Hola WG9,
A request by someone on the EcoSanRes mailing list for "dry toilets" to be installed for a festival in Europe also included the question about a certification for these toilets. In this particular case, the certification seems to be part of the festival agenda.

I have recently started working at a company in Germany that analyses material flows and certifies them according to the Cradle-to-Cradle principle, which means: instead of reducing everything to a pure Life Cycle Assessment point of view, the use cycle is put into focus.

I take it that one of the major problems in the sanitation scene also is that most activists are scientists, who are not interested, capable or able to market a certain technology xyz to the end user. And I regard a certification as a marketing instrument to reach those who need something like a label to appreciate a given technology, especially if it requires a behaviour change and/or comes with unknown user interfaces.

The other day, I also blogged about this here: saniblog.org/2012/01/27/how-about-a-crad...ication-for-toilets/ (thx for the comment, Carol!) and have since been wondering if an e.g. C2C certification (or any other certification) could be a driving force in the marketing of any future (~ reinvented) toilet system.

What do you think? Does a certification sound like the right thing to do?

Thx!

Hi all

I definitely think that a certification of one of the toilet designs would be a great marketing tool and positive move forwards. From my knowledge of the C2C concept, a sustainable sanitation toilet design would be able to satisfy both the ecological loop as well as the technological loop in C2C. I think that there are a number of UDDT's that would be close to fulfilling C2C certification requirements. Some more attention would have to be given to the design with respect to the materials used for the hardware.

Do you have a brief list of the main requirements to satisfy bronze C2C certification? As that would assist the conversation I think!

Hi Trevor,
thx for the feedback and the good question.
The certification program can be accessed here epea-hamburg.org/index.php?id=165 where they also have a list of c2c certification criteria to see what is being assessed and which parameter qualifies for a Basic, Silver, Gold, and Platinum certification (Bronze maybe later on this year).

What they basically assess is

• product/material transparency and human/environmental health characteristics of materials
• product/material reutilization
• production energy
• water use at manufacturing facility
• social fairness / corporate ethics

The only downside I curently see in it is that it is a pure product certification whereas I would rather like to certify a toilet system. On the other hand, the product certification may be the only possible method as a system as such always has too many changing variables and it would be too abstract.

And then of course it would be interesting to find out (from a sociological perspective) which cultures in which country take a certification for granted and form their consumer behaviour around this (e.g. LOHAS in Western Europe).

I would like to write a paper on all of this.

Hi Jürgen

Just wanted to ask which company you are referring to:

You can send me an email answer, if you do not want to post it here.
Regards
Trevor

Dear Colleagues,

I asked Braungart (C2C) exact the same question in 2011, reminding him that the inventors and start-up businesses involved are rather small to pay the high prices for any certification, his C2C-Cert. or e.g. for a German "DIBT-Zulassung" (www.dibt.de/index_eng.html). This DIBT-Zulassung for CWs cost approx. 45,000 EUR and have to be renewed!

Braungart mentioned INFORMAL, it is not helpful to try to be from the beginning (during trail & error periods) 100% perfect C2C and recommended to any entrepreneur, who want to work honestly their way through the headaches with C2C-toilers, may just call it: "Inspired by C2C" or "Based on C2C", which do not infringe any C2C-copyrights and will cost nothing.

In many of his public presentation, Braungart was very critical about the reality of the whole certification businesses (jungle) and even about his own C2C-certifications too. He was forced to have one too, to keep clear distances to the dubious.

In my personal SUBJECTIVE opinion, the real big players using and purchasing certifications as "condoms" or invent dubious "condoms" by them self, first as a green-washing instrument (euphemistic called "Marketing") and second as an indirect way to keep small start-up inventors down, in order !to steal! or purchase cheap the INFORMAL inventions/ideas from the small ones.
Big payers have big PRs sub-contracted to push customers to a kind of religious BELIEF in Certifications. Do not buy this cheap stuff...

Best Regards,

Detlef SCHWAGER