Leased Carpet--A Step to an Ecological Economy?

The new Southern California Gas Energy Resource Center in Downey, California has many features one might expect of a “green” building. It is constructed around an existing structure, it is highly energy efficient, and many recycled materials were used in its construction. Perhaps the most progressive feature of the building, however, is something most visitors will never notice. This is the fact that Southern Cal Gas, the building’s owner, does not own the 3,500 square yards of carpet in the building. The carpet is owned by Interface Flooring Systems, Inc., the manufacturer.

One of the principles of the emerging field of ecological economics is that people do not really want to own so called “durable goods.” What we want is the service those goods provide, whether it is cold beer from a refrigerator, or entertainment on a TV set. This idea is the basis for the “intelligent product system” proposed by Dr. Michael Braungart and Justus Englefried of Germany’s Environmental Protection Encouragement Agency, and popularized in the U.S. by Paul Hawken in his book