Cradle to Cradle


Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
by William McDonough and Michael Braungart

Main Points:

  • What is Cradle to Cradle? Cradle to Cradle is a design concept inspired by nature, in which products are created according to the principles of an ideal circular economy. This differentiates Cradle to Cradle from conventional recycling and the concept of eco-efficiency. It is about eco-effectiveness and goes beyond conventional sustainability tools and approaches, which primarily show the negative influence of humans on the environment. (EPEA)
  • Design is the first signal of human intention. What are our intentions? What would our intentions be as a species, now that we are the dominant species? It isn't stewardship or dominion debate. 
  • Guardian: How can we secure local society, create world peace, and save the environment?
  • Commerce: How do we generate prosperity? 
  • Design: How do we love all the children of all species for all time?
  • Current design has no end game. Climate change is part of the defacto plan. 
  • A Strategy of Hope and Change-as Kevin Kelly pointed out there is no end game, but there is an infinite game.
  • Premise of the book: Our goal is a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy, and just world, with clean air, water, soil and power- economically, equitably, ecologically, and elegantly enjoyed. 
    • Need full diversity
    • Produce products and analyze nutrition
    • What is justice?
    • Water is declared a human right, air quality is necessary
    • Clean soil is under attack by nitrification and dead zones
    • Flows of materials and great signs of hope (eyesight in India)
  • William McDonough born in Tokyo, grew up in Hong Kong (typhoid, cholera, etc. and limits were extreme- four hours of water everyday), spent his summer in the Puget Sound, moved to New York/Connecticut and saw people leaving the showers on, and went to Yale School of Architecture where he studied in a building by Le Corbusier. 
  • At Yale he saw the first energy crisis and tried to make the first solar heated house in Ireland and his teacher (Richard Meyers) discouraged him. In 1984 he made the first "green office" in America for Environmental Defense Fund.  NOAA has shown that there is 6 times as much plastic than plankton in the gyre north of Hawaii. 
  • Cradle to Cradle is a polymer, the book is not a tree. "We write our history on the skin of fish, with the blood of bears." - Margaret Atwood. 
  • "Imagine this design assignment: Design something that makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, distills water, accrues solar energy as fuel, makes complex sugars and food, creates microclimates, changes colors with the seasons, and self-replicates. Why don't we knock that down and write on it?"
McDonough's UCTV Talk in 2009:
"Glance at the sun.
See the moon and the stars.
Gaze at the beauty of earth's greetings.
Now think.
What a delight god gives to humankind
With all these things.
All nature is at the disposal of humankind.
We are to work with it.
For without we cannot survive."
- Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)
  • Francis Crick talks about the nature of vitalism, in order for you to be living, you need to be growing (need to have income!). Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison, "We should let the federal government of the United States, the federal bonding authority financing this government should be one generation (the term of all borrowing should be 19 years). The earth belongs to the living. No man may by natural right oblige the lands he owns or occupies to debts greater than those paid during his own lifetime. For if he could, the world would belong to the dead, and not the living." This is the idea of equity and the right to live a condition of fairness. 
  • "Asphalt, which in our lexicon is of course two words- assigning blame."- McDonough
  • Design: How do we love all the children of all species for all time?
    • Our goal is a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy, and just world, with clean air, water, soil and power- economically, equitably, ecologically, and elegantly enjoyed. 
  • Social market economy between socialism and capitalism. "Ism"'s are dangerous things: racism, sexism, etc. Ecologism itself is dangerous because it would forget economy and society. So we end up with a triad of sustainable development: ecology, equity, economy. Otherwise known as "Triple Top Line". Revenue generation: social revenue, ecological revenue, economy revenue. 
    • economy- am I making a profit?
    • equity- are people earning a living wage?
    • economy/equity- are men and women earning the same?
    • ecology/equity- is it fair to put cancer into our products?
    • ecology- am I following nature's laws?
    • ecology/economy- eco-effectiveness/eco-efficiency. Am I being efficient with resources?
  • What does it mean to do the right thing by the natural world? "Eco-effectiveness"
    • Native to place - "story of the Yakima in Washington State"- scientists at the Hanford Nuclear Repository in Washington where we store plutonium for bombs and missiles. They are there to design a sign on the ground so that even an extraterrestrial wouldn't dare to dig. The Yakima started laughing, "you don't need to do this, we will tell them where it is."
  • The Pacific Gyre off the coast of Santa Barbara six times more plastic than plankton was found. Waste from the west coast of the United States. Now it is 46 times as much plastic than plankton. 48% of the anthropogenic carbon dioxide is in the oceans. The oceans pH is currently 8.06, and it might drop to pH 7.9 which means we will eliminate the bottom of the food chain. 
  • In Cradle to Cradle they say that "Being less bad, is not being good." So what does it mean to be more good? We need to be careful with resources because we don't have mass income, but we do have energy income (abundance of solar energy). 
  • Two types of metabolism:
    • biological metabolism- it not only biodegrades, but it does so safely (soils)
    • technical metabolism- things that go back into technical cycles (industries)- products of service, just leasing this for a period of time and going back to being used again.
  • What is eco-effective design? Not "growth vs. no growth" but "what do we want to grow?"
    • Waste equals food
    • Use current solar income
    • Celebrate diversity
  • What does it mean to be 100% renewably powered? Eco-efficiency is valuable in the short term (can reduce demand). Need eco-effective design which looks at 100% good.
  • Cradle to Cradle:
    • Do an inventory
    • Supply chain tools 
    • Assessment based on criteria - toxicities, irritations, sensitizations 
    • Assessment on environment- biodegrade, toxic heavy metals, etc.
    • Production process- know exactly what things are made of, where they come from
    • Databases on several chemicals looking at fundamental indicators and help client companies redesign their systems. Organic textile industry- 8,000 chemicals being used and they eliminated all by 38 chemicals. 
  • Examples:
    • Biological nutrients: Airbus carpet that is so clean it can be eaten
    • Technical nutrients: Carpet collection made from continuously recyclable material down to ppm. Nylon 6 -> caprolactam. Also a polyolephine that is an infinitely recyclable thermoplastic. (Shaw and Berkshire Hathaway)
    • California has established a Green Product Registry to make a Cradle to Cradle economy
    • Buildings: look at a building as though it is a tree...
      • Design for disassembly for buildings. 
      • Different parts of the building have different recovery periods
      • System replaced 4 times, skin replaced 3 times, site is eternal. 
      • Oberlin college for professor David Orr and working with RMI- the building makes 13% more energy than needed to operate, purifies its own water.
      • Youtube's headquarters in San Bernardino- the roof is made of grass and is a habitat for native species. 
      • Nike Corporate HQ in Europe is completely geothermal powered and no PVC. 
      • Ford at the River Rouge - had a project to revitalize the river (center of production) and they built the largest green roof in the world (10.5 acres of habitat). 
Watch William McDonough's 2007 Ted Talk on Cradle to Cradle!

William McDonough visited the Main Gallery at the Building Centre, London where he talked about Cradle to Cradle, the Circular Economy, and the Language of Carbon!

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