Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things |  | Author: W. Mcdonough
Publisher: Topeka Bindery
Category: Book
Buy New: $54.70
Avg. Customer Rating:  135 reviews
Sales Rank: 1932872
Media: School & Library Binding
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 4.9 x 0.9
ISBN: 0613919874
Dewey Decimal Number: 745.2
EAN: 9780613919876
ASIN: 0613919874
Publication Date: April 2002
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Amazon.com
Paper or plastic? Neither, say William McDonough and Michael Braungart. Why settle for the least harmful alternative when we could have something that is better--say, edible grocery bags! In Cradle to Cradle, the authors present a manifesto calling for a new industrial revolution, one that would render both traditional manufacturing and traditional environmentalism obsolete. Recycling, for instance, is actually "downcycling," creating hybrids of biological and technical "nutrients" which are then unrecoverable and unusable. The authors, an architect and a chemist, want to eliminate the concept of waste altogether, while preserving commerce and allowing for human nature. They offer several compelling examples of corporations that are not just doing less harm--they're actually doing some good for the environment and their neighborhoods, and making more money in the process. Cradle to Cradle is a refreshing change from the intractable environmental conflicts that dominate headlines. It's a handbook for 21st-century innovation and should be required reading for business hotshots and environmental activists. --Therese Littleton
Product Description
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. As William McDonough and Michael Braungart argue in their provocative, visionary book, however, 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, they ask.
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, the authors make an exciting and viable case for change.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 130 more reviews...
 It's a good book in Amazon. April 20, 2008
There has a lot of good ideas for our earth.
Something you never think about it.
Trust me, you must read it "cradle to cradle"!
Innovative thinking April 7, 2008
Living in France for the past 20 years, since 2005 I've been reading everything I can on man's negative impact on the planet. This book is one of the most complete works on how we can make a difference to modify our thinking and our acts. Many other books, however necessary for general awareness, just relate all of the catastrophes we've created, and how long we should hold out. Every factory owner, small and large business leaders should consider this mandatory reading for themselves and their staff. (Being an architect myself, I am ashamed to admit that I don't know how to find "true" south. However, my search has begun.)
Essential Knowledge March 16, 2008
This is such a wonderful, enlightening, and self-reflective book! It was reccomended to me by a good friend, and boy was he dead on with this one. "Cradle-to-Cradle" thoroughly outlines the essential flaws within the current industrial process in which we make and consume everyday products, and the resulting affect of what a faulty industry structure and overconsumption has on the environment and sunsequently the problem with global warming.
With an immense depth of coverage, yet well-written and easy to digest, I was able to gain a full understanding of WHY our current industrial cycle is outdated, how it got to be in the first place, and how we may be able to take the steps torward the next industrial revolution with the implementation of a more environmental economic approach, in contrast to an outdated, bottom-line-only strategy. Phenominal read, easy to stay with, and borderline addicting. Has encouraged me to reflect upon my own personal consumption and how I can go about pursuing products or services that are more sustainable in their production and reproduction.
A must read! March 15, 2008
Cradle to Cradle is a must read. The information is critical to the future of our little blue planet. I gained many wonderful ideas as to how to make my stay here on earth less damaging. While many of the concepts would be difficult to institute at a personal level, industry should be taking heed! Wonderful!
 Important advancement but a preachy and brochure-like text March 2, 2008
The concept behind this book is very important. It is an overview of a thoroughgoing design process that has, at its root, a deep commitment to biomimcry and essentialism in the creation of new things. To boot is a thoughtful (and I think accurate) criticism of the current state of the environmental movement.
The writers believe that if we're to succeed in harmonizing our existence with the planet's biosphere on which we depend, we're going to have to rethink how we make things profoundly, and sustainability alone is not going to cut it.
That said, the book is preachy, self indulgent in a way that academicians are great at doing so that it seems politically correct -- at one point I felt like the entire book was nothing more than an advertisement for the authors' design firm. Don't let that throw you off. It's an important book waiting for a new generation to pick it up and turn it into something with real grit, leveraging unorthodox creativity and a love for our pale blue dot in the universe for its own sake; to wrest it away from the marketing-communications-speak of a corporation. Alas, time is not on our side.
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