A modular exhibition flooring built for the circular economy

ABC Display, a Dutch family business producing modular, reusable exhibition flooring called Stand-On Floor, partners with Sustenuto to achieve Cradle to Cradle Certified® Circularity at Bronze level. In under six months, Sustenuto has helped ABC Display verify the circular design of its three-component floor system, build a robust cycling plan, and navigate the supply chain to prove recycled content. The result: independent, third-party recognition of a product built for the circular economy.

A family-owned flooring innovator turns circular design into verified certification

ABC Display makes modular exhibition floors called Stand-On Floor from three simple, reusable and recyclable components: an ABS base plate, a polycarbonate cover plate, and aluminium edges. Customers can rent or buy the system, and surfaces are printed to order. The product is designed with Cradle to Cradle (C2C) principles in mind. To back this up with independent proof, ABC Display turned to Sustenuto, an accredited C2C assessment body. Within six months, ABC Displays achieved Cradle to Cradle Certified® Circularity at Bronze level.

The Challenge

Exhibition flooring has a waste problem. Most alternatives on the market are single-use or hard to recycle, and they generate significant waste after every event. ABC Display set out to change this from the start: its Stand-On Floor uses only three components, each chosen for reusability and recyclability.

Circularity is built into the product architecture itself, and not just a marketing angle bolted on afterwards. That makes Stand-On Floor well-positioned for a market that increasingly asks for sustainable alternatives. But good design alone isn't proof. ABC Display wanted independent, third-party verification to back its claims up and give customers real confidence in the product's circular credentials. That's why it approached Sustenuto for Cradle to Cradle certification.

The certification process surfaces a real-world challenge many manufacturers face: supply chain transparency. The ABS base plate reportedly uses 100% recycled material. But proving this requires chain of custody documentation, which could not be fully collected. As an alternative, ABC Display conducted a feasibility analysis and created a plan to fully verify the recycled material in the base plates.

Our Approach

During weekly meetings, ABC Display and Sustenuto consistently worked through the core pillars of Cradle to Cradle certification:

• Material health: collecting data from across the supply chain to confirm that all components are safe for human and environmental health.

• Circularity: a cycling plan with two clear pathways: reuse and recycling. This includes setting up a global return network and identifying partners equipped to handle end-of-life processing.

• Chain of custody: gathering documentation to verify the recycled content of the aluminium component.

• Recycled content strategy: since the ABS component proved harder to verify, a strategy was developed to increase and better document recycled content over time.

The Results

In under six months, ABC Display has achieved Cradle to Cradle Certified® Circularity at Bronze level, which serves as independent proof that its exhibition flooring system lives up to its circular design promise.

Key outcomes:

• Verified absence of harmful materials

• A concrete cycling plan covering both reuse and recycling, backed by a global return network and capable processing partners.

• Documented recycled content of the aluminium component, with chain of custody evidence in place.

• A clear roadmap to increase and verify recycled content in the ABS and polycarbonate components.

The certification gives ABC Display what it set out for: third-party validation that turns strong design intentions into a credible, verifiable claim. It also surfaces a lesson with wider relevance, supply chain transparency is often the hardest part of proving circularity, not the product design itself.