Cradle to Cradle
Cradle to Cradle is a new take on sustainable design, described in the book "Cradle to Cradle: Waste = food" from authors Dr. Michael Braungart and William McDonough, who are working with several companies to reduce pollution under cradle to cradle principles.
Conventional approaches to sustainability often make the efficient use of energy and materials their ultimate goal. While this can be a useful transitional strategy, it tends to reduce negative impacts without transforming harmful activity.
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. These approaches can, despite of the term recycling, be seen as designing from cradle to grave.
Conventional approaches to sustainability often make the efficient use of energy and materials their ultimate goal. While this can be a useful transitional strategy, it tends to reduce negative impacts without transforming harmful activity. 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. These approaches can, despite of the term recycling, be seen as designing from cradle to grave.
The central idea behind the cradle to cradle principle is that all materials can be used in continuous cycles as the same product without losing their integrity or quality. In this manner these materials can be used over and over again instead of being "downcycled" into lesser products, ultimately becoming waste. No pollution: waste equals food. When a new product is manufactured, it must be designed with the entire lifecycle in mind. 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.
Based on the book’s philosophy, the authors have founded a company that awards "Cradle to Cradle certification". In our shop, the Aeron and Mirra desk chairs by Herman Miller have received this illustrious award.
