Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

by William McDonough

The tree, among the finest of nature’s creations, plays a crucial and multifaceted role in our interdependent ecosystem.

We are accustomed to thinking of industry and the environment as being at odds with each other, because conventional methods of extraction, manufacture, and disposal are destructive to the natural world. Environmentalists often characterize business as bad and industry itself (and the growth it demands) as inevitably destructive. On the other hand, industrialists often view environmentalism as an obstacle to production and growth. For the environment to be healthy, the conventional attitude goes, industries must be regulated and restrained. For industries to fatten, nature cannot take precedence. It appears that these two systems cannot thrive in the same world. The environmental message that “consumers” take from all this can be strident and depressing: Stop being so bad, so materialistic, so greedy. Do whatever you can, no matter how inconvenient, to limit your “consumption.” Buy less, spend less, drive less, have fewer children—or none. Aren’t the major environmental problems today—global warming, deforestation, pollution, waste—products of your decadent Western way of life? If you are going to help save the planet, you will have to make some sacrifices, share some resources, perhaps even go without. And fairly soon you must face a world of limits. There is only so much the Earth can take.

We have worked with both nature and commerce, and we don’t think so.

This ingenious design, locally relevant, culturally rich, and using simple materials, contrasted sharply with the typical modern designs I had seen in my own country, designs that rarely made such good use of local material and energy flows.

Of particular concern to us were volatile organic compounds, carcinogenic materials, and anything else in the paints, wall coverings, carpetings, floorings, and fixtures that might cause indoor air quality problems or multiple chemical sensitivity. With little or no research available, we turned to the manufacturers, who often told us the information was proprietary and gave us nothing beyond the vague safeguards in the material safety data sheets mandated by law. We did the best we could at the time. We used water-based paints. We tacked down carpet instead of gluing it. We provided thirty cubic feet per minute of fresh air per person instead of five. We had granite checked for radon. We used wood that was sustainably harvested. We tried to be less bad.

design is a signal of intention.

I was tired of working hard to be less bad. I wanted to be involved in making buildings, even products, with completely positive intentions.

I directed Greenpeace’s chemistry department and helped the organization to protest more knowledgeably, but I soon realized that protest wasn’t enough. We needed to develop a process for change.

The scientific community is usually paid to study problems, not solutions; indeed, finding a solution to the problem under study usually brings an end to funding for research. This puts an odd pressure on scientists, who, like everyone else, must make a living. Moreover, we scientists are trained in analysis rather than synthesis.

I could tell you all about the components and potential negative effects of plasticizers, PVC, heavy metals, and many other harmful substances, which I learned about in my primary research. But my colleagues and I lacked a vision for putting this environmental knowledge to work within beautiful designs.

I was caught up in the notion that industry was bad, and environmentalism was ethically superior to it.

we coauthored The Hannover Principles, design guidelines for the 2000 World’s Fair that were issued at the World Urban Forum of the Earth Summit in 1992.

“Eliminate the concept of waste”—not reduce, minimize, or avoid waste, as environmentalists were then propounding, but eliminate the very concept, by design.

What if humans designed products and systems that celebrate an abundance of human creativity, culture, and productivity? That are so intelligent and safe, our species leaves an ecological footprint to delight in, not lament?

all the ants on the planet, taken together, have a biomass greater than that of humans. Ants have been incredibly industrious for millions of years. Yet their productiveness nourishes plants, animals, and soil. Human industry has been in full swing for little over a century, yet it has brought about a decline in almost every ecosystem on the planet. Nature doesn’t have a design problem. People do.

the general spirit of early industrialists—and of many others at the time—was one of great optimism and faith in the progress of humankind.

The Industrial Revolution was not planned, but it was not without a motive. At bottom it was an economic revolution, driven by the desire for the acquisition of capital. Industrialists wanted to make products as efficiently as possible and to get the greatest volume of goods to the largest number of people. In most industries, this meant shifting from a system of manual labor to one of efficient mechanization.

The most famous of Ford’s innovations is the moving assembly line.

bring “the materials to the man,” instead of “the man to the materials.”

Ford himself assisted in this shift. In 1914, when the prevailing salary for factory workers was 2.34 a day, he hiked it to 5, pointing out that cars cannot buy cars. (He also reduced the hours of the workday from nine to eight.) In one fell swoop, he actually created his own market, and raised the bar for the entire world of industry.

the design goals of early industrialists were quite specific, limited to the practical, profitable, efficient, and linear. Many industrialists, designers, and engineers did not see their designs as part of a larger system, outside of an economic one.

Early industries relied on a seemingly endless supply of natural “capital.” Ore, timber, water, grain, cattle, coal, land—these were the raw materials for the production systems that made goods for the masses, and they still are today.

The prairies were overtaken for agriculture, and the great forests were cut down for wood and fuel.

In the nineteenth century, when these practices began, the subtle qualities of the environment were not a widespread concern. Resources seemed immeasurably vast. Nature itself was perceived as a “mother earth” who, perpetually regenerative, would absorb all things and continue to grow.

At the same time, the Western view saw nature as a dangerous, brutish force to be civilized and subdued. Humans perceived natural forces as hostile, so they attacked back to exert control.

