The essence of Delta is perfectly reflected in the Cradle-to-Cradle philosophy," says Coert Zachariasse, CEO of Delta, in this interview. Upcycling all the materials in a building is the epitome of sustainability and is based on our Future Forward principle.
C2C was founded by Michael Braungart a German chemist and William McDonough, an American architect. They are the inventors and creators of the Cradle-to-Cradle design framework. They started in 1987 and gradually made the Cradle-to-Cradle design framework what it is today.
The C2C approach is applicable to products from various sectors including, besides real estate, the automotive sector, consumer goods, electronics and textiles. It is a holistic approach focused on social responsibility (fairness) with the aim of having a positive impact on the planet and humanity in the broad sense.
It is useful to distinguish between the real estate sector and the industrial sector. The former mainly looks at products down to the molecular level. This helps design healthy products that never end up as waste, but instead circulate as foodstuffs in the technosphere or biosphere; for real estate, this is about reusing used materials.
Since its inception in 2003, Delta has focused on C2C and has been one of the pioneers in the further development and roll-out of the Cradle-to-Cradle philosophy in the real estate sector in the Netherlands. In effect, this basically meant reinventing the wheel.
The whole mindset had to change and all materials had to be redesigned to be flexible and reusable. Construction materials had to be easy to disassemble and sort by type, and they had to be able to be labelled for reuse. Quite a transition, but with this approach the materials become fully circular. That transforms our buildings into sustainable and valuable 'raw material banks'.
This may seem like a lot of work, and it is, but it has been more than worth it because it has had a huge positive impact on the climate, on the company's image and, ultimately, it has also saved on costs.
Not long after I took over the company from my father, the redevelopment of the former Fokker aircraft factory at Schiphol East started. It was there that I met American architect William (Bill) McDonough. He is co-author of the book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. At the time, I was not at all concerned with sustainability, but that story appealed to me enormously.
In a world with a finite supply of raw materials, thinking in terms of a make-use-waste system only leads to massive pollution, but also to an economic crisis. I liked the idea that sustainability was not so much about saving money, but mainly about a fundamental re-think that is needed to move towards a circular system (being less bad, is not being good).
That was when I decided that we needed to apply this philosophy in our buildings. That suddenly injected a lot more passion into our work and most of all, for a particularly good cause. Apart from reusing materials, which only makes sense, we save massively in terms of our carbon footprint. This is because the CO2 that is captured in the materials lasts much longer and does not have to be produced all over again.
In the meantime, the costs are practically the same, but it's an interesting question because it's really about: what do you look at when it comes to costs? As mentioned, C2C is a holistic approach and an approach focused on quality with a much broader view than pure cost. It focuses on long-term value creation and social responsibility (fairness) with a positive impact on climate. What are you prepared to do for that?
Well, initially we tended to be 10-15% higher and that was mainly in 'failure costs', or in other words, figuring out how to improve the process. To do that, we created an integrated supply chain involving manufacturers and suppliers. Manufacturers were therefore brought into the process very early on, and were actively contributing ideas and designs in exchange for preferred partnerships.
This collaboration and approach ultimately led to a reduction in costs. Incidentally, an additional benefit was the creation of a new network of knowledge and interests that provided room for cooperation and innovation. This led to our procurement changing from: ‘This is what we want, give us the lowest price’ to: ‘This is our budget and our ambition, design with us and provide us with the highest quality’, and that is a beautiful and necessary change that is also a lot more fun.
I would focus mainly on partnerships and supply chain integration, which are really the key to innovation that will enable a fundamental change in the construction industry. Innovation is often entrenched in the supply chain, at the level of manufacturers and suppliers, and not so much that of contractors or architects.
In addition, everyone is still too focused on a short-term revenue model, when what we really need to do is start constructing buildings that have long-term value, with an eye to the future and the challenges that will bring.
So look beyond your own model and see who that long-term value is being created for, and start a dialogue to create more revenue; far too often we only look at costs, whereas sustainability and C2C are very much an investment in quality, and in the long(er) term, yield profits for everyone.
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