🌐 Interface is Going Carbon-Negative (No Offsets Necessary)

But first… 

Last week’s newsletter about Amazon stirred the gamut of reader reactions.

“This is an excellently written article on an excellently chosen topic!!”
“Thank you for putting this one in my inbox.”
“This is so disorienting—is this sponsored content?”
“Nice ad, Besos, but you still suck!”

We all understandably hold different views about a company so deeply integrated into the modern economy and our personal lives.

To be clear, we don’t take payment to write about the companies, organizations, or cities we profile. We pursue stories and data on how the low-carbon economy is scaling up, the playbooks accelerating that shift, and the insights applicable across sectors.

We covered Amazon because the scale of its sustainability infrastructure is unmatched. And a localization strategy that reduces carbon per package while increasing delivery speed? We had to unpack it.

Some read that story as an endorsement. It’s not. Supercool doesn’t “approve” companies. We spotlight how climate adoption spreads.

Today’s example is a different kind of scale. 

The company isn’t Amazon. The ambition is even greater.

Interface Locks Away Carbon in the Flooring Beneath Your Feet.

You won’t find a tree-planting campaign or a limited-run capsule collection.

You will find 400+ styles of carbon-negative carpet tiles—already installed in offices, schools, hospitals, and airports around the world.

Interface, the billion-dollar flooring company, is on track to become the world’s first carbon-negative enterprise.

No offsets. No shortcuts. Just a full-scale operational strategy to eliminate emissions across its products, factories, and supply chain.

• Supplier emissions cut 42% since 2019
  

• Factories run on 80% renewable energy
  

• Materials designed to store more carbon than they emit
  

• Every claim backed by third-party lifecycle data
  

Interface calls the strategy All In on Carbon. It’s the blueprint for how decarbonization scales.

The Spear in the Chest

Ray Anderson founded Interface in LaGrange, Georgia, in 1973. A petroleum-based carpet tile company in a conservative region, with a singular purpose: profit.

That changed in 1994 when a customer asked what Interface was doing about sustainability. Ray didn’t have an answer.

Then, The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken landed on his desk.

Reading it, he felt what he later described as “a spear in the chest.”

From that moment, Interface committed to becoming not just profitable, but a pioneer. It set in motion one of the most important and improbable corporate sustainability transformations.

Today, Interface is publicly traded on the NYSE with $1.3 billion in annual revenue. Its mission is bolder than ever: eliminate carbon across the business and go fully carbon-negative by 2040.

The Interface Playbook: All In on Carbon

Interface’s climate strategy follows a four-part framework:

• Avoid what you can

• Reduce what you can’t avoid

• Store what you’ve already captured

• Inspire others to follow

In 2020, Interface launched three carbon-negative carpet styles.

Today, that number is over 400.

“Once we knew that we could be carbon negative without offsets, we said: let’s accelerate those activities and stop investing in the offset market,” Liz Minné, Head of Global Sustainability Strategy, told me.

“All In” is more than a mission. It’s measured across Scopes 1, 2, and 3—and embedded in how Interface designs, sources, manufactures, and sells.

Interface also committed to hitting its Science-Based Targets (SBTi) by 2030—a global benchmark that ensures emissions are falling fast enough to align with the 1.5°C climate pathway.

And they’re almost there already. “We set a goal to reduce [purchased goods and services] by 50%. And we are now at 42% as of our 2024 data,” Liz said.

1. Materials: Design with Carbon in Mind

“More than 82% of our emissions come from the materials we use,” Liz said. “That’s where we had to focus first—it’s where the impact lives.”

The largest material impact? Nylon.

“We had identified that yarn was the biggest part of our impact,” Liz said. “So Ray went to our key yarn suppliers and asked: how do we move this to recycled?”

Some suppliers dismissed it. One even laughed.

But Aquafil said yes.

Together, they developed ECONYL®—a 100% recycled nylon made from industrial waste, discarded carpets, and salvaged fishing nets. It’s also infinitely recyclable, making it a foundation of Interface’s carbon-negative products.

Aquafil’s investment paid off. ECONYL not only anchors Interface’s flooring, but it’s also now used by iconic global brands like Adidas, Prada, Gucci, and BMW.

“Our competitors are using it. We're not keeping this material,” Liz said. “It’s had this ripple effect beyond our borders.”

Next came the backing. Interface paired ECONYL with its proprietary CQuest™ BioX—a bio-based, carbon-storing material made from industrial waste.

The result? A cradle-to-gate, third-party verified carpet tile with a net-negative carbon footprint.

In 2020, they launched with three styles. Today, there are over 400.

2. Production: Removing Carbon from Factories

Interface focused on three things:

• Maximize energy efficiency

• Shift entirely to renewable power

• Turn waste back into inputs

“We are always trying to get more and more efficient as a business,” Liz told me. “Because it has the dual effect—you use less energy, and you also pay less.”

