This is one in a series of documents that follow my UCLA winter 2010 course titled Cradle to Cradle: Closed Loop Systems. This interdisciplinary course contributes to the school's Certificate of Global Sustainability.

1. UCLAx class 11 1
UCLAx Cradle to Cradle: class 11
For our eleventh class, we spent the first half discussing the third Profile Project focused on
certifications and labels. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the students did three profile
projects - one about materials and/or resources, one about companies and/or people, and
one about certifications and/or labels. Survey the green product landscape and you’ll
quickly find a large variety of labels, logos, and certifications from an assortment of
government, trade, and third-party organizations. How is anyone to know who to trust or
what labels are authentic? A quick search on-line will reveal page after page of how black
is the new green, how red is the new green, how yellow is the new green, and on and on.
It’s impossible to know what green really is when media is telling us that every color is
somehow the new green.
This is the context in which I asked the students to find a certification or label that interests
them and research its background, development, and positive aspects. Again the students
dove in and selected some very interesting programs to research. Here are some of the
certifications and labels they chose to profile:
• US Department of Agriculture Organic - Over the past twenty years, consumers
have become accustomed to seeing the USDA Organic label on products in stores
such as Whole Foods Market that meet certain growing, harvesting, production, and
raising practices. Yet, how many really know the details of that criteria? Do
consumers take for granted that a federal government agency is a trusted
evaluator? These are interesting questions for a program that has had its opponents
regarding corporate participation in setting standards.
• US Green Building Council LEED - The Leadership in Energy and Environmental
Design (LEED) program created by the USGBC in 1993 has become a considerable
powerhouse in the area of green building design. This non-profit organization has
become the de-facto standard in architecture and interior design when looking for a
credible, objective, and authentic third party certification.
• Sustain-a-label - One of my students is developing his own green certification label
program. Since it’s still in development, and some aspects of his proposed program
are potentially proprietary, I’ll have to refrain from writing anything. But it is
comprehensive and I’m excited to see where he’ll go with it.
• California Sustainable Winegrowing Certification - Two vintners and winegrower
advocacy groups joined forces in 2002 to form the California Sustainable
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2. UCLAx class 11 2
Winegrowing Program to help growers and vintners develop tools to increase their
knowledge of sustainable practices.
• Forest Stewardship Council - FSC has become one of the most respected
international certification programs. It’s transparent organizational structure, clear
evaluation criteria, and emphasis on chain of custody set it apart from many other
programs.
• EcoLogo - This program started more than twenty years ago as a Canadian
government program, but due to funding issues in 1995 was taken over by its
employees and went private under the name TerraChoice Environmental Marketing.
This firm also authored the excellent publication The Seven Sins of Greenwashing.
• Fair Trade - This program is administered by Fairtrade Labeling Organizations
International and is different than many of the others profiled in that it focuses on
trade practices relative to working conditions.
• Cradle to Cradle - This program was developed by William McDonough and
Michael Braungart and is based on the principals proposed in their seminal book
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. It’s a comprehensive multi-
attribute evaluation system that looks at virtually every aspect of how a product is
manufactured, including every material component, its chemical composition, what
can be done with it at its end of life, whether or not it is a biological or technical
nutrient, and much more.
• Cleaner and Greener Certification - This program was created by and administered
by the non-profit Leonardo Academy. It addresses issues of energy efficiency and
emissions for events, buildings, and organizations. It has a focus on, and a grading
system based on, multi-pollutant emission reductions and offset achievements.
What was most interesting about the programs selected by the students was how much
variety there was in organizational structure, governance, implementation, and more. Every
certification and label explored showed a different and unique approach. No single pattern
emerged and no two programs were alike. It was as eye opening for me as it was for the
students.
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➜ threadcollaborative
11250 morrison street no. 201, north hollywood ca 91601