The flooring company Interface might not be known to the average consumer, but in sustainability circles its reputation is hard to beat. In 2000, under the leadership of the late Ray Anderson, Interface said it would eliminate its impact on the environment within 20 years. A quarter of a century later, most other large companies have still not committed to anything so ambitious.

Interface met Anderson’s goal a year early. Then, last April, it unveiled a new commitment for 2040. Trellis checked in this week with Liz Minné, the company’s head of global sustainability strategy, for an update.

From Mission Zero to ‘All in’

To hit the emissions component of its 2000 goal, which Interface dubbed “Mission Zero,” the company ratcheted up use of renewables and sourced low-carbon materials. 

It also factored in “ripple effects,” defined as emissions benefits that take place out of its value chain as a result of Interface actions. These included encouraging a supplier to provide nylon made from recycled materials — a product other companies then used — and helping capture methane from a Georgia landfill, which Interface and other companies then purchased. These two projects avoided 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, which Interface subtracted from its total. The company also purchased offsets to certify some products as carbon-neutral.

Both those tactics have been discontinued under Interface’s “All In” strategy, with the offsets spending being diverted to projects aimed at cutting emissions and storing carbon in materials it uses. By 2040, the company now wants to be carbon negative across its value chain without using offsets. (It’s worth noting that the company has not quantified the extent to which it aims to be carbon negative. In theory, it could make a carbon-negative claim the moment its emissions cross from zero to negative.)

In the near term, Interface is working towards 1.5-degree-aligned science-based targets, which call for a 50 percent drop in absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030 from a 2019 base year, alongside a cut of the same size in Scope 3 emissions from purchased goods and services and a 30 percent reduction in emissions from business travel and employee commuting.

Quitting offsets didn’t impact Interface’s emissions accounting, Minné noted. Interface used the offsets to market specific products as carbon neutral, but under the rules of the Science Based Targets initiative, which has validated Interface’s 2030 goal, they could not be counted against near-term emissions.

Carbon negative materials

It’s too early to evaluate progress toward the 2040 goal, but Interface remains comfortably on track for its 2030 targets. The Atlanta-based company is more than halfway to its goals for Scopes 1 and 2, for instance. Combined these account for just 3 percent of the nearly 400,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent Interface emitted in 2024 and, like many other companies, Scope 3 remains a much bigger challenge. But emissions from purchased goods and services, one of the hardest Scope 3 categories to tackle, have fallen by 43 percent.

Incorporating low carbon materials is one tactic behind the Scope 3 cuts. Interface has worked with a partner — Minné wou