Print List Price: | $36.00 |
Kindle Price: | $15.99 Save $20.01 (56%) |
Sold by: | Macmillan Price set by seller. |
Your Memberships & Subscriptions
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
OK
Audible sample Sample
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things Kindle Edition
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. But as this provocative, visionary book argues, 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?
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, William McDonough and Michael Braungart make an exciting and viable case for change.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherNorth Point Press
- Publication dateMarch 1, 2010
- File size1185 KB
Customers who bought this item also bought
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Scientific American
Editors of Scientific American
Review
"Achieving the great economic transition to more equitable, ecologically sustainable societies requires nothing less than a design revolution—beyond today's fossilized industrialism. This enlightened and enlightening book shows us how—and indeed, that 'God is in the details.' A must for every library and every concerned citizen."—Hazel Henderson, author of Building a Win-Win World and Beyond Globalization: Shaping a Sustainable Global Economy
"[McDonough and Braungart's] ideas are bold, imaginative, and deserving of serious attention."
--Ben Ehrenreich, Mother Jones magazine
"[A] clear, accessible manifesto... the authors' original concepts are an inspiring reminder that humans are capable to much more elegant environmental solutions than the ones we've settled for in the last half-century."
--Publishers Weekly
"A readable provocative treatise that 'gets outside the box' in a huge way. Timely and inspiring."
--Kirkus Reviews
"Our planet is alive and the wondrous web of biodiversity provides us with all we need -- clean air, water, soil, and energy, as well as food, medicine, resources. Whatever we do, that's what should be the highest priority for protection and we have to adapt everything else to that end. With this book, McDonough and Braungart open our eyes to the way to genuine sustainability by the study of nature and mimicking her ways. This is a groundbreaking book that should be the Bible for the Second Industrial Revolution."
--Dr. David Suzuki, ...
About the Author
Architect William McDonough is an architect and the founding principal of William McDonough + Partners, an architecture and community design firm based in Charlottesville, Virginia; MBDC, a firm that assists companies in designing profitable and environmentally intelligent solutions; McDonough Innovation, where he is able to advise business and provide targeted ideas and strategic business solutions. A highly regarded speaker and writer, William McDonough’s co-authored Cradle to Cradle: Remaking The Way We Make Things has played an influential role in the sustainability movement. McDonough partnered with Stanford University Libraries in 2012, on a “living archive” of his work and communications. At the 2014 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Switzerland, McDonough participated as a leader, presenter and convener, and made sustainability a primary focus, for the first time at the WEF. In 1999 Time magazine recognized him as a "Hero for the Planet," stating "his utopianism is grounded in a unified philosophy that―in demonstrable and practical ways―is changing the design of the world." In 1996, he received the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development, the highest environmental honor given by United States. Additionally, in 2009, McDonough led the founding of the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute to donate the Cradle to Cradle Certified™ Products Program to the public. In 2014, William McDonough was appointed by the World Economic Forum to Chair of the Meta-Council on the Circular Economy.
Michael Braungart is a chemist and the founder of the Environmental Protection Encouragement Agency (EPEA) in Hamburg, Germany. Prior to starting EPEA, he was the director of the chemistry section for Greenpeace. Since 1984 he has been lecturing at universities, businesses, and institutions around the world on critical new concepts for ecological chemistry and materials flow management. Dr. Braungart is the recipient of numerous honors, awards, and fellowships from the Heinz Endowment, the W. Alton Jones Foundation, and other organizations.
From AudioFile
Product details
- ASIN : B0012KS568
- Publisher : North Point Press; 1st edition (March 1, 2010)
- Publication date : March 1, 2010
- Language : English
- File size : 1185 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 199 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #402,370 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
William McDonough is a globally recognized leader in sustainable development. Born in Tokyo, Japan, on February 20, 1951, Mr. McDonough was first introduced to closed loop material cycles. As an architect, Mr. McDonough's interests and influence range widely, and he works at scales from the global to the molecular. TIME magazine recognized him as a "Hero for the Planet," noting: "His utopianism is grounded in a unified philosophy that--in demonstrable and practical ways--is changing the design of the world." In 1996, Mr. McDonough received the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development, and in 2003 he earned the first U.S. EPA Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award for his work with Shaw Industries. In 2004, he received the National Design Award for exemplary achievement in the field of environmental design. Mr. McDonough is the architect of many of the recognized flagships of sustainable design, including the Ford Rouge living roof and truck plant in Dearborn, Michigan; the Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies at Oberlin College; and NASA's "space station on Earth," Sustainability Base, one of the most innovative facilities in the federal portfolio.
Mr. McDonough has written and lectured extensively on design as the first signal of human intention. He was commissioned in 1992 to write The Hannover Principles: Design for Sustainability as guidelines for the City of Hannover's EXPO 2000, still recognized two decades after publication as a touchstone of sustainable design. In 2002, McDonough co-authored Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, which is widely acknowledged as a seminal text of the sustainability movement. The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability--Designing for Abundance, a follow-up book to Cradle to Cradle, was published in 2013. In 2016, Mr. McDonough proposed A New Language For Carbon in Nature magazine that recognizes the element carbon as an asset rather than the enemy. The new language identifies strategies for carbon management and climate change.
