Interface founder and chairman Ray Anderson died yesterday at age 77.

When I last saw him, he asked, "Do you know the question your life's story will seek to answer?"

Interface chairman and founder Ray Anderson.

Every good story begins with a question, he said, and everyone has a story to tell. He was addressing 200 CEOs at a Greenbuild Executive Roundtable in Phoenix, AZ, with his own story.

Seeking to answer the right question requires transformational change, creativity and innovation, he explained.

In 1994 Anderson experienced an epiphany when he first read Paul Hawken's The Ecology of Commerce. Seventeen years later, he estimated that the carpet manufacturer he founded, Interface, is more than halfway toward his vision of "Mission Zero." He chronicled the Interface journey in two books, Mid-Course Correction (1998) and Confessions Of A Radical Industrialist (2009).

Surrounded by his family, Anderson died at his home Tuesday in Atlanta, GA.

Remembering Ray Sustainable Industries Journal