cradle to cradle remaking the way we make

To study nature and use it as a model for creating things: “A tree produces thousands of blossoms in order to create another tree, yet we do not consider its abundance wasteful but safe, beautiful, and highly effective hence, “waste equals food” is the first principle the book sets forth.”.

To ban the belief that human industry has to damage the natural world, given a system where production is based on the expropriation of natural resources that are transformed through an industrial process.

The value of Cradle to Cradle resides in the novelty of ideas and action that it proposes: This example can be extrapolated to all types of industrial processes, materials and manufactured products. If the same building had been conceived from the start taking advantage of cross ventilation and natural lighting, it wouldn’t generate energy expenses that later need to be reduced when the design has been badly planned from the start.

McDonough and Braungart propose catching the problem beginning at the source: if a building uses a lot of energy in air conditioning and lighting, optimizing the performance of its cooling system, installing low consuming lightbulbs and even photovoltaic panels serves only to reduce the energy expense, but it continues spending energy. This concept of reduction of waste only perpetuates, according to the authors, a way of production that is uni-directional, “from cradle to grave”, conceived during the Industrial Revolution and the system responsible for extraordinary quantities of waste and pollution. The concept of reducing, reusing and recycling, they argue, signifies “to do more with less in order to minimize damage”.Ĭradle to Cradle fights against what we consider normal: the waste created by used products, which are often manufactured with environmentally dangerous and toxic products. architect William McDonough reject the maxim preached for decades by environmentalists- the three Rs: reduce, reuse, recycle. In Cradle to Cradle, German chemist Michael Braungart and U.S. Production in just one direction (from cradle to grave) should be converted into “eco-effectiveness” (from cradle to cradle: a model that feeds itself, without generating waste nor contamination).Ĭradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things explains, through a careful analysis of the production method of goods since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, that products that can be used to produce something new, once they have ceased to be useful. Cradle to Cradle is a non-fiction work with the tone of a manifesto that calls for the transformation of human industry through “eco-effective” design.

Cradle to cradle remaking the way we make