Recycled steel

Hey Riley thanks for your question!

Steel products may be well suited for C2C certification because steel is highly recyclable. Most steel consists of some recycled content.

That said the production of steel is very energy intensive and produces a significant amount of greenhouse gases.

As opposed to simple "recycling" Cradle to Cradle focuses on "upcycling" or a material's potential to be reused in the same process that created it, or a higher level application. Steel may be recycled or upcycled.

C2C offers a range of different certification levels for products, offering transparency and increasingly strict requirements for products to be comprised of "green" materials.

There is some controversy over whether Cradle to Cradle is stringent enough with respect to product environmental requirements at lower certification levels (silver and below).

An example of a Gold C2C certified product is a product called "EcoScreen", made by a company called Centria. The product uses an uncoated stainless steel.

The best way to determine whether the product you're interested in certifying is eligible would be to reach out to C2C directly. Here's the link.

For more information on C2C and the various alternatives, you can read more about how green building product certifications work here.