This model recognizes two metabolisms within which materials flow as healthy nutrients.įirst, nature’s nutrient cycles constitute the biological metabolism.

Just as in the natural world, in which one organism’s “waste” cycles through an ecosystem to provide nourishment for other living things, cradle-to-cradle materials circulate in closed-loop cycles, providing nutrients for nature or industry. In the world of industry it is creating a new conception of materials and material flows. Over the past decade, the cradle-to-cradle framework has evolved steadily from theory to practice. Within this framework we can create economies that purify air, land, and water, that rely on current solar income and generate no toxic waste, that use safe, healthful materials that replenish the earth or can be perpetually recycled, and that yield benefits that enhance all life.

Recycling carpet, for example, might reduce consumption, but if the attached carpet backing contains PVC, which most carpet backing does, the recycled product is still on a one-way trip to the landfill, where it becomes hazardous waste.Ĭradle-to-cradle design, on the other hand, offers a framework in which the effective, regenerative cycles of nature provide models for wholly positive human designs. While this can be a useful transitional strategy, it tends to reduce negative impacts without transforming harmful activity. Conventional approaches to sustainability often make the efficient use of energy and materials their ultimate goal.

This new conception of design-known as cradle-to-cradle design-goes beyond retrofitting industrial systems to reduce their harm. Indeed, good design-principled design based on the laws of nature-can transform the making and consumption of things into a regenerative force. While this may seem like heresy to many in the world of sustainable development, the destructive qualities of today’s cradle-to-grave industrial system can be seen as the result of a fundamental design problem, not the inevitable outcome of consumption and economic activity. Imagine a world in which all the things we make, use, and consume provide nutrition for nature and industry-a world in which growth is good and human activity generates a delightful, restorative ecological footprint.

Braungart cradle to cradle