We make stuff out of concrete. That's our reality. We use raw materials to make a product and the bad news is we will have waste. When faced with this we asked ourselves "Can we minimize our negative impact and in what ways can we actually have a positive impact". We believe that "good design" and "good for the planet" are not mutually exclusive. We know sustainability, environmentally friendly, and of course "green" are somewhat buzzwords these days, but we're excited that at least they are now a part of the public conscience. We've always taken them very seriously. Fiddlehead Designs was founded on the core belief that business needs to be done in a sustainable way or it shouldn't be done.
Our values in regard to these questions have compelled us to focus our efforts on creating products with good design that are good deep down. There's a lot of different opinions on concrete. There's green concrete and not so green concrete. If concrete is made from all virgin materials, all portland cement, and plastic binders it is NOT green. It doesn't have to be that way though. Most concrete is made this way, especially in the concrete countertop industry. We did too for awhile, but it doesn't have to be that way...
We went further. We asked ourselves, "Can we make custom designed products that have a high recycled content?". That led to our new mix that has a combined recycled content of over 80% by weight by using a blend of recycled glass, recycled concrete, and fly ash. We even use recycled carpet fibers for crack resistance. The only thing that isn't great is the cement, but our mix replaces 30% of portland cement with fly ash. Our mix is getting greener, our products more sustainable, and our business is making a greater impact.
We've worked hard to feel good about our products so you can too. So, it may be a little boring, but here is a list of what we're doing in our business to help the planet and the people on it.
+ Our Studio is 100% Wind Powered.
+ Our concrete products are made with a blend of post-consumer and post-industrial recycled glass and concrete, fly ash (a waste by=product of coal burning power plants), and cement.
+ Our concrete washbasins and vessel sinks have a post-consumer recycled content of 75% and a pre-consumer recycled content of 5% by weight. Our products can help you earn LEED Credits for Materials and Resources.
+ Our concrete integral sinks have a recycled content of 50%-80% by weight.
+ We get almost all of our raw materials from within 100 miles of Denver. For example, most of our recycled concrete comes from the old Stapleton Airport in Denver and our recycled glass comes from Boulder. (We have to snag it before the Coors Brewing Company snatches it all up...Monsters)
+ All our products are made entirely in our studio in Denver, Colorado
+ We recycle just about everything we can in our form-building and everyday use. i.e. rebar, screws, wood, etc.
+ We have eliminated wet polishing, a standard in the industry, thus saving thousands of gallons of water a year.
+ We give back! We're members of 1% for the Planet, USGBC, and we give yearly to the Center for Resource Conservation in Boulder, Colorado.
+ On a side note if you want to compare our products to other sinks made of porcelain, corian, or acrylic, the embodied energy of our concrete mix is much lower even when you count for the portland cement in our mix...in case you were wondering.
We don't want a brownie, gold star or anything else, we just do what we think is right and hope other companies and individuals will do the same.