Hype or a vision of the future? "Cradle to Cradle" in the Netherlands

You wouldn’t really describe the Netherlands as a particularly sustainability-conscious country. Certainly long-term considerations of this kind play very little part in the still overheated housing market. An “energy label” for apartments introduced in 2008 is not mandatory and so inevitably it is proving to be a flop. Energy standards apply only to new-builds and the few grants available for installing solar panels were all spoken for within six weeks of launch. Also, too many existing buildings still have only single glazing and poorly insulated roofs. Given this, it is all the more surprising that the Netherlands should be the country in Europe in which the “Cradle to Cradle” (C2C) design concept devised by William McDonough and Michael Braungart is most well known.