540 WORLD just won an LCA 2024 award. You might say, so what, and ask – how is this helpful for me? Well, if you are vaguely interested in building a better tomorrow or understanding materials that unlock residual financial value and circularity, or quantify low carbon, or other third-party verified, socio-environmental sustainable metrics for your clients, then read on.

“We are capable of creating circular alternatives which are beneficial for humans and nature. If the future can be positive, why choose differently?”  (Source: Dr Michael Braungart, Chemist & Author, Cradle to Cradle Design Directory, 2024, p18, https://www.540.world/)

This type of question spurred my materials health journey and the establishment of 540 WORLD.

Being long-term designer and a health clinic partner , I returned to study in 2016, exploring how materials, design and arrangement can optimise human health in the built environment (BE). I was deeply disturbed by seeing disease increase first hand in our London clinic. What could I learn to reduce factors that clearly were impacting human health?  When my Interiors Architecture Masters was complete, I consumed literature on Cradle to Cradle (C2C) design and its’ evolution to a product innovation framework and a certification, namely Cradle to Cradle Certified, recognised as the global standard for healthy products innovation.

It was clear from my research that linear (take-make-waste) toxic design is rife. For example, many paints have carcinogens, VOC’s and other polluting volumizing materials, many of which are not even tested for human health, (unlike Cradle to Cradle Certified paints). Alarmingly, this mega trend spans sectors.  Solutions are vital for sustainable impacts worthy of future generations.  Below are five nuggets I believe exemplify how to achieve sustainable impacts and have been adopted in mature sustainable BE projects.

Ambitions: Revise your ambitions and align them systemically. Avoid compliance and low tier ambition levels that are part of a degenerative socio-environmental system. Ideally embrace regenerative design, and embed the ambition throughout your company, all divisions, for maximum impact on projects and planet. 540 WORLD made them overt: reverse the linear design trend by 180° and upskill the industry to adopt 360° circular design practices, aggregating to 540. Our mission for impact is to create a circular world of good using best practices and best products in projects, and enabling others to do this as easily as possible.

Tech:  Leveraging digital tools are key in enabling smart material choices, quantifying quality and future residual values of materials, and unlocking circular potential in projects. British Land is leveraging the Madaster platform on their 1 Broadgate project to revolutionize material management. They state, “With our materials passport work, we’re applying a digital layer to building instructions for both now and the future.”  Material passports support data-driven decisions, streamline compliance, enable material reuse, among other crucial de-risking and carbon-reducing wins. Material passports enhance projects – see Madaster’s free guide.

https://madaster.co.uk/a-step-by-step-guide-to-material-passports-for-uk-developers-and-asset-owners/?utm_source=referral&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=futurebuild2024&utm_content=fbnewsletter

Materials: Choose sustainable materials that are already third-party assessed and verified for multi-category, regenerative design, ideally C2C Certified® materials and always urban mine materials where practicable.  C2C Certified products are instant sustainability enablers since they satisfy the new European Green Deal, provide proof of claims, give confidence to specifiers, provide a future-fit materials solution for positive socio-environmental impact, uniquely verify products for material health to the parts per million, as well as product circularity, clean air and climate health, water and soil stewardship and social fairness, align with planetary boundary goals and UN SDG’s. 

There are over 75000 C2C Certified products today, many accessible in the UK.  540 WORLD developed the first national, interactive C2C Design Directory, freely available from https://www.540.world/ for easy UK access to certified products and related services, plus Architects walking tours of London, CPD’s and events to make sustainable adoption of certified sustainable materials in projects as easy as possible.

See the fantastic materials summaries and recordings of Futurebuild 2024 and the multiple panels featured on the C2C Products Innovation Institute website too. https://c2ccertified.org/events/futurebuild2024-recap

Knowledge-sharing: Visit Futurebuild, 4-6 March 2025, stand G20, for the largest free showcase of C2C Certified products in Europe.  Confirmed partners already include the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, Accoya®, Graphenstone, Equitone, Madaster, Sika, Staco Gratings, Troldtekt, and 540 WORLD, all collaborating in this incredible knowledge-sharing initiative, presenting in a 3-fold format: a digital twin project display, live samples walkway and live stage keynotes.

Upskilling in the field of innovative circular products is vital for changing linear pathways to circular solutions, as clients, A&D’s or manufacturers. We are all on the same team. Interiors with Art partnered with 540 WORLD this month in a research and materials swap collaboration to intentionally improve their sustainable materials in projects with a focus on optimising human health and evidence-based sustainability in homes through C2C Certified material inclusions and the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute just launched C2C Certified® Circularity, a new product certificate empowering product designers and manufacturers of all sizes. https://c2ccertified.org/articles/introducing-c2c-certified-circularity

Projects & Collaborations: Using C2C Certified materials in projects to showcase circularity by design and product choice is a growing trend.