Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

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

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
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Book Summary Information

Author: Michael Braungart, William McDonough
Edition: Paperback
Published: 2002-04-22
ISBN: 0865475873
Number of pages: 208
Publisher: North Point Press

Book Reviews of Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

Book Review: Innovative thinking
Summary: 5 Stars

Living in France for the past 20 years, since 2005 I've been reading everything I can on man's negative impact on the planet. This book is one of the most complete works on how we can make a difference to modify our thinking and our acts. Many other books, however necessary for general awareness, just relate all of the catastrophes we've created, and how long we should hold out. Every factory owner, small and large business leaders should consider this mandatory reading for themselves and their staff. (Being an architect myself, I am ashamed to admit that I don't know how to find "true" south. However, my search has begun.)

Summary of Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

Paper or plastic? Neither, say William McDonough and Michael Braungart. Why settle for the least harmful alternative when we could have something that is better--say, edible grocery bags! In Cradle to Cradle, the authors present a manifesto calling for a new industrial revolution, one that would render both traditional manufacturing and traditional environmentalism obsolete. Recycling, for instance, is actually "downcycling," creating hybrids of biological and technical "nutrients" which are then unrecoverable and unusable. The authors, an architect and a chemist, want to eliminate the concept of waste altogether, while preserving commerce and allowing for human nature. They offer several compelling examples of corporations that are not just doing less harm--they're actually doing some good for the environment and their neighborhoods, and making more money in the process. Cradle to Cradle is a refreshing change from the intractable environmental conflicts that dominate headlines. It's a handbook for 21st-century innovation and should be required reading for business hotshots and environmental activists. --Therese Littleton
A manifesto for a radically different philosophy and practice of manufacture and environmentalism

"Reduce, reuse, recycle" urge environmentalists; in other words, do more with less in order to minimize damage. As William McDonough and Michael Braungart argue in their provocative, visionary book, however, this approach perpetuates a one-way, "cradle to grave" manufacturing model that dates to the Industrial Revolution and casts off as much as 90 percent of the materials it uses as waste, much of it toxic. Why not challenge the notion that human industry must inevitably damage the natural world, they ask.

In fact, why not take nature itself as our model? 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. Products might be designed so that, after their useful life, they provide nourishment for something new-either as "biological nutrients" that safely re-enter the environment or as "technical nutrients" that circulate within closed-loop industrial cycles, without being "downcycled" into low-grade uses (as most "recyclables" now are).

Elaborating their principles from experience (re)designing everything from carpeting to corporate campuses, the authors make an exciting and viable case for change.

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