Up until a few months ago my commute back and forth to New York City, as part of my banking job, was just plain brutal. Then I discovered TED: Ideas Worth Spreading.
It was in listening to a TED broadcast by Ray Anderson of Interface that I recalled the difficult journey most businesses have to becoming sustainable. Ray and I met back in a prior business life, when starting up a new business in DuPont, Nylon Recycle Solutions. I am not sure what transformed Ray into a true eco-business man, but it’s be incredible to watch what he has done with not only Interface, but his total supply chain. Ray’s TED talk demonstrated the pay it forward notion.
While I had the great fortune to get cast in the role of business leader of skunkworks Nylon Recycle Business, there were two hero’s on the team that made the impossible happen. The first was an absolutely brilliant chemist – Peter Kasserra. Peter was a modern day alchemist who used to wow me with how he could wring the living daylights out of a chemical molecule and actually make the recyclability of nylon a reality.
Equally brilliant was the the prize fighter technical leader – Ward Metzler. Two things that DuPont Canada does better than any other company I have EVER worked with is develop the whole business person and high performing teams committed to the pay it forward concept. Ward was one of the first of that genre at DuPont Canada and demonstrated that by not only being the technical leader, but one of the best business development strategists I have had the pleasure to work with. I was proud of what we did in that brief sprint, as we did accomplished what had been thought to be technically impossible.
Here is what Ray, Ward, and Peter had in common. First, they were committed out of a sense of the “right thing to do”. Second, they had driving and SUSTAINED passion they would make it happen. Finally, I think I noted in Ray’s eyes in that TED talk the glint. It was the same glint that Ward and Peter had when they talked about the creation of the ammonolysis process, a bit like that of a proud parent.
Take a moment a learn more about how to make a business sustainable at Interface’s site. Ray was inspired through conversations he had with Paul Hawken, author of The Ecology of Commerce.
One of these days I’ll tell you about the story of Peter and I being chased in the den of thieves in Cairo. It’s about as good as the time I took David Colcleugh, CEO of DuPont Canada, watch hunting in the back streets of Hong Kong (what was I doing!).
