Katja Hansen – The Cradle to Cradle concept in detail

Katja Hansen is a pioneering contributor to the scientfic basis for the Cradle to Cradle design paradigm. She is Senior Researcher at The Academic Chair Cradle to Cradle for Innovation and Quality Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. She is also a lead trainer and engineering expert working with EPEA Internationale Umweltforschung on implementing the Cradle to Cradle concept with partner companies, and manages the EU supported C2C Islands project.

In the field of water management she co-designed, constructed and scientifically tested one of the main demonstration projects for the 1992 UNCED Rio Earth Summit. From 1992 to 1998 she was the scientific and project director of an EU funded project for bionutrient recycling in Brazil and China. The pilot projects demonstrated safe and highly productive re-use of nutrients from effluent, generating clean water as a byproduct.

Katja Hansen was a founding contributor to the Brazilian NGO “O Instituto Ambiental” which took over the technology and built facilities across Central and South America. Some facilities were built in Haiti where they survived a devastating earthquake and continued purifying water and recycling nutrients when other sanitation systems failed. The technology is now supported by UNEP in Haiti.

This film was recorded by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and University of Bradford, at Cisco Studios London, October 2011