Mr. McDonough advises commercial and governmental leaders worldwide through McDonough Innovation. He is also active with William McDonough + Partners, his architecture practice located in Charlottesville, VA, as well as MBDC, the Cradle to Cradle® consulting firm. He co-founded not-for-profit organizations to allow public accessibility to Cradle to Cradle thinking. These include GreenBlue (2000), to convene industry groups around Cradle to Cradle issues, and the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute (2009), founded at the invitation of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to create a global standard for the development of safe and healthy products. Mr. McDonough also co-founded Make It Right (2006) with Brad Pitt to bring affordable Cradle to Cradle-inspired homes to the New Orleans Lower 9th Ward after Hurricane Katrina. McDonough served as the World Economic Forum’s inaugural Chair of the Meta-Council on the Circular Economy from 2014-2016. He was the recipient of the Fortune Award for Circular Economy Leadership for outstanding contribution to the development of a prosperous and sustainable economy at the 2017 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos.
Professor Dr. Michael Braungart is founder and scientific CEO of “EPEA Internationale Umweltforschung GmbH” in Hamburg. He is also co-founder and scientific head of “McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry” (MBDC) in Charlottesville, Virginia (USA), and founder and scientific head of the “Hamburger Umweltinstitut” (HUI). These institutes share values embracing intelligent, aesthetic and eco-effective Design.
Braungart studied chemistry and process engineering, amongst others in Konstanz and Darmstadt (Germany). In the 1980s he dedicated his work to the environmental organization Greenpeace. From 1982 on he was active in establishing its chemistry department, which he took over in 1985. In the same year he received his Ph.D. from the University of Hannover’s chemistry department. He founded EPEA in 1987.
Since then he has been involved with research and consultancy for eco-effective Products – i.e. products and production processes that are designed for closed loops and do not harm man or nature, but rather contribute to their well-being. He works together with many organizations and companies from different branches; for instance in a partnership with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which has adopted Cradle to Cradle.
Today he holds four academic chairs: at the Rotterdam School of Management of Erasmus University, Leuphana University Lüneburg, University Twente in Enschede and at TU Delft (visiting). In 2013, Braungart was awarded an honorary professorship from TU München in the context of the federal Initiative of Excellence and also received an honorary doctorate from Hasselt University (Belgium).
Mr. Braungart is co-author of the “Hanover Principles of Design: Design for Sustainability”, which served as the development guidelines for the World's Fair in Hannover in 2000. He also co-authored two books with William McDonough: “Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things” in 2002 and “The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability – Designing for Abundance” in 2013.
Michael Braungart has received several awards. Among others the “Océ-van-der-Grinten Award” for the development of the Intelligent Product System (IPS) in 1993, the “B.A.U.M. Award” (by a circle of German entrepreneurs who dedicate themselves to environment-friendly processing and management) for his outstanding scientific achievements in 1999, the “Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award” from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2003 and the “Sustainable Entrepreneurship Award (SEA) of Excellence” for his exceptional commitment to the promotion of sustainable entrepreneurship in 2013.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonReviews with images
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
If you're going to the market to buy some juice. You've got to bring your own bags and you learn to reduce your waste...And if your brother or your sister's got some cool clothes...You could try them on before you buy some more of those...Reuse, we've got to learn to reuse… And if the first two R's don't work out..and if you've got to make some trash...Don't throw it out...Recycle, we've got to learn to recycle…
I think I’ve made my point. The message is everywhere. And as Johnson’s song laid out for us above, the message is clear: Reduce, reuse, recycle. However, as widespread and as this message is becoming one must stop and ask: is it effective? William McDonough and Michael Braungart argue in Cradle to Cradle: Remaking The Way We Make Things that such a design goal is ineffective. Efficient? Yes. Effective? Not quite. They propose that such efforts, which they categorize as “eco-efficient” design, are only a “less bad” version of a poor design methodology that emerged from the industrial revolution. These efforts do not change the way products are designed, rather they seek to mitigate the effects of poor design. As result, they seek a negative goal of zero impact on the environment. The problems associated with this approach are numerous. First, it creates a dichotomy between the environment and industry, with gains to one necessitating a loss to the other (also known as zero sum, see the trend). This leads to conflict and opposing agendas between the two and does very little to reveal how the two may actually be of benefit to one another. Second, as mentioned, it only makes a bad thing, less bad. To reduce something bad or harmful does not negate its impact, but only delays it. As such, these efforts are by definition unsustainable. Third, at best it has a goal of seeking not to degrade the environment and certainly does not consider the possibility that good design may actually improve the environment. So what is the main problem with the design form that emerged from the industrial revolution? Put simply, it was designed to become waste. Or put another way, it was designed with waste in mind. The authors label such design, cradle-to-grave design, as it is purposed from inception to become waste. They suggest that to solve this design dilemma we must rethink our idea of waste, or rather not think of it as a possibility at all. If design is reborn without waste in mind then we will have new products and new systems that bring life and wasteful abundance to its surroundings. If we sow design with new life in mind, our industries and our environment will reap the benefits of this change in design methodology. The author’s point out that nature’s idea of waste or excess actually enriches its surroundings. What if we design products from inception that sought to do the same? What if we learned from nature’s example and designed our systems cradle-to-cradle?
The first thing you notice is that this book is rather heavy compared to normal books its size. This is explained by the authors trying to live their philosophy by creating a book out of a material that can be truly recycled as opposed to current paper which, while it can be reused, requires several unattractive processes and is not endlessly repeatable.
The book makes many other decent arguments for why we should think of products as temporary services rather than things we own and therefore dispose of when we are done. The book makes a case for current recycling (or down-cycling as they call it) measures as being okay - as long as it is thought of as no more than a temporary stop-gap measure to be used while we pursue true technical and regular nutrient recycling.
The only improvement I would like to see is more in-depth examples of how this process has been applied to commercial processes. They kept going back to the same one or two examples and I think there are more out there and I suspect by the time this book in republished there could be even more worthy examples.