An article in today’s New York Times highlights a little-known company that is considered one of the greatest success stories in corporate environmental performance. At Interface, a major carpet tile company:

Use of fossil fuels is down 45 percent (and net greenhouse gas production, by weight, is down 60 percent), he said, while sales are up 49 percent. Globally, the company’s carpet-making uses one-third the water it used to. The company’s worldwide contribution to landfills has been cut by 80 percent.

Unfortunately, we can’t buy their carpet here in South Africa. So why do I mention them? Because the story of their transformation is a vivid tale of the power of enlightened consumers anywhere in the world.

What Ray Anderson calls his “conversion experience” occurred in the summer of 1994, when he was asked to give the sales force at Interface, the carpet tile company he founded, some talking points about the company’s approach to the environment.

He looked into the issue and concluded, “I was running a company that was plundering the earth.”

But later in the article, we learn that this epiphany didn’t really begin with his sales staff.

It was questions from customers that prompted the sales force to ask for his environmental views in the first place.

Ray Anderson is now considered a hero for environmental progress. He’s a member of the advisory board of the Harvard Center for Health and the Global Environment. I won’t begrudge him that status. But out there somewhere are the anonymous heroes who began the whole process simply by asking their carpet salesperson about the environmental impact of carpet tiles.

It doesn’t cost a cent. Ask the person trying to sell you appliances or office equipment which machine uses the least electricity. Phone the 0800 customer service line on one of those bottles under the sink and ask about the environmental impact of the chemicals inside. You may not get a good answer, but that’s OK. When people are embarrassed because they can’t answer customers’ questions, they start asking questions themselves. Be an anonymous hero.