On Tuesday, July 13, 2021, SOUR joined the World Architecture Festival (WAF) Futures Week, in association with WasteBuild, joining as a panelist to discuss cradle to cradle solutions in the built environment. The panel was organized and hosted by GROHE, a leading global brand for complete bathroom solutions and kitchen fittings and the Founder Partner of WAF.
Architectural ideas which tackle some of the biggest issues facing the world were the subject of this online event, which took place from 12 to 14 July 2021: "In a period of profound change across the world, architects will play an important part in creating buildings, cities, public places and landscapes that respond to the challenges we have identified. There are immense amounts of research being undertaken across the profession which we hope we can draw attention to, and which we intend to support through publication, exhibition, and funding initiatives," said WAF Programme Director Paul Finch.
As part of the program, Finch hosted the panel CRADLE TO CRADLE: Embracing the Circular Economy, organised by GROHE. Next to SOUR’s Partner Pinar Guvenc, other panelists were Karl Lennon, Leader A&D LIXIL EMENA, and Brendon Rowen, 540 World. During the panel, the panelists discussed the importance of moving towards a circular economy, leaving the take-make-waste production lines which we are currently still in, while the climate crisis is worsening every day. As individuals and professionals in the built environment, we have to stop acting like natural resources are infinite on our planet, and start producing products taking the whole life cycle of their materiality into account.
GROHE is a leading global brand for complete bathroom solutions and kitchen fittings and has a total of over 6,500 employees in 150 countries –2,600 of them are based in Germany. GROHE takes its corporate responsibility very seriously and focuses on a resource-saving value chain. Since April 2020, the sanitary brand has been producing CO2-neutral worldwide. GROHE has also set itself the goal of using plastic-free product packaging by 2021. In the past ten years alone, more than 460 design and innovation awards as well as several top rankings at the German Sustainability Award have confirmed GROHE's success: GROHE was the first in its industry to win the CSR Award of the German Federal Government and was also featured in the renowned Fortune®magazine’s ranking of Top 50 that are “Changing the World”.
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