The First Facility Management Blog

Technical Concepts will sponsor a workshop on eco-effective principles that can benefit industry on Tuesday, September 18, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple in Oak Park, IL. Ken Alston, CEO of MBDC and former director of sustainable product innovation at SC Johnson & Son, will lead the workshop.

Participants on September 18 will learn the principles of Cradle to Cradle and how products can be certified and optimized through MBDC’s process. Key speakers include William McDonough, architect and author of Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things.

For more on McDonough and his connection to TFM and the facility management profession, see this link.

Jerry McDermott, Technical Concepts vice president of marketing and innovation says, “Cradle to Cradle provides product differentiation, an increased competitive advantage, and a clear way to understand the environmental profile of a product.”

According to architect William McDonough, who developed the Cradle to Cradle principles with partner Michael Braungart, “If humans are truly going to prosper, we will have to learn to imitate nature’s highly effective cradle to cradle system of development.” McDonough believes industry is currently pursuing a cradle to grave production cycle, dumping products into landfills at the end of their ‘life’. Cradle-to-cradle design seeks to transform industry by creating products that maintain resources in closed loops, maximizing material value without damaging the ecosystem.

The Cradle to Cradle workshop is co-produced by a5 Inc., a marketing and communications firm and Seven Generations Ahead, a non-profit focused on sustainability. To register, click this link.