NASA Sustainability Base Features C2C Products

New "greenest Federal building" has the greenest building materials: Cradle to Cradle certifiedCM products contribute to "space station on Earth" »

Institute to Expand Certification with €2M Grant

Dutch Postcode Lottery announces further support for the Institute in its work in guiding product designers and manufacturers »

Building with Cradle to Cradle® materials

Stacy Glass, co-author of “Understanding Green Building Materials”, is joining the Institute as Executive in Residence for the built environment sector »

Remaking the way we make things

Starting an evolution

In 1992, William McDonough and Dr. Michael Braungart published The Hannover Principles: Design for Sustainability. In 2002, they published Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, encapsulating a journey of discovery about materials as biological or technical nutrients and their use periods and their evolution. They created a framework for quality assessment and innovation: the Cradle to Cradle certifiedCM program. » READ MORE

Our certification is built on a simple idea: in order to do better, you have to know better.

So we ask a comprehensive set of questions about every product:

  1. Do you know what is in your product, down to the molecule?
  2. Is your product designed to be safely recovered and reused, or to return to nature? 
  3. Are you using renewable energy?
  4. How clean is the water coming out of the factory?
  5. Is the product made in a socially fair way?

» learn about cradle to cradle certifiedcm program  

  • Icon Factory

    We help manufacturers
    get credit for making the best products possible, and stay ahead of regulation. Learn the ins and outs of Cradle to Cradle® from those who have gone through the process.

  • Icon Factory

    We help designers
    find the tools to create better products. We also provide a community forum to share the latest material and process innovations.

  • Icon Factory

    We help buyers
    find out how a product has fared against our five criteria. Over time, our scorecards will show where a product is today and the plan for its continuous improvement.

Cradle to Cradle® is rigorous.
We get that.
That’s why it’s so valuable.

Cradle to Cradle certificationCM is both comprehensive and rigorous. It requires a paradigm shift in thinking about environmental and social impacts.

However, Cradle to Cradle certificationCM offers a clear value over the typically piecemeal, regulation-driven approach. Just ask the people who have gone through certification and made the paradigm shift.

 

What’s on your wish list? 

A replacement for pthalates?
A non-toxic pigment? A more affordable, biodegradable
such-and-such?

We’re all making wishes. But if we make those wishes out loud, then suppliers from around the world can hear the call. By aggregating our demand, we can actually change the market economics.

 
Q And A

Here, we share

How long did the sustainability learning curve take you? Wouldn’t it have been faster if someone you trusted told you what they already knew? How many companies have performed the same tests in search of safer alternatives? How many designers have hunted for better glues or resins, only to find they are too expensive, or too difficult to source?

We are creating a place to share what you’ve learned, get help with your challenges and flaunt your innovations. We think sharing will HELP your business and enable you to make the best products you can. We call this place the Innovation Hub.

» explore