Yesterday, architect William McDonough and chemist Dr. Michael Braungart launched their Green Products Innovation Institute, Inc. , an addition to their Cradle to Cradle Movement® (C2C). This new non-profit organization is focused on being a valuable resource for all consumers, and ultimately, will help people achieve a higher level of environmentally safe and healthy products. The driving force behind the movement is that through the innovation of “redesigning products and ingredients to become nutrients, and enabling old products to become the raw material for new goods and services” a cycle of reusing elements will eliminate waste.
According to the GPII, “We promote an innovation-oriented model for eliminating toxic chemicals and other negative environmental impacts. The GPII prescribes a set of design principles, based on the laws of nature, to help businesses create products that are safe for people and the environment. This rethinking of how we design, manufacture, use and reuse materials will spur a new era of innovation, simultaneously driving economic, ecological and social prosperity.”
The Institute will establish a system for evaluating products, based on the guidelines established by a team of members in the environmental community, government, industry and academia. One of the first moves of the Institute will be to provide a safer alternative chemicals list to replace toxic chemicals. It is the hope that this list will generate innovation within the industry and eventually “lead to safer products and bring us closer to a global Cradle to Cradle® economy. Using the C2C framework, the GPII is set to transform how companies design, manufacture and use chemicals, fostering innovation and job growth in a new green chemistry sector.”
Source: Michelle Kaufmann and the GPII
