Blog
Events, Materials, Design
Built Environment Update: LEED 2012 Action Steps
In this update:
• The Institute partners with industry leaders in joint statement to the USGBC advocating for performance standards such as the Cradle to Cradle certifiedCM program.
• LEED 2012 public comment period opens – we need your participation
• The Institute meets with USGBC LEED Staff
What’s In A Kiss
So what's in all the kisses you will be giving and getting this holiday season? Maybe something like EBDT? (Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid — wikipeda link). Evidently it makes cosmetics softer, smoother, and more stable. In talking about chemical substances in skin and hair care products last summer, Institute co-founder Michael Braungart called EDTA "a very nice chemical". But when it gets to the environment, as when you wash it off, it is very slow to degrade. "So if you look at San Francisco Bay, 80% of the all heavy metals that are there are in the water are there because of just one chemical, EDTA, because it always resuspends the heavy metals from the sediments and makes them available for the biosphere."
So among the "50 Recommended Cradle to Cradle® Cosmetic Ingredients" he announced that night was "L-Glutamic acid N. N=dicetic acid, tetrasodium salt" a replacement chelating substance for EBDT that rapidly degrades in the environment.
Michael gave his research to the public good as an invitation to others to "come up with more" so together we have a list of ingredients for cosmetics that do what's needed for product quality AND can safely go into biological systems. In the cosmetics section of the Innovation Hub on this website, industry experts to sharing what they have and what they are looking for. Join the conversation here.
A Cradle to Cradle® Perspective on Autism and Environmental Toxins
A core principle of cradle to cradle is the idea that technical nutrients don't belong in biological systems and some toxins just shouldn't be in our world at all. So we look with interest and concern at the growing number of articles talking about environmental toxins and the rise in autism cases.
Green Chemistry Event Produces Ideas for Strengthening California Economy
On November 4th, over 50 thought leaders and professionals met at the Autodesk Gallery in downtown San Francisco to lay the groundwork for recommendations to move California towards a sustainable and abundant economic future. Those recommendations are likely to include ideas like adopting a zero waste policy for the state of California, holding foreign waste processors accountable to California's own health and safety standards, and encouraging Producer Responsibility Organizations (third party groups funded by producers to handle end-of-use waste issues - these have been popular in Europe). In concert, policies like these would create a viable local market for recycled materials, while at the same time giving manufacturers incentive to design away waste and take responsibility for the collection of its own discards. Value is retained and added within the state, and waste becomes a thing of the past.
Materials
Halloween Make-Up WAY SCARIER Than it Has to Be
Here's a headline no parent wants to read today: "Hazardous heavy metals contaminate most Halloween make-up, tests show"
What kind of toxins? Cadmium, which causes cancer. Mercury, which impairs neurological development. Arsenic, which was the poison of choice for Aunt Martha and Aunt Abbey in the classic Arsenic and Old Lace.
Events
Green Chemistry in the New Economy
On Friday, November 4th, the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute will be convening an invite-only forum, in partnership with a cadre of Bay Area organizations interested in seeing California define the New Economy: “right livelihood” jobs that ensure a healthy, safe and abundant future, with green chemistry at the center.
Design
Time to rethink health, environment and the green economy
Just recently the California legislature passed a bill to ban the chemical BPA from baby products and legislators came closer than ever before to banning the use of plastic foam containers in restaurants and grocery stores, as discussed in a recent Huffington Post article.
Method successfully recycles plastic from North Pacific Gyre
Method, in partnership with Envision Plastics (the technology leader in curbside collected, recycled polyolefin plastics), has developed a novel and potentially profound new plastic material; Ocean PCR. The idea was born when, after achieving 100% post-consumer material in our packaging, we started asking ourselves a simple question: what is the ultimate post-consumer material?
People, Other
How Cradle to Cradle® became a foundation for Method’s design
Method recently had an exceedingly rare joint visit from Michael Braungart and Bill McDonough, the co-authors of Cradle-to-Cradle and principals of MBDC. In the green design world, this is like spending the afternoon working on a script with Pacino and DeNiro, like jamming with Jagger and Richards, like fighting evil with Batman and Robin...
Michael and Bill are in San Francisco to work on the Cradle-to-Cradle Products Innovation Institute and to explore ways for C2C thinking to be formalized in the State of California's Green Chemistry Initiatives.
