Yesterday, I had a fantastic visit to Camira, the UK’s largest interior fabrics company. Even if you’ve never heard of them, you’ve almost certainly sat on one of their products if you’ve used London Underground or one of many rail franchises.

My host was Sustainability Manager Paul Taylor who I’ve known for about 14 years – his enthusiasm is infectious and there’s a truly liberating ‘let’s try it’ attitude at the company which he revels in. I recorded the conversation and will post it here in my interview series, but one of the big themes that emerged from our discussion was the two quite different mindsets:

• In Sustainability by Innovation, where the thinking is “What’s the problem? What’s the best solution? Can we make that work?”
• In Sustainability by Metric, where the thinking is “What target shall we set? What do we have to do to meet that target? How much will that cost?”

While Camira has its metrics and targets, it is Sustainability by Innovation which is not only delivering their fantastic sustainability achievements (that’s a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Development behind Paul’s head above), but driving the growth of their business. Major brands are approaching the company on the back of their ability to make sustainability happen.

I find too many companies focussed too hard on the metrics. Companies like Camira show that raising your ambitions with the innovation mindset will not just deliver on targets, but smash them to smithereens.