Thanks to the late Ray Anderson's pioneering work, his company Interface (and more specifically its carpet tiles, Flor) is something I have noticed whenever it appears in the media (e.g., see Strategic CSR – Ecocide). Although I knew the company was doing good work, however, I recently saw what I think is a first for me – a carbon negative product. To repeat, that is not carbon neutral, but carbon negative. That is, Interface's release of its most recent product/innovation stores more carbon in its production and lifecycle use than it uses:
"This carpeting was a result of four years of intensive research and development, according to Interface. It incorporated a material made from recycled vinyl and processed vegetation; it was infused with a latex created from smokestack exhaust. It was topped and tufted with salvaged nylon. And it had been manufactured in the least environmentally demanding way possible. By Interface's reckoning, the carpeting had a carbon footprint of negative 300 grams per square meter. … carpeting a 10-feet-by-20-feet conference room, say, with these tiles can be seen as the equivalent of pulling roughly 12 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere."
The challenge in achieving this is amplified when you think about how dirty carpet making traditionally has been:
"Industrial carpet tile can be thought of as a kind of three-layer sandwich, made from tufting on top, filler in the middle and backing on the bottom. In the mid-1990s, Interface calculated the carbon footprint of these layers and concluded that a square meter of the sandwich was responsible for releasing about 20 kilograms worth of CO2 into the atmosphere. Most of these emissions — probably more than 70 percent — resulted from materials and processing, and a lesser portion from manufacturing, installation and maintenance (all that cleaning and vacuuming over the course of a carpet's life adds up to significant CO2 emissions)."
Of course, I have known the technology exists for carbon sequestration, but the challenge I thought (and the article makes clear still largely exists) is in its commercial application/scaling at the product level. For example, recently there has been a lot of innovation in the production of concrete using carbon-infused materials, but companies are nowhere near carbon neutrality with that, let along carbon negative (see Strategic CSR – Concrete). As such, any discussion about the technology tends to be on a company or societal level. The outcome is also usually storing or injecting the carbon dioxide underground, whereas this process involves storing the carbon in the product itself:
"The company began using recycled components for the backing, filler and yarns, and the factories were refitted with machines that were more efficient. Pushing an Interface product to below zero, at least in carbon terms, was not about a big breakthrough … . It was more like coming up with a recipe involving hundreds, if not thousands, of changes to ingredients and techniques. Over the next two decades, the company learned a couple of things. First, by reducing its emissions and using mostly recycled materials, its tiles could approach carbon neutrality. Second, by obtaining its materials from different sources — and using them in smaller amounts — Interface could further shrink its footprint. The CO2-infused latex, which is sprayed on the carpet's middle layer, was a helpful step. The key adaptation, however, was transforming the backing. Incorporating biomaterials — forestry byproducts and plants rich in absorbed carbon — locked in high levels of carbon and canceled out the emissions related to the rug's materials, production and life cycle. In essence, Interface was creating what we usually call a carbon offset in the lowest layer of its carpet sandwich."
This is the first time I think I have seen a company calculate the carbon footprint of a product and announce that it is negative. For the author, this story revolves around the larger issue of "carbontech," which he defines as:
"… trying to 'embed' large amounts of carbon within commercial merchandise. … Advocates of carbon utilization, or carbontech, as it's also known, want to remake many of the things we commonly use today. But with one crucial difference: No emissions would have been added to the environment through their fabrication."
The article provides multiple examples of different startups trying to develop technologies that will revolutionize some of the dirtiest industries and products we have developed (such as concrete), and also using market-based ideas to hasten the speed with which carbontech is advanced (such as pricing and trading carbon dioxide, rather than treating it as a waste product, at present). The article is also clear that this is not a silver bullet, but should be thought of more as an innovative means to help us transition from our current unsustainable, fossil-fueled economic system to a future (and as of yet undefined) sustainable economic system.
Take care
David
David Chandler
© Sage Publications, 2020
Instructor Teaching and Student Study Site: https://study.sagepub.com/chandler5e
Strategic CSR Simulation: http://www.strategiccsrsim.com/
The library of CSR Newsletters are archived at: https://strategiccsr-sage.blogspot.com/
Better Living Through CO2
By Jon Gertner
June 27, 2021
The New York Times Magazine
Late Edition – Final
27-33, 61
