Interface’s renewable energy strategy will reduce the energy demands of Interface processes whilst substituting nonrenewable sources with sustainable ones. The strategy exists in three parts -
Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy and Climate Neutral offsets.

Energy Efficiency

Our first emphasis is on efficiency - to drive our usage of energy to its absolute irreducible minimum and then to supply that energy from renewable sources. This involves both traditional, internal energy
efficiency initiatives, and the reduction of the embodied energy currently involved in the production of our raw materials.

Renewable Energy

Interface recognises and seeks to address our society’s addiction to seemingly inexpensive, fossil fuel based energy and we are supplying increasing amounts of our energy needs with renewable energy.
Already, our programmes have resulted in nearly 30% reduction in normalised energy consumption, four on-site solar demonstration projects including one of the USA’s largest privately funded
photovoltaic arrays and a number of certified green electricity agreements with energy suppliers.
In 2000, Interface generated over 200,000 kilowatt hours of solar electricity and purchased over 10 million kilowatt hours of certified green electricity from utilities.
In the UK, electricity requirements to all of our sites are supplied from renewable resources.

It is clear that we cannot continue to use the natural capital that is fossil fuels forever, as the resource is not inexhaustible. Many alternatives to fossil fuels exist and the development of these is at different
stages. Below, we look at some of the alternatives to fossil fuels.

Solar Projects

Interface is leading industry in the application of renewable energy through on site solar energy generation and green electricity contracts. Interface's interest in generating their own solar power began through a
partnership with the University of North Carolina. The University provided the engineering and design for a nine-kilowatt solar array at our Intek facility in Aberdeen, North Carolina. The State of North Carolina provided 50% of the capital cost needed to construct the array, thereby providing the opportunity for us to generate our own solar power.

This positive experience led Intek to install a passive solar wall and to install skylights to capture the benefits of day lighting in the plant. This experience encouraged Interface to explore additional
opportunities for the use of photovoltaic arrays in their plants worldwide.

We built a 17-kilowatt array at Interface Flooring Systems, Inc. in LaGrange, Georgia, to demonstrate the benefits of a continuous photovoltaic array in a larger facility. In order to illustrate the positive benefits, the daily performance of the solar array is monitored and presented on a public web site.

In 1997 Interface determined that there was no better place to experiment with the concept of solar energy than the Bentley Mills facility in the City of Industry in Southern California. The enthusiasm
and creativity of Bentley Mills and Interface Research Corporation personnel resulted in combining a number of energy, maintenance and building projects to install a 127 gross kilowatt photovoltaic (PV)
array to generate electricity for the internal grid of the factory. In the first year of operation, this facility generated 190,000 kilowatt hours of electricity which tufted over a million square yards of carpet.
Daily performance of this array is also monitored and presented on a public web site. Interface now has four installations of PV arrays at Interface facilities in City of Industry, Southern California; LaGrange,
Georgia; Aberdeen, North Carolina (all USA) and Scherpenzeel, Holland.

When the Scherpenzeel plant and offices were rebuilt in 1999, photovoltaic cells were installed on the south and east sides of the building - not only to deliver part of the electricity needed for the building, but also to act as permanent sunshades. To prevent overheating, many stone like materials such as concrete and sandstone were used throughout the building. These materials function as a thermal buffer and flatten out temperature fluctuations, thus enablingthem to make good use of passive solar energy (sunlight). Together with the sunshades, the thermal mass protects against overheating in the summer and uses the incoming sunlight to warm the building in the winter. In this way, energy savings can be achieved for both cooling and heating. With the good thermal insulating quality of the
skin of the building, the chance of overheating increases with the use of passive solar energy.
To prevent this from happening, in addition to thermal mass, sunshades (in between extra outer windows and the double glazing) are used to keep the suns rays out. Well designed sunshades,
or adjustable ones, can keep the suns rays out in the summer time but let them in during the winter to help warm the building. The emergency generator, which provides the office with electricity in case of a
power failure, needs to be tested periodically. The power generated during these tests would usually be wasted. In this case, however, the power that is produced during testing can be used directly in
the building. Excess electricity will be delivered back to the grid.
Wind Projects
Several Interface locations have signed renewable electricity contracts with local utilities to purchase electricity produced from direct solar derivatives, i.e., wind, small hydro, landfill gas and sewage gas.

A number of Interface facilities in Europe purchase green power. Shelf Mills in West Yorkshire, United Kingdom purchase 100% certified renewable electricity. The manufacturing facility in Scherpenzeel, Netherlands purchases 5% renewable electricity.
The Craigavon, Northern Ireland facility purchases renewable electricity from local wind farms, and is the first major Northern Ireland manufacturing company to sign up for "Green" Eco Energy - opting to
purchase 100% of its electricity requirement from renewable energy sources. The Northern Ireland providers of Interface’s “green” electricity say "Interface is leading the way in sustainability in
Northern Ireland. They have adopted a responsible attitude to minimising the impact of their business processes on the environment by choosing Eco Energy. Choosing "Green" energy also makes good
financial sense - as electricity produced from renewable sources is exempt from the new climate levy, introduced in April 2001. With recent extreme weather conditions highlighting the need to minimise
harmful greenhouse gas emissions, we have been inundated with enquiries for Eco Energy from both business and domestic customers."

Interface Flooring Systems Canada in Belleville, Ontario purchase 25% of their electricity from green power sources. That facility received the Canadian Energy Innovator award for manufacturing process
changes which resulted in significant decreases in temperature requirements. In 1996, overall energy consumption per square metre of production was reduced by 16% and 47% for electricity and natural
gas respectively.

Climate Neutral offsets

We have begun to make ‘climate neutral’ products available to customers. Through this scheme,
a small additional charge for the product is made and this contribution is used for non Interface projects
around the world to ‘offset’ carbon dioxide emissions generated during the manufacturing process.

For further information contact sustainability@eu.interfaceinc.com.
Or visit our Sustainability Website at www.interfaceeurope.com/sustainability