Material health

We prioritize naturally occurring ingredient materials that are safe and healthy for humans and the environment, making them ideal for use in products made for circular spaces and systems.

Verifiably healthy materials

The materials Mosa’s Cradle to Cradle Certified GOLD ceramic tile products have been verified as safe. More than 50% of the ingredients in our tiles are derived from natural sources such as chalk, clay, and sand. In addition, each ingredient has been assessed at a level of one hundredth of one percent (100 parts per million) to ensure its safety for human health, and for our environment.

Recycled content

On average, our tiles contain recycled content derived from pre-consumer, post-industrial, including reusing production waste, processing secondary materials such as calcite, and collecting and re-using cutting waste from larger projects across the Netherlands.

>50%

ingredient materials in Mosa ceramic tiles are derived from natural sources.

34%

pre-consumer recycled content in Mosa wall tiles.

21% to 45%

pre-consumer recycled content in Mosa floor tiles.

Mosa partners with our local water supplier to source calcite for use in our ceramic tiles. A waste material generated during the water production process, calcite is indistinguishable from chalk, making it an ideal circular material for use in our ceramic tiles.

Circular solutions

Knowing circular materials are the foundation of circular buildings and spaces – and that circular buildings enable circular cities and communities; we apply the principles of circular design to our products and solutions.

Start with safe, healthy materials.
Eliminate waste by designing with circularity in mind.
Incorporate increasingly higher volumes of circular materials and recycled content.
Create circular pathways for material reuse and recycling.

Mosa's take-back system

When it comes to a circular built environment, sustainable materials are only half the story. Systems for taking back and reusing products is critical to growing a circular economy for the built environment. In partnership with the Dutch recycling company Thijssen Emans, we’ve created the Mosa Take-Back system. An important step towards closing the circularity gap, the Mosa Take-Back System, enables the collection of clean pre-consumer tile cutting residue from selected projects. Instead of heading to landfill, the cutting residue is then coarsely ground for reuse as a raw material in the manufacture of new Mosa tiles and other building materials.

Reversible tile adhesive

Detaching glued tiles cleanly and without damage is one of the biggest challenges to reusing or repurposing tiles. To solve this problem, Mosa is working with partners to make tiles easier to remove, reuse, and recycle at the end of their useful lives through a detachable adhesive that can be cleanly and easily removed from both the tile and the substrate, opening exciting pathways for reusing or repurposing used tiles in new installations or as raw materials in new products. In addition to enabling design for disassembly principles and increasing the long-term cyclability of our tiles, reversible adhesive can also help to reduce the volume of low-value demolition waste.

Ceramic façade cladding

Ceramic façade cladding can be used in both new construction and renovation projects. In both instances, Mosa’s ceramic tiles and ventilated façade systems are an ideal solution. These versatile, multi-layered exterior wall systems feature an air cavity between a building’s outer cladding and insulation. Mosa supports two ventilated façade systems with our ceramic tiles: visible fastening with clips and invisible fastening with tile anchoring.

We collaborate with experienced companies for the façade system components to ensure all systems are tested and approved for safety and functionality, and both systems have been evaluated and approved at the EU level according to applicable EADs (ETAG). Mosa tiles combined with these facade systems offer an array of sustainable benefits, including:

Appearance retention, including colourfastness, scratch resistance, UV- and weather-resistance;
Natural ventilation;
Insulation, energy cost savings, and climate control;
Easy repairs and maintenance – systems enable tiles to be fully interchangeable;
Non-combustible;
Repurposable and recycable due to the mechanical construction (not glued).

All Mosa tiles starting at 60 by 60 centimeters and larger can be used in these circular façade solutions.

'Samenwerken voor circulaire en modulaire woningen voor de sociale woningbouw'

In 2023, Mosa joined a consortium of companies led by Brightlands Chemelot Campus in Sittard-Geleen, Netherlands to introduce a new affordable circular housing concept. Located in Limburg, the innovative project will develop a quick-to-build, circular and energy neutral terraced house that offers a sustainable, future-oriented circular solution to the challenges associated with housing construction.

The 100% Limburg-based consortium, which includes CUBE Homes, SAM Panels, Block Materials, Brightlands Materials Center, CHILL/ZUYD Hogeschool, and the Brightlands Chemelot Campus with support from ZOwonen, Bouwmensen, and Rabobank, aims to use only biobased and circular materials, including Mosa’s detachable tile system with Mosa’s own Cradle to Cradle Certified® GOLD tiles, making it 100% Limburg-based and 100% sustainable.

The house’s modular design and fast construction process (the house can be placed in its intended location within one day) will also enable it to grow and adapt to the rapidly changing housing needs of the residents, and to help address the demographic challenges Limburg faces.

The project is co-financed by the European Union. The pioneering project aims to achieve a fully circular economy by 2050.