Traditionally, companies try to minimize their negative impact on the environment (ecological footprint) by attempting to have “zero emissions,” suggesting that they want to reduce their impact on the ecology to zero. Ironically the message from this philosophy is that it would be best not to buy a product at all. This approach turns potentially active customers into “enemies” of a company by projecting a negative attitude on the company’s products.
The story is different when an organization intends to become a Cradle to Cradle^® organization. The organization does not need to be perfect and does not have to reduce itself out of existence. It just needs to have the right direction. The organization has a positive agenda, and customers are encouraged to buy its products or services so the organization can accelerate its rate of improvement. The more products the customer buys, the faster the organization can transform those products.
The organization will establish a plan that includes goals, strategies, key performance indicators, timelines and milestones for integrating the C2C framework into their design and manufacturing system.

The organization will:

• Make sure technical and biological nutrients become safely reusable nutrients.
• Measurably use renewable energy for its products and processes via KPI’s. Examples of renewable energy include solar thermal, ground based and air-based heat exchange, wind, biomass, hydro and, photovoltaic.
• Actively and measurably support biodiversity according to well-established biological tools for measuring species diversity.