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Date
A recent article on GreenBiz caught our eye for as couple of reasons. We’ve always been advocates of Ray Anderson, founder of Interface Global, the world’s largest manufacturer of commercial carpeting. Because the carpeting manufacturing business is so fossil fuel intense, we were particularly impressed with Ray’s efforts to reach 100% sustainability by 2020 by climbing “Mount Sustainability” for “Mission Zero” and included his company in our book as one of those who were “At the Top of Their Game.” While Ray has passed on, his legacy is very much alive. To hear more about Ray Anderson and his philosophy click here.
The article in GreenBiz is about Interface sharing some pointers on how they are achieving sustainability. Being fishermen, what caught our eye was their partnership the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) to address a major problem we’ve seen firsthand, the abundance of discarded fishing nets and nets affect on the oceans fish and wildlife. A couple of years ago, one of EarthPM founders was instrumental in the rescue of an injured Harp Seal that washed up on a beach in southern Maine. The conclusion by the fish and wildlife biologist involved in the rescue was that the seal had been caught in nylon net around its mouth and while it was now free of the net, the fabric caused some abrasions around the seal's mouth casuing an infection. The seal was taken to the Mammal Stranding Center in Woods Hole, MA and was successfully treated and released back into the wild. The problem is not only here in New England, but also worldwide, particularly in some of the poorest nations. Therefore, the Philippines was chosen for the site of the pilot project. From “Turning Old Fish Nets into New Carpet” by Julie Stein “This is a good place to begin since the Philippines is considered the centre of the centre of marine shore fish biodiversity, and Danajon Bank is in the centre of the Philippines. Formed over 6000 years ago, it is one of the few documented double barrier reefs in the world. The discarded fishing net problem is acute here. The Bank sprawls across nearly 130 kilometers and it is estimated that the nets discarded each year here could cover the length of the Danajon Bank 400 times over.”
Interestingly enough, the nylon used to make some of the fishing nets is the same as the nylon used to make carpeting. It doesn’t seem to be much of a stretch to think that the net nylon can be recycled into carpet fiber.
It might be that the original project, designing and manufacturing efficient and effective fishing nets, could have benefited from the long term approach we advocate. In other words, perhaps the project could have been made more successful by thinking of the ultimate disposal of the nets during the upfront planning, thereby having the recycling effort in place when needed. We know that is a little controversial as the traditional project management thinking is that once the project is handed over to operations (steady state) that the project manager’s job is done. We advocate a slightly different philosophy, one we believe is more sustainable, but that’s a discussion for another day.
To return to “Net-Works,” as the pilot effort in the Philippines is called. It also addresses the triple bottom line: people, planet, profits in that the project seeks to protect the fragile reefs, provide local jobs during the cleanup effort and by using recycled material, help Interface’s bottom line. As we see it, it is a win-win!
Posted
by
Dave Shirley
on: September 12, 2012 12:20 PM |
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