The Cradle to Cradle Mindset

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[Editor's Note: This is an updated version that corrects the number of Cradle to Cradle-certified products offered by Steelcase.]

Sustainable product design has moved well past the advent of corn-based candy wrappers and toothbrushes made from recycled yogurt cups. Today's manufacturers are embracing Cradle to Cradle design (C2C), an environmentally intelligent sustainable design methodology that has been applied to everything from polyester cloth to foam core insulation and ergonomic office chairs to mailing envelopes.

"Cradle to cradle is about the merging of design and chemistry," says Jay Bolus, vice president of technical operations for McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC), a private consulting and C2C certification firm in Charlottesville, Va.

William McDonough, the company's co-founder and principal, coined the phrase 'cradle to cradle' and launched the international design trend with the 2002 publication of his book, "Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things."

"The idea behind cradle to cradle is to design better products by putting filters in your head instead of at the end of a pipe," Bolus says. "Products should have no end-of-life. Rather they should be designed with an end-of-use in mind."

Cradle to cradle certification includes 19 human and environmental health criteria to ensure materials are not harmful to the environment or people, and can either be recycled, remanufactured or composted. The result is products that are environmentally sustainable today and 100 years from now. About 150 products from some 50 companies have been certified but since several are product families, the actual number is much higher, Bolus said.

Bolus is quick to point out that this does not mean all C2C products must be natural or biodegradable. While many of the products MBDC certifies are made from natural substances, he urges companies to think more broadly about C2C requirements.

"There is a bio bias. People think C2C has to be natural," he says. "But the math shows that you can't possibly make everything from natural material. We couldn't sustain it."

Instead, companies need to look at the engineering and chemistry of a product, choose materials that are not harmful to the environment and build products in ways that make them easy to disassemble and re-use. A C2C-certified side chair, for example, might be made from steel or aluminum -- which is 100 percent recyclable -- with a recyclable plastic seat attached with simple screws or a snap fit design that can be easily taken apart.

You Can Do It

It may sound like a daunting task to re-engineer existing products -- or to create a new approach to material selection and design for new products -- but it's worth the effort, says Rich Guinn, vice president of business development for Pittsburgh-based Centria, a manufacturer of metal building products and systems. "You'll learn more about how you make products and what goes into them then you ever knew before, and you will become a better company for the experience," he says.

Centria launched its first C2C design project four years ago, converting its most complex product -- the Dimension Series architectural cladding, which features painted metal and a foam core -- to a C2C-certified product. The company now has nine C2C-certified product families.

"We figured if we started with the most complex product and got that under our belt, we'd learn more, and we could derive other decisions for future products from the experience," says Guinn.

He was right. Centria spent 18 months working with MBDC to conform the cladding design to C2C standards while still maintaining the original product's quality and durability. It included working closely with suppliers, chemists and engineers to choose coatings and insulation materials that would not release harmful toxins when used or recycled, and would prevent moisture problems that can lead to mold in buildings.

"Doing this was a leap of faith," he says. "But we saw C2C as the gold standard and we wanted to make it work." Since certifying the first product, Guinn notes that the process has become much easier. The company has established relationships with suppliers who now understand C2C requirements, and it has a list of materials that have already been vetted through the original certification process.

"It was a challenge, but now we benefit from having C2C embedded in our processes," Guinn says.

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