What We Do
Our Goals
Getting There
The Interface Model
Ray's Story
Transferability
The Natural Step
Milestones
Milestones
Our Initiatives
ISO 14001
Suppliers Results
Getting There | The Natural Step

We must understand the basic laws of nature and how they will affect the future of Interface and all companies. Just as we watch for long-term trends that could adversely impact our employees and shareholders, we have studied the consequences of our continued assault on nature and have determined that unless we change, we may be responsible for catastrophic losses to ourselves and others. Interface is committed to shifting from linear industrial processes to cyclical ones. To do this, we need a compass to guide us, and a set of tools to help us. The Natural Step provides the compass and the tools.

The Natural Step is an international non-profit advisory and research organization working to accelerate global sustainability. Started in Sweden in 1989, under the leadership of Dr. Karl-Henrik Robčrt, The Natural Step's teachings are rooted in four fundamental principles of science. Based on the principles of physics, we can derive four conditions that need to be met to maintain life on the planet and the quality of living systems on Earth.

Sustainability is fundamentally about maintaining human life on the planet and, thus, addressing human needs is an essential element of creating a sustainable society. Therefore, one of The Natural Step's principles of sustainability is to meet human needs worldwide.

The other three principles focus on interactions between humans and the planet. They are based on science and supported by the analyses that ecosystem functions and processes are altered when:

  • Society mines and disperses materials at a faster rate than they are re-deposited back into the Earth's crust (examples of these materials are oil, coal and metals such as mercury and lead);
  • Society produces substances faster than they can be broken down by natural processes, if they can be broken down at all (examples of such substances include dioxins, DDT and PCBs); and,
  • Society depletes or degrades resources at a faster rate than they are replenished (for example, over-harvesting trees or fish), or by other forms of ecosystem manipulation (for example, paving over fertile land or causing soil erosion).

The Natural Step's sustainability principles, also known as the minimum "conditions" that must be met in order to have a sustainable society, are as follows:

       In a sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing:
  1. concentrations of substances extracted from the earth's crust;
  2. concentrations of substances produced by society;
  3. degradation by physical means; and, in that society. . .
  4. human needs are met worldwide.

The Four Systems Conditions for Sustainable Human Society According To The Natural Step:

1. Eliminate our contribution to systematic increases in concentrations of substances from the Earth's crust.

This means substituting certain minerals that are scarce in nature with others that are more abundant, using all mined materials efficiently, and systematically reducing dependence on fossil fuels.

2. Eliminate our contribution to systematic increases in concentrations of substances produced by society.

This means systematically substituting certain persistent and unnatural compounds with ones that are normally abundant or break down more easily in nature, and using all substances produced by society efficiently.

3. Eliminate our contribution to systematic physical degradation of nature through over-harvesting, depletion, foreign introductions and other forms of modification.

This means drawing resources only from well-managed eco-systems, systematically pursuing the most productive and efficient use both of those resources and land, and exercising caution in all kinds of modification of nature.

4. Contribute as much as we can to the goal of meeting human needs in our society and worldwide, going over and above all the substitution and dematerialization measures taken in meeting the first three objectives.

This means using all of our resources efficiently, fairly and responsibly so that the needs of all people on whom we have an impact, and the future needs of people who are not yet born, stand the best chance of being met.

We encourage you to visit The Natural Step's web site to learn more about these principles.