C2C Basic Certifiation

After a first approach to the Design Guidelines and considerations behind the Cradle to Cradle ethos, broader possibilities come to mind when seeking to align the Ideation Tool with Sustainable assets. Currently, the Ideation Tool is one way to exercise creativity by remixing objects from the Cooper Hewitt API. This tool shuffles 3 objects from their database and in the background mixes their description to compose phrases that suggest tentative product scenarios. These phrases are composed through a template phrase where a noun, a verb and an adjective are chosen every time there's a tap. The template phrase is coded in the background like: "This could be a ADJECTIVE NOUN that VERB"

Incorporating VERBS that encourage REUSE, RENEWABLE, COMPOSTING and INCLUSION.

Encouraging a re-make approach through the images and materials included in the database.

Address one of the 4 chapters of the C2C Basic certification, for example

Creating an ideation tool that shuffles terms that reveal unhealthy materials

An ideation tool that encourages solar or wind driven objects.

1. Material Health

2. Material Reuse

3. Renewable Energy

4. Social Fairness

Material Health Overview

• Potential Risks: Manufacture, Use and End of Use

• What’s the complete assessment of ingredients in a product (C2C Material Health Assessment Methodology)
• No risks for humans and environment
• C2C banned list of materials or Pharos Green Screen for Safer Chemicals

• Good list of materials from data of C2C Innovation Institute resources 
  • Amount of energy and chemicals to create a material
  • If its easily destroyed
  • Green chemistry
  • Characteristics: abundant, non-toxic, minimal resources, good physical properties, meets regulations, good end of life options and affordable —trade-off (cycles of use)
  • Introduction to Green Material Selection
    • Thanks to advances in material science, today’s engineers and designers have more options for choosing greener materials. Choosing more sustainable materials is all about making informed tradeoffs. While there is no such thing as an entirely "green material," you can improve your materials choices by knowing the variables to consider.

  • Physical Properties of Materials

    • Learn how to select materials with the right performance characteristics, which is critical for designing for energy efficiency.
      
      To select greener materials you need to consider the material’s environmental, cost, and performance impacts on your design. A material’s performance depends on its physical properties, and optimizing this is the most important way to reduce your product’s environmental impact.

  • Environmental Properties of Materials

    • When looking for sustainable materials, the first step is to understand where their ecological impacts come from. Learn about material scarcity and abundance, rapidly renewable materials, embodied energy, recycled materials, and toxicity.

Material Reutilization

• %Recyclable or rapidly renewable content + % of product considered recyclable or composted
• Separate tech nutrients from bio nutrients 
• Design for lifetime use (longevity, repair & upgrade, 
• Prioritize next life
• Design for reuse
  • Disassembly: modular and standard
• Separation by grinding
• Less material
• Avoid coatings
• UPCYCLING: turn waste materials into new materials or products of higher quality or better environmental impacts 
• “Clean materials perpetually cycled”

• Introduction to Design for a Lifetim

  • An important factor in designing for sustainability is getting the most use out of the materials and energy that your product uses throughout its lifecycle. A product’s lifecycle includes extraction of raw materials, manufacture, use and eventual disposal. If you are designing for sustainability, the ideal lifecycle is entirely closed-loop. This would mean that your product does not create any waste at the end of its life that can’t be easily used by other natural or industrial processes. 

• Design for Durability

  • If your product meets stable, long-term needs, it is important to make it robust. However, ensuring your users want to continue using your product is often tricky. In order for a product to last, it needs to be both physically and stylistically durable. Not only does it need to resist damage and wear, but it needs to stay relevant and desirable for users. 

• Design for Dissassembly and Recycling

  • Designing for disassembly has several benefits. It can make it easier for your product to be repaired or upgraded, thereby prolonging its useful life. It can also help ensure your product is recycled and enable whole components to be reused. In fact, the degree to which your product can be disassembled easily often determines how the product will end its life.  

• Repair and Upgrade

  • Products like electronics have components that can fail, or need to be upgraded, well before the rest of the product needs to be replaced. Millions of pounds of electronics are scrapped every year. Repair and upgrade can address this e-waste problem by extending your product’s useful life and slowing down the rate of disposal. 

• The Maker's Bill Of Rights

 

Renewable Energy

• Beyond fossil fuel towards clean-renewable energy
• Solar, wind, biomass, 

• Introduction to Energy Use in Design

  • Humans use energy to enhance life in important ways. Yet commonly used energy sources like coal, oil and gas are finite in supply and release greenhouse gases. To continue to improve quality of life while maintaining the planet’s ability to support us, we need to both move towards renewable energy and design for energy efficiency.

• Optimizing Heat Transfer 

  • Heat Transfer refers to how heat energy moves through the world around us. Refrigerators, ovens, laundry machines, cars, and buildings all manage the flow of heat. Engineers and designers who understand heat transfer can use energy more effectively by optimizing the form and materials of their designs.

• Friction: Reducing Energy Losses in Design 

  • Friction will occur at any place where two surfaces come into contact with each other. Friction can cause energy losses that create unwanted heat, deformation, and wear. This can reduce the lifetime and increase the cost of the products you design.

 

Social Fairness Overview

• Social Hotspot is "a unique resource for supply chain social impact investigation."
• UN Global Compact is an initiative "aiming to create a sustainable and inclusive global economy that delivers lasting benefits to all people, communities and markets."
• B-Corp is a certification available to "for-profit companies certified by the nonprofit B Lab to meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability and transparency."