Case studies, People, Design
A designer’s perspective on making the Sayl chair a C2C certified product
In producing the Sayl chair, we removed 30% of the materials for a chair in this category, of this caliber. The first consideration in building a chair is structural. When we removed so many materials, less had to do a lot more. The materials we chose had to carry a lot of weight and maintain structural integrity and function. The choices were not about what the material was, but more along the line: “This material of reinforcing fibers (glass and nylon) is what’s allowed without having a visual implications or being oversized.” It was a game of visual and size considerations to accomplish structural integrity.
Events
Cradle to Cradle Day June 9th, 2011
The evening with William McDonough and Michael Braungart was an amazing event. The room was packed full of enthusiastic supporters eager to hear the dynamic duo. I was extremely greatful to have the opportunity to meet so many who were also passionate about C2C. It was actually the first time I got to meet Michael Braungart so I was extremely excited the entire day. In fact, I was so full of energy that I had to bust out my pocket camcorder and just start recording! Check out the video below.
Other
Cradle to Cradle pays off says a new ebook!
Time and time again we hear that C2C makes business sense. Is it really that hard to understand that our "take, make, waste" system isn't going to take us into a bright future? Just take a look at this excerpt from a new ebook about how C2C pays off. You can download the entire book here.
Here is an excerpt:
This booklet is about the results of one and a half years of dedication of the Cradle to Cradle Learning Community. A total of seventeen companies took part. In the course of 10 sessions a wide range of topics was handled, from internal support to the closure of cycles. The participants unanimously concluded that: Cradle to Cradle pays off for profit, people and planet!
People
Moving forward
It’s been a little over a year since we publicly launched the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, and now with this new website, we’re taking the first of several steps onto a path which will allow a product manufacturer to have a product certified. Over the next few weeks, we’ll begin re-certifying products and getting ready to train consultants on the new 3.0 protocol.
Materials
Post-consumer recycled plastic is the answer
Plastic has been all over the news over the past years, from David de Rothschild building a catamaran partially made from reclaimed post-consumer plastic bottles called the Plastiki in 2010 to the most recent, Cola Wars escalated to Bottle Wars as Coke launched their "Plant Bottle," a plastic bottle made 30% from renewable materials, only to be one-upped by Pepsi's 100% renewable bottle (to debut in 2012). In time for Earth Day, a major bio-plastic manufacturer announced a new recycling symbol they had created to differentiate bio-plastic from "regular" plastic.
Case studies, Materials, Design
Incorporating Cradle-to-Cradle Design into Herman Miller Products
In the late 1990s, office furniture manufacturer Herman Miller, Inc., entered into a collaboration with architect William McDonough to create a system for designing cradle-to-cradle products. This collaboration led to the creation of a tool—the Design for Environment (DfE) product assessment tool—that evaluates progress towards cradle-to-cradle products. The first product Herman Miller designed using the DfE product assessment tool was the Mirra chair. Over the course of the chair’s development, the DfE process generated a number of design changes, including selecting a completely different material for the chair’s spine, increasing recycled content in chair components, eliminating all PVC (polyvinyl chloride) components, and designing the chair for rapid disassembly using common tools.
Events, Other
The Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute at the Clinton Global Initiative
This year’s Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting (CGI) has been all about commitments that will make a positive difference around the world. Yesterday, during the Market-Based Solutions for Protecting the Environment session at CGI, the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute (formerly the Green Products Innovation Institute) joined industry and NGOs on stage to contribute its own global commitment to train at least 100 assessors and certify 1,000 products by 2015.
Live unframed!
When I first saw images of the Sayl chair designed by Yves Behar for Herman Miller, I fell in love at first sight. But today, spending time sitting in this chair, I was able to enjoy the comfort that thoughtful engineering provides. Originally inspired by the engineering of the Golden Gate suspension bridge, Yves designed the Sayl chair for maximum support and flexibility while using minimal materials. Rather than having the material that a wrap around frame requires, he instead uses a center vertical support with a patterned mesh, creating a 3-D intelligent back that has different degrees of tension for each part of your back. Not only does this mean there is less material required, less cost, but it is also extremely comfortable. Plus, it is 93% recyclable and is certified Cradle to Cradle Silver.