22 Oct Talleres Alfatorres obtains the Cradle to Cradle Certified Seal
During the first quarter of 2018, Talleres Alfatorres obtained the prestigious Cradle to Cradle CertifiedTM Circular Economy Certification for its range of fire door products. The standards for Cradle to Cradle Certified™ products guide the designers and manufacturers through a continuous improvement process that analyzes a product through five quality categories: material condition, material reuse, renewable energy and carbon management, water management, and social equity.
In 1992, William McDonough and Dr. Michael Braungart published the Hannover Principles: Designing for Sustainability. In 2002, they published Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, which outlines a journey of discovery about materials such as biological or technical nutrients, their periods of use and their evolution. They created a framework for innovation and quality assessment: the program for Cradle to Cradle Certified™ products. In 2010, after 20 years of working with companies, they saw the need to expand the transformation. They provided the public with a license for the certification system and the methodology through the creation of the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute. The nonprofit Institute is an agent of change through open source information.
The methodology establishes five assessment areas and five levels of qualification.
A product receives a level of achievement in each category: basic, bronze, silver, gold, or platinum, with the lowest level of achievement that the product’s global brand represents. In its first assessment, Talleres Alfatorres achieved very positive scores in different areas. Product assessments are performed by an independent organization qualified and trained by the Institute. In our case, Eco intelligent Growth Engineering (EIG) has been responsible for conducting the study and verification of the processes for our fire door products. The assessment summary reports are reviewed by the Institute, who certifies the products that meet the standard requirements and authorizes the use of the design words and the Cradle to Cradle Certified™ designation for the product manufacturer. Every two years, manufacturers must demonstrate good faith efforts to improve their products so that their products are recertified.
The five fields of scope for the Certification are:
1. Material Condition.
Knowing the chemical components of each material in a product and optimizing them in order to obtain safer materials. Identifying materials as biological or technical nutrients. Understanding how chemical risks combine with likely exposure to determine possible negative impacts to human health and the environment.
2. Materials Reuse.
Designing products made from materials that come from and can safely return to nature or the industry. Maximizing the percentage of rapidly renewable materials or recycled content used in a product. Maximizing the percentage of materials that can be reused, recycled, or safely composted at the end of the product’s use.
3. Renewable Energies and Carbon Management
With the intention of having a future in which the entire manufacturing industry operates with 100% clean renewable energy, the source of renewable electricity and the carbon emission offset must be enhanced in the final stage of product manufacturing.
4. Water Management
Managing clean water as a precious resource and an essential human right. The local impact of water consumption in the industry for each manufacturing facility must be analyzed and improved and, in turn, any industrial chemical in the effluent of a facility must be identified, evaluated, and optimized.
5. Responsibility and Social Equity
Operations must be designed to respect all people and natural systems affected by the creation, use, disposal, or reuse of a product. Globally recognized resources must be used to carry out self-assessments so that local and supply chain problems can be identified through third-party audits to ensure optimal working conditions for people.
Cradle to Cradle and LEED
With sustainable design becoming synonymous with health and improving the human environment, it shouldn’t be the scope of the architect to examine each ingredient of each material to maintain consistency with sustainability objectives. With the Cradle to Cradle Certified™ brand and symbol, architects and specifiers can know at a glance if:
• The recyclability and safety of a product for environmental and human health has been externally verified.
• An assessment of the toxicity risks for all product ingredients has been carried out along the supply chain up to 100 ppm.
• A continuous improvement path has been defined to optimize the product design and manufacturing processes.
With the release of the new LEED v4, Cradle to Cradle CertifiedTM products are described and specifically rated in LEED. The goal? To encourage project teams to choose products whose chemical ingredients will be inventoried using an accepted methodology and to select verified products to minimize the use and generation of harmful substances.
Consistent with its environmental sensibility, Talleres Alfatorres clearly invests in being part of a group of companies that understand Circular Economy as the only way to a sustainable future. We are convinced that this is the first step of a long journey.