Kennesaw State hosted the director of the Ray C. Anderson Foundation on the Marietta campus Wednesday, Sept. 25, to inform students how companies can be more efficient when it comes to protecting the environment.
John Lanier was asked to speak at the event in order to help celebrate the start of a new chapter of the Climate Reality Project, which has been established on the Marietta campus.
The event was held at the Design 2 building on the Marietta campus to inform students about the establishment of the new chapter of The Climate Reality Project. Lanier spent most of the segment talking about the climate and how businesses can be doing more to help protect and strengthen the environment.
He also described that his business has been at the forefront of climate awareness ever since his grandfather had an environmental realization in 1994.
Lanier’s grandfather, who founded Interface, was faced with a dilemma as customers in California wanted to know what Interface was doing for the environment, and he needed to find the answer.
Lanier’s grandfather would go on to reinvent the company as a champion of environmental awareness.
The company grew as a carpet production business that has spent millions of dollars in research and development to find a way to make their carpets as recyclable as possible to lessen the impact they have on the environment.
Lanier explained how this was done by starting with asking customers to have the old carpet sent back to the company. After that, Interface would break the carpet down as much as possible.
“The company has reduced their carbon footprint by 60 percent since their baseline year, with 88 percent renewability,” Lanier said.
Since the KSU chapter of the Climate Reality Project is still fairly new, co-chair Emily Harrington said not many plans are set in motion, but they are preparing to add more events and projects next year with a larger group of students.
The KSU chapter and other chapters across the nation “bring together Americans of all backgrounds and walks of life to push for practical clean energy solutions in their communities and fight the fossil fuel agenda on the national stage,” according to its website. “Chapters give members the opportunity to draw on Climate Reality’s support and expertise, while creating and executing their own plans for climate action at the local level.”
The Climate Reality Project exists to catalyze a global solution to the climate crisis by making urgent action a necessity across every level of society,” according to its website.
For more information, visit The Climate Reality Project website.
