Ray C. Anderson

Ray Anderson is founder and Chairman for Interface, a multi-billion-dollar carpet maker. In the mid-90's Anderson read a book entitled "The Ecology of Commerce," which changed the course of his life and his company.

I read on and was dumbfounded by how much I did not know about the environment, and the impacts of the industrial system on the environment—the industrial system of which I and my “successful” company were an integral part. A new definition of success burst into my consciousness, and the latent sense of legacy asserted itself. I got it. I was a plunderer of Earth, and that is not the legacy one wants to leave behind.
...For nearly 11 years, now, we have been on this mission; we call it, “climbing Mt. Sustainability”, a mountain higher than Everest, to meet at that point at the top that symbolizes zero footprint—zero environmental impact. Sustainable: taking nothing, doing no harm. I have told that story in far greater detail in the book I published in 1998, entitled “Mid-Course Correction”. Its title is intended to represent my own personal mid-course correction, my company’s, and the one I would wish for humankind. And especially its industrial system. And especially its industrial system, and a component of it that is dear to many of us: the built environment.

Speech delivered at the World Trade and Convention Centre in Halifax on June 23, 2005

Ray Anderson is featured heavily in the DVD for "The Corporation."
Some regard him as a hero.