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Earning kudos: some companies do everything and more to ensure the safety of their workers and the people in the neighbourhoods in which they operate.

Article Excerpt
Ray Anderson, founder of Interface, had an epiphany brought on by the book The Ecology of Commerce (ISBN: 0887307043) by Paul Hawken. Mr. Hawken wrote: "To create an enduring society, we will need a system of commerce and production where each and every act is inherently sustainable and restorative ... Just as every action in an industrial society leads to environmental degradation, regardless of intention, we must design a system where the opposite is true, where doing good is like failing off a log, where the natural, everyday acts of work and life accumulate into a better world as a matter of course, not as a matter of conscious altruism."

Ray Anderson and many others have taken this advice to heart and are creating corporations that are also socially responsible. Mr. Anderson plans to take carpet manufacturing to new sustainable heights, and serve as a model for the industrial world. His international company has established Mission Zero whereby "Every creative, manufacturing and building decision we make will move us closer to our goal of eliminating any negative impact our flooring and fabric companies may have on the environment by the year 2020."

The company's plans include eliminating waste and toxic emissions, using renewable sources of energy, and creating a business culture that combines sustainability and profit.

Likewise for General Electric, which announced a new climate policy in 2005, called Ecomagination. Over the last two decades, the company has fought several legal battles, including charges of environmental pollution. GE has long been criticized for dumping toxic waste into New York's Hudson River, for example. In 1999, the company agreed to pay $250 million to the United States, Massachusetts,...

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