Today our understanding of nature has dramatically changed. New studies indicate that the oceans, the air, the mountains, and the plants and animals that inhabit them are more vulnerable than early innovators ever imagined. But modern industries still operate according to paradigms that developed when humans had a very different sense of the world. Neither the health of natural systems, nor an awareness of their delicacy, complexity, and interconnectedness, have been part of the industrial design agenda.

the industrial infrastructure we have today is linear: it is focused on making a product and getting it to a customer quickly and cheaply without considering much else.

today at a typical landfill: old furniture, upholstery, carpets, televisions, clothing, shoes, telephones, computers, complex products, and plastic packaging, as well as organic materials like diapers, paper, wood, and food wastes. Most of these products were made from valuable materials that required effort and expense to extract and make, billions of dollars’ worth of material assets. The biodegradable materials such as food matter and paper actually have value too—they could decompose and return biological nutrients to the soil. Unfortunately, all of these things are heaped in a landfill, where their value is wasted. They are the ultimate products of an industrial system that is designed on a linear, one-way cradle-to-grave model.

Everything else is designed for you to throw away when you are finished with it. But where is “away”? Of course, “away” does not really exist. “Away” has gone away.

Cradle-to-grave designs dominate modern manufacturing.

It is often cheaper to buy a new version of even the most expensive appliance than to track down someone to repair the original item.

Manufacturers just add more chemical force to wipe out the conditions of circumstance.

Combinations of chemicals, from household detergents, cleansers, and medicines along with industrial wastes, end up in sewage effluents, where they have been shown to harm aquatic life, in some cases causing mutations and infertility.

To achieve their universal design solutions, manufacturers design for a worst-case scenario; they design a product for the worst possible circumstance, so that it will always operate with the same efficacy.

It also reveals human industry’s peculiar relationship to the natural world, since designing for the worst case at all times reflects th...

“If too hot or too cold, just add more fossil fuels.”

Incinerating fossil fuels contributes particulates—microscopic particles of soot—to the environment, where they are known to cause respiratory and other health problems.

brute force energy doesn’t make good sense as a dominant strategy over the long term. You wouldn’t want to depend on savings for all of your daily expenditures, so why rely on savings to meet all of humanity’s energy needs? Clearly, over the years petrochemicals will become harder (and more expensive) to get, and drilling in pristine places for a few million more drums of oil isn’t going to solve that problem.

finite sources of energy, such as petrochemicals derived from fossil fuels, can be seen as a nest egg, something to be preserved for emergencies, then used sparingly—in certain medical situations, for example. For the majority of our simple energy needs, humans could be accruing a great deal of current solar income, of which there is plenty: thousands of times the amount of energy needed to fuel human activities hits the surface of the planet every day in the form of sunlight.

Consider the process of building a typical universal house. First builders scrape away everything on the site until they reach a bed of clay or undisturbed soil. Several machines then come in and shape the clay to a level surface. Trees are felled, natural flora and fauna are destroyed or frightened away, and the generic mini McMansion or modular home rises with little regard for the natural environment around it—ways the sun might come in to heat the house during the winter, which trees might protect it from wind, heat, and cold, and how soil and water health can be preserved now and in the future.

Conventional agriculture tends to work along these same lines. The goal of a midwestern commercial corn operation is to produce as much corn as possible with the least amount of trouble, time, and expense—the Industrial Revolution’s first design goal of maximum efficiency.

Elements that are removed from the ecosystem to make the operation yield more grain more quickly (that is, to make it more efficient) would otherwise actually provide benefits to farming. The plants removed by tillage, for example, could have helped to prevent erosion and flooding and to stabilize and rebuild soil. They would have provided habitat for insects and birds, some of them natural enemies of crop pests. Now, as pests grow resistant to pesticide, their numbers increase because their natural enemies have been wiped out.

profligacy

Soil is depleted of nutrients and saturated with chemicals.

The single-minded cultivation of one species drastically reduces the rich network of “services” and side effects in which the entire ecosystem originally engaged.

The GDP as a measure of progress emerged during an era when natural resources still seemed unlimited and “quality of life” meant high economic standards of living. But if prosperity is judged only by increased economic activity, then car accidents, hospital visits, illnesses (such as cancer), and toxic spills are all signs of prosperity. Loss of resources, cultural depletion, negative social and environmental effects, reduction of quality of life—these ills can all be taking place, an entire region can be in decline, yet they are negated by a simplistic economic figure that says economic life is good.

The design intention behind the current industrial infrastructure is to make an attractive product that is affordable, meets regulations, performs well enough, and lasts long enough to meet market expectations.

from our perspective, products that are not designed particularly for human and ecological health are unintelligent and inelegant—what we call crude products.

That polyester shirt and that water bottle are both examples of what we call products plus: as a buyer you got the item or service you wanted, plus additives that you didn’t ask for and didn’t know were included and that may be harmful to you and your loved ones. (Maybe shirt labels should read: Product contains toxic dyes and catalysts. Don’t work up a sweat or they will leach onto your skin.) Moreover, these extra ingredients may not be necessary to the product itself.

Combined in the work-place or home, crude products—whether appliances, carpets, wallpaper adhesives, paints, building materials, insulation, or anything else—make the average indoor air more contaminated than outdoor air.