Reaching Cradle to Cradle-Certified Gold is a milestone on Mosa’s journey to create healthy living environments that have a positive impact on people and planet. The company adopted Cradle to Cradle principles over a decade ago, becoming the first ceramic tile manufacturer to achieve certification for its products.

“Reaching Cradle to Cradle Certified Gold is a milestone that demonstrates the importance of continually pushing the boundaries of sustainability for our products, our processes and our industry,” said Mosa CEO, Frank Spikker. “This achievement is the culmination of years of investment, innovation and commitment from everyone within our organization and from valued partners across our supply chain.”

Enabling a Circular Building Economy

With worldwide demand for living space escalating and nearly half of all raw materials consumed by the construction sector, the need for circular, sustainable building products is urgent.

Cradle to Cradle Certified is regarded as a trusted standard for verifying the safety and circularity of materials and products made to maximize human and environmental health and wellbeing. To achieve certification, products must meet performance requirements across five critical areas of sustainability: Material Health, Product Reuse, Renewable Energy and Carbon, Water Stewardship, and Social Fairness.

Ascending levels of certification are awarded from Bronze to Platinum based upon a product’s performance in all five categories. The end-goal of Cradle to Cradle certification is the generation of materials and products made for a circular economy that maximizes health and wellbeing for people and planet.

Cradle to Cradle Certified products and materials can accelerate progress towards a circular building economy by enabling the design and development of living spaces and buildings that are healthy, circular and sustainable. Cradle to Cradle Certified products contribute to globally recognized building standards such as BREEAM, DGNB, HQE, LEED and the WELL Building Standard.

Getting to Gold

Reaching Cradle to Cradle Gold certification required Mosa to embrace some of the ceramic tile industry’s most significant sustainability concerns in ways that deliver solutions today and pave the way for future technology and innovation. Some of the key steps Mosa completed in order to achieve Gold include: 

• Renewable Energy and Carbon Management: During the firing stage of production, kilns are heated up to 1,200 C. Typically, the energy used to heat the kilns is not recaptured. As part of the journey to Gold certification, Mosa was already sourcing renewable energy for the kilns and other processes. The company had also implemented a process for channeling and reusing heat from the kilns as energy to power some of the earlier stages of tile production. As a final step to Gold, the carbon impact of non-renewable energy used in the tile production process is now off-set using carbon certificates.
• Material Reutilization: Mosa has replaced more than 30% of its wall tiles’ body mass through the use of secondary materials. For example, raw chalk used as the primary material in ceramic tiles has been replaced by calcite, a by-product from the production of drinking water, sourced from local water companies. Indistinguishable from raw chalk, the renewable material does not compromise product performance or design. In addition, the company has launched a circular economy strategy focused on three core activities:
  • Increasing the volume of post-consumer recycled content in Mosa products.
  • Making circular products designed for reuse and recycling.
  • Building circular partnerships for product recycling and upcycling. 
• Social Fairness: Current and future Mosa suppliers are screened for conflict minerals and to ensure ethical labor sourcing practices.

“Mosa’s journey to Cradle to Cradle Certified Gold is a strong example of how companies can use the principles of the Cradle to Cradle Certified Product Standard to turn their sustainability commitments into meaningful practices,” said Dr. Christina Raab, president and CEO of the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute. “This achievement reflects Mosa’s dedication to our shared vision of a healthy, equitable and sustainable world powered by products that have a positive impact on people and our planet.”

The Journey Continues

“Our Gold Cradle to Cradle certification reflects our commitment to putting sustainability and well-being even higher on the agenda than before,” Spikker said. “We are proud to celebrate this accomplishment and look forward to achieving even greater ambitions on our Cradle to Cradle journey.”