Factories now run on 80% renewable electricity. Manufacturing waste is reprocessed into raw material. Product design reduces production demand and extends product life.

Interface continues to align carbon, cost, and performance.

3. Data: Measure What Matters

“The hardest part is getting the data,” Liz said. “You can set ambitious goals, but unless you can measure, you won’t know if you’re moving in the right direction.”

Interface tracks Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions in real time. The dashboards now operate like a carbon P&L—giving teams visibility into progress across energy, materials, transport, and more.

In practice, it looks like:

• Teaching a supplier to run their first lifecycle assessment

• Adding employee travel to a vendor’s emissions log

• Confirming whether freight was included in reported Scope 3 totals

“When we talk to customers like Amazon or Salesforce, they want to know the data,” Liz said. “They want to see the LCA; they want to know the methodology. It’s not enough to say we’re carbon negative—we have to show the numbers.”

“Our progress is helping them on their journey as well,” she added. “That’s been an important piece of how we’ve continued to grow.”

That’s what turns carbon accounting into customer trust.

4. Supply Chain: Push the Playbook Outward

Twelve suppliers account for nearly 80% of Interface’s Scope 3 emissions.

That concentration makes deep partnership not just possible but essential.

Interface works directly with its top suppliers to:

• Redesign materials

• Improve data tracking

• Share best practices for renewable energy and carbon reduction

The Aquafil partnership proved the model. It’s now expanding: Interface announced the world’s first carbon-negative rubber tile prototype earlier this year.

“Rubber is a more carbon-intense product,” Liz said. “That took even more work, and we’ve been at it a lot less time.”

5. Culture: The Superpower

“You don’t join Interface by accident,” Liz said. “People choose to work here because they want to preserve a better future.”

More than 3,000 people work at Interface. Many have been there 20 to 40 years. That longevity builds internal knowledge, shared behaviors, and shared commitment.

It’s also what sustains the mission through leadership changes. Sustainability isn’t a department. It’s the operating system.

“No one rolls their eyes when I walk into a meeting,” Liz said. “It’s not ‘oh, here comes sustainability.’ It’s, ‘OK, how do we solve this together?’”

🌐 Supercool Takeaway

Those who say capitalism and climate can’t co-exist haven’t been paying attention to Interface.

Scaling carbon-negative products already puts it among the most transformational companies on the planet.

But Interface is going further—on track to become the world’s first global carbon-negative company.

That signals something bigger: the future can be profitable, beautiful, and restorative.

This Week’s Podcast Episode

Interface is Going Carbon-Negative (No Offsets Necessary)

🎙️ Listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and all other podcast platforms.

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Stat of the Week: 80%

Over 80% of emissions in manufacturing come from Scope 3—the value chain. That’s suppliers,  freight, materials, and a product’s end-of-life. It’s where most of the carbon impact resides—and where most companies look the other way.

Interface doesn’t:
✅ 85% of their footprint comes from raw materials
✅ They redesigned them to store more carbon than they emit
✅ They launched ReEntry, a global take-back program that lets customers return used carpet tiles to be reused, recycled, or repurposed into new products
✅ They’ve cut supplier emissions by 42% since 2019

Quote of the Week:

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Related

One Material. 1,900+ Brands. Zero New Petroleum.
ECONYL® nylon began as an experiment in closed-loop chemistry. Today, it’s a staple across industries—made from waste, not virgin petroleum. Fishing nets, industrial scraps, and discarded carpets are transformed into high-performance nylon that’s chemically identical to virgin material, but with up to 90% fewer carbon emissions.

This is what circular design looks like out in the world:

👜 Gucci

The Gucci Off The Grid collection uses ECONYL® for luxury backpacks, sneakers, and travel accessories—pairing high fashion with regenerative materials. Yeah, that’s her; the indomitable Jane Fonda.

👓 Prada

 From eyewear to its Re-Nylon line of bags and outerwear, Prada turned ECONYL® into a centerpiece of its brand-wide push toward circular luxury.

🧥 Tommy Hilfiger

The brand’s Regatta jackets now include ECONYL®—designed for style and circularity, even in transitional outerwear.

🚗 Maserati

Recycled ECONYL® nylon lines the interiors of Maserati’s latest models like the Grecale Folgore (above)—blending high-end design with low-carbon materials.

⚡ Polestar

Polestar integrates ECONYL® into interior trims and floor mats—part of its goal to create a climate-neutral car by 2030.

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Where Supercool traveled this week:

Article:

🌐 The Cool Down: Game-changing startup offers new way to get high-quality secondhand clothes: 'The consumer would prefer'

Podcasts:

🌐 AwesomeCast: Climate Tech That’s Actually Working with Josh Dorfman

🌐 TeacherCast: Building a Sustainable Future: Josh Dorfman on Climate-Friendly Construction

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