Cradle to Cradle Designed Home Goods
C2C Certification: The Most Earth-friendly Products
Apr 20, 2009
Cradle to Cradle is environmental design that certifies that a product is environmentally sustainable throughout it's life cycle. Looking at a product's "life cycle" not new - the Native Americans had the philosophy that man-made successes should be assessed over seven generations. But the idea of cradle to cradle environmental design is catching on again.
C2C Certified Products for Your Home
Companies and people and the Earth are better served by products that do no harm from their manufacture or "birth" to their end, when you put them in the backyard compost bin or recycle them. Cradle to cradle design and certification means:
- Using environmentally safe and healthy materials
- Products of which all part parts can be reused by recycling or compostin
- Manufacture using renewable energy and energy efficiency
- Efficient use of water, and maximum water quality associated with production; and
- Company strategies for social responsibility.
Earth-friendly Home Wares
Caring for the environment starts at home, with your family's choice of every day products. Why buy shampoo and furniture that cripple the environment with toxins (and may even harm you and your children) and that are made with unfair labor, when cradle to cradle certified products provide an excellent-quality alternative? Many well-branded companies like Method cleaning products offered at Target and other big box stores have C2C products.
Eco Skin and Hair Care
Green skin and hair products can be made at home, like honey hydrating cream. But if you don't want to clutter your kitchen, these well-known skincare companies make products that are certified cradle to cradle:
- Aveda's Smooth Fusion Shampoo
- Kiehls
Earth-friendly Home Renovation
Redoing the kitchen or bathroom is good for your comfort and the resale price of your house, but is it good for the planet? No. Traditionally manufactured materials off-gas fumes that are dangerous, wood flooring can fell rare, tropical trees. Choose C2C certified floor covering and paint and feel good about your renovation, not just for your home, but for the people who worked to make the products you've purchased.
A selection of eco-concious redecorating products can be found at Cradle to Cradle Design.
The Green Home
How can we get more of these great cradle to cradle certified products on the market, in the grocery store, and at home ware imporiums like Crate and Barrel? Ask. Talk to a manager. Everyone wants to do something for the greater good.
Talk about the importance of cradle to cradle design with your friends and family and urge anyone who is going to buy something new to buy it C2C certified. At the very least urge friends not buy diapers that clog landfills when the C2C certified gDiapers makes a terrific alternative to Huggies and Pampers. gDiapers disintegrate and can be flushed down the toilet and cause no harm to septic systems.
One earth-concious and socially conscious choice at a time we can make a large difference in what life will be like for that all important seventh generation of our children and children's children.
