cradle to cradle remaking the way we make

In 1989, this idea was further developed by Pearce and Kerry Turner when they first coined the phrase ‘circular economy’, after which Jackson synthesised much of the work in the field in his book “Material Concerns: Pollution, profit and quality of life”.

He identified society’s predisposition toward sending material to ‘sinks’ rather than reusing them in a closed economy. The concept of circularity was first discussed 52 years ago when Kenneth Boudling began questioning the linear openness of our economic activity in his piece “The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth”.

Braungart and McDonough summarise their circular philosophy and set up their narrative by asking the reader “what if the industrial revolution had taken place in a society that believed in reincarnation? Would our cradle-to-grave approach become cradle-to-cradle?” They suggest that mankind is fixated on finding a grave for their products after their finite and often short useful life. Central to the novel’s argument is the author’s criticism of western society’s obsession with death, indeed graves.

Their manifesto for revolution asks that producers make three actions: one is to see waste as food for the environment two is to separate biological and technical nutrients in products to ease ready recycling and upcycling and three is to adopt eco-effective practices rather than eco-efficient practices that value and incorporate the environment in design. They compel the reader to drive a personal and corporate paradigm shift toward a circular design economy – their so-called cradle-to-cradle (C2C) approach. The authors argue that our conventional cradle-to-grave manufacturing and consumption processes are deeply flawed in their linearity and their contempt they show for the environment. Braungart and McDonaugh assert that since the industrial revolution, humankind’s marriage with nature has been shaky and is now, in the 21st century, going through a messy, complicated divorce. In Michael Braungart and William McDonough’s seminal book “Cradle-to-Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things”, the author’s ask: “What would the human-built world look like if it were built by a cherry tree?”. The blossom that do not germinate instead provide nutrients for insects, microorganisms, animals and soil its abundance and over-production should not be chastised, but celebrated. Its manufacturing model is inefficient, wasteful and laborious, yet beautifully nourishing to its surrounding ecology. A frenetic supply chain of blossom that produces thousands of seeds in the hope that one might fall to the soil, take root and grow.

Cradle to cradle remaking the way we make