Cradle to Cradle

About “Cradle to Cradle”

"Reduce, reuse, recycle," is a common environmental slogan, but architects and chemists William McDonough and Michael Braungart argue this approach maintains a harmful "cradle to grave" manufacturing model from the Industrial Revolution. They suggest challenging the idea that industry must harm the environment and instead look to nature as a model. A tree, for example, produces many blossoms to create new life, and this abundance is seen as beneficial. The authors propose that waste should be viewed as "food" for new systems. Products can be designed to either return safely to the environment as biological nutrients or to be reused endlessly as technical nutrients in closed-loop systems. Drawing from their experience, they show how industries can create eco-effective products and practices.