen in isolation. For its impact to really be felt, it will take the collaboration of many partners. We take inspiration from others like Carbon8 and New Sky.

Lead Industrial Re-Revolution

There’s no doubt industry has been a force for human progress. But the unintended environmental consequences of industrialization have been severe. What’s needed now is industry that works with nature, not against it, and creates new business models to drive positive change.

We know this to be powerful because we have a history of creating new models. Programs like our Net-Works™ initiative, which sources material for carpet tiles from discarded fishing nets, show what can be accomplished when new thinking is applied to materials sourcing. Not only do the old nets get a new life, the villagers who collect them enjoy a cleaner environment and a new measure of economic independence.

Meanwhile, organizations like Science Based Targets are helping companies set measurable goals to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, non-profit organizations like Architects Advocate are trying to change industry from the inside.

Let Nature Cool

Nature has the power to regulate the climate, but only if humanity doesn’t get in the way. Right now we're interfering with the Earth's regulation systems by polluting our air with excess carbon and undermining life’s ability to regulate the climate. We need to change our business practices and allow nature to do its job: cool.

Interface is exploring new practices that allow our factories to run like ecosystems. Our pilot program, Factory As A Forest, aims to find a way to go beyond doing less harm and actively do more good.

In parallel, innovations from companies like Urchinomics and BioCarbon Engineering are helping to rebuild and preserve forests on land and in the ocean. And, initiatives like the Living Building Challenge are shaping the way we build healthy and livable communities for the future.