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GreenMoney Journal - publishing since 1992
Winter 2009/10 issue
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Book Review: Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart
Ted Ketcham
What do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise
in heap or mound,
As if it had been to mill and ground!
You see of course, if you’re not a
dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once,
- - All at once, and nothing first,
- - Just
as bubbles do when they burst.
– The Deacon’s Masterpiece or the Wonderful One-Hoss Shay
by Oliver Wendell Holmes
The wonderful one-hoss shay was a masterpiece of design - made so perfectly that it didn't wear
out, or at least its pieces didn't. It lasted far beyond the life of its maker and first owner, and
when, after one hundred years, it finally succumbed to the inevitable, it decayed entirely, turning
immediately to dust and then, presumably, blowing away.
Unfortunately, one of our most
painful lessons of the twentieth century has been the reality that there is no "away." Products
once slipped snugly into landfills or mountainsides have leeched into our water. Smoke from burning
grass fields, instead of drifting gently into some harmless corner of the atmosphere has invaded
the nostrils and lungs of asthmatics. Mercury, a ubiquitous and dangerous product, returns to us in
the fish we catch. Clearly, industry and our planet need to do better at co-existing.
Toward a New Industrial Revolution
In a radical rethinking of this relationship
between business, environment, and social responsibility, William McDonough and Michael Braungart
continue their on-going collaborations in Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things.
McDonough is an architect whose influence and innovation extend far beyond architecture and
Braungart's experience as a chemist reaches beyond the laboratory to Green Party politics and
futurism. Together, they explore the new and necessary paradigms that may enable this planet and
its economies - both biological and technological - to survive without tragic disruption.
In 1991 McDonough and Braungart co-wrote "The Hanover Principles," design guidelines for the
2000 World's Fair. Among its main ideas was "eliminate the concept of waste." The key to
understanding Cradle to Cradle lies in this premise; it is not about reducing, minimizing, or
avoiding waste - it is about reconceptualizing it, or re-imagining the problem.
The
bishop's carriage may have been a crafted marvel, but the dust from its collapse had to go
somewhere; if it had been upholstered in many of today's fabrics, we could assume that the material
in its inhaled form contained dangerous particles, just as the soles of our favorite running shoes
slough off into unhealthy particles as they wear. To solve this and other problems in the
by-products of progress, the authors suggest we stop
thinking about just what materials to
avoid and begin thinking about design and which materials to seek. Instead of simply harmless
substances in running shoe soles, how about soles with nutrients for the soil?
"We see a
world of abundance, not limits" say McDonough and Braungart. They insist that it is in the act of
design - of asking the right questions - that the down-line problems of waste and inefficiency can
be best
addressed. When we cover the seats of our modern horseless carriages we need to
consider more variables. How do we best make this occupant comfortable? is only one of the
important questions. Another is How do we design a fabric that will be not only be safe, but also
useful beyond its life in this car?
Boats serve well as metaphors for change. Ralph Waldo
Emerson, we are told, traveled to Europe in the 1830's aboard a sailing ship, as ecologically
functional and
economical a conveyance as has ever existed. In search of speed, he returned
home aboard an early steamship, a very recent innovation in his time. Likely the trip back was much
faster, but also noisier, quite polluting and less pleasant. In his journals Emerson noted the
implications of this changing relationship between man and nature. One wonders if the "triumph" of
the Titanic less than a century later and the significance of that sinking icon of the Industrial
Revolution would have surprised him.
The Titanic's watery grave has mirrored the "Cradle
to Grave" path of products in their 20th Century arcs from manufacturers to consumers to toxic
landfills. Indeed, the example of the Titanic gives the lie to the Industrial Age notion that "all
boats rise" in a booming economy.
Nevertheless, optimistic proponents of progress, 19th and
20th Century-style, believed that more products equaled more commerce equaled more jobs equaled
more demand equaled more products.
By paying attention to the real costs of progress, say
the authors, we can, in fact, achieve this healthier abundance that the industrial revolution
seemed to promise, but not by simply reducing, reusing, recycling, and regulating, - the 4 R's of
traditional environmentalism. Such conventional
eco-environmental terms suggest a "guardian
versus
commerce" antagonism, in which the forces of industry compete with forces of
environmentalism. In such contests of isms there is no possibility of a win-win outcome.
Eco-effectiveness offers the best escape from this apparent standoff. McDonough and Braungart's
intelligent design would lead us to workplaces where people actually would want to work, factories
that produce clean drinkable effluent, "green" roofs that produce oxygen while cooling the
occupants, and products that when their initial use is past, could offer nutrients for the soil
or high quality raw materials for
re-manufacture. Eco-effectiveness leads to the triple bottom
line of economic, social, and ecological measurements of a product's worth. Producers who consider
all three are finding increasingly that they are mutually beneficial, and that they no longer must
consider social and ecological benefits at the expense of profits.
A convincing example of
such balanced benefits occurred when Braungart worked with a German soap maker to create a shower
gel that wouldn't hurt the Rhine River. As Braungart's team began to analyze typical gels they
discovered 22 separate chemical components, some of which were used only to counteract the negative
ecological effects of the others. When they proposed a list of nine chemical components, the soap
maker at first balked because some were quite expensive. Still, when the total costs were
calculated, including the cumbersome processing steps of the original gel, there was a significant
saving. Ultimately, environmental concerns lead to a product that was 15 percent less expensive to
produce.
Cradle to Cradle offers readers a philosophical basis for hope. The authors show
that a workable symbiosis between nature and industry is possible not only because it is right, but
also because it can be profitable on multiple levels. With copious examples, principals, and steps
McDonough and Braungart have produced a true "how-to" blueprint for radical rethinking and
re-doing. If we pay attention to their very important message, we can perhaps balance the needs of
our economic health and our children's right to a healthy planet.
For more information go to-
http://www.mbdc.com
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