Developing a data-driven approach to certified sustainable products

The Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute (C2C PII) is renowned for stewarding the “gold standard” certification for sustainable products. But they faced challenges with ensuring the consistency of underlying chemical assessment data essential for product certification. Workshop partnered with the Institute and took a design thinking approach to develop a comprehensive data assessment platform.

• Streamlined certification: The new platform provided greater confidence in the  Institute’s product certification and supported a more rigorous certification process.
• Enhanced data collection: Data assessment became more automated and accessible, reducing manual effort and helping ensure quality and consistency in chemical assessment data.
• ‍Design thinking approach. Built capacity and knowledge across the Institute’s team on key design thinking approaches and methodologies.

The Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute maintains a portfolio of sustainable product certifications. But the process of certifying products is complex. It involved analyzing chemical compositions, human health impacts and environmental effects. All of this relies on quality data, but data was inconsistent and inaccessible to C2C Institute. The Institute needed a robust solution to centralize data and ensure consistency across the certification process.

Discovery & Reframing

• Conducted interviews and strategy sessions to surface the real problem: chemical assessment data quality and consistency.
• Shifted focus from unilateral data access across all assessment teams to a focused data strategy that provided the Institute access to all assessment data to ensure consistency

Strategy & Architecture

• Facilitated working sessions to map a new data model centered on providing data to C2C while maintaining privacy of proprietary assessor databases
• Defined a platform strategy to centralize chemical hazard profiles and automate flagging of inconsistencies between chemical assessments

Design & Development

• Led participatory design sessions with chemical assessment teams to align on platform vision and requirements
• Tested prototype with potential users to ensure the solution was practical, accessible, and adoption-ready
• Practiced agile development to build data sharing platform with technical partner Viget
• Rolled out beta platform version with assessment teams, conducted training with them, testing and validation

Capability & Alignment

• Built team knowledge in design thinking, user-centered strategy, and agile collaboration throughout the process
• Created shared product charter and roadmap to guide phased implementation with clarity and accountability
• Introduced a product development mindset, align with experience working with software partners, and rolling out software solutions

• A clearer, shared strategy for modernizing and scaling chemical assessment data management across C2C PII's certification ecosystem
• Stronger alignment across assessment teams around governance, priorities, and platform vision
• A systems-level approach to transparency, verification, and product improvement replacing fragmented data management
• A software platform that enabled assessors to submit their chemical assessment data to the Institute while maintaining their data privacy and IP
• A practical roadmap moving C2C PII from concept into phased implementation with confidence and clarity
• Increased organizational capacity in design thinking, agile collaboration, and user-centered platform development