McDonough and Braungart demonstrate that design may be the key element in a (un)sustainable product's lifecycle. They show that products can be designed that are fully "bio-integratable" (including natural breakdown and absorption processes), where all the parts are fully reusable and that beautiful, functional and affordable, too.

They stress a triple win philosophy: Cradle to Cradle (cycle) success means ecological harmony, social equity and economic profitability. All products need to score well in all three criteria before they can be satisfy McDonough's and Braungart high but just set of design criteria.

Ideas are 5 stars, writing is 3.

Scary. And educational - I was shocked to learn that chromium is used in leather tanning. Bottom line - doing less bad is still no good. Bottomer line - we have to change just about everything that we do. Cradle to grave is fallacious. As for throwing away - there is no more "away".



While the book is really aimed at industry, there's a message for everyday humans. This book is idealistic and unrealistic, but that bottom line above still stares us in the face and in the end something must be done, or it will be the end.



One really cool thing is that it is printed on a recycled/recyclable plastic "paper" with a reusable, non-toxic ink. It's heavier than a normal book of its size, but it still feels like paper.

The concept of eco-effectiveness, and the way this book challenges us to do BETTER than simply “reduce, reuse, recycle”, and adapting products to suit diverse cultures and environments, could be the watershed we need to revolutionise our industries and repair our relationship with nature.

Highly recommend.

Das Buch beschreibt die fantastische Grundidee, jedes Produkt und dessen Bestandteile in geschlossenen Kreisläufen zu denken - und zwar ohne Verluste.
Dadurch entstehen mehr Rohstoffe statt weniger, der Mensch ergänzt den Reichtum der Natur mit unschädlichem, menschengemachtem Reichtum. Ein grenzenloses Konsumversprechen ohne die heute allgegenwärtige Kehrseite wäre dann möglich.
Dazu führt es viele Ansätze/Beispiele aus dem Beratungsgeschäft der Autoren auf, die über die heute verbreitete "Ökoeffizienz" (im Buch auch "Cradle to Grave" bezeichnet) hinausgehend das Credo des Buches, nämlich "Ökoeffektivität" erreichen sollen.
Diese Beispiele sind leider alle weder nachhaltig, noch ganzheitlich gedacht, noch wirtschaftlich (wie im Buch versprochen).
Das upcyclefähige Buch konnte keine Verbreitung finden (ich konnte auch nichts über den eigentlichen "Upcycleprozess" dieses Produktes finden), das Model U von Ford war eine reine Studie, seit 2003 wieder in der Schublade. Die "Ikone der nächsten industriellen Revolution", die komplette Umgestaltung der Ford Werke in River Rouge für 2 Mrd. USD war rückblickend eher eine Dachbegrünung mit Biofiltergrauwasserreinigung für 15 Mio Dollar.
Alles nicht schlecht, aber ich hoffe doch dass diese fantastische Idee, in Kreisläufen zu entwickeln, mehr Potential hat.
Leider muss ich diesen Autoren erstmal die Umsetzungskompetenz diesbezüglich absprechen - das Buch, das seit der Ersterscheinung Überarbeitungen erfahren hat, bietet keine brauchbaren Lösungsansätze.
1 Stern für die treffende Formulierung und den Buchtitel für diesen zukunftsweisenden Ansatz - Allerdings hätten 10 Seiten dafür genügt.

Expected to find this more riveting. I think part of my disappointment was the mismatch of intended audience and call to action. It seems like McDonough is writing for consumers to not despair and take up intimidatingly austere sustainability measures, that there is a way to help the planet and still have abundance. Yet most of the changes he suggests people make are fleshed out by describing corporate executive initiatives his company has collaborated on. In the end, it felt more like a soft pitch to executives considering hiring his design firm. For individuals more interested in domestic projects, I felt Mollison's permaculture books were better organized and more relevant.

Everyone on the planet should read this book. The authors, one a chemist, and the other an architect, have thought more deeply about what "green" truly means (in terms of the environment) than anybody else. What they say will surprise you. They are not big fans of recycling, for example, because most things that are recycled were not designed for same, and it takes a lot of energy to cycle them 'down' to a lower use (like recycling paper). Instead, they argue for designing products from the ground up that don't require pollution to be made and can be reused many times without losing value or quality. But it's their designs for buildings that are especially wonderful. They have figured out how to create houses and offices that require virtually no carbon-based energy to heat and cool, and are great spaces to be in as well.
The book itself is printed on a benign plastic that killed no trees in the making and will biodegrade rapidly. Indeed, a seed is bound into the spine, so that if you throw this book away you will literally plant a tree. Cool. Very cool.

A bit outdated, but fundamentally true in it's outlook.

Really excellent design principles to challenge the way we approach our products, systems, and economy. Increasingly and urgently more relevant today than before. One line stuck out to me: “an ecosystem might actually have more of a chance to become healthy and whole again after a quick collapse that leaves some niches intact than with a slow, deliberate, and efficient destruction of the whole.” Some food for thought when considering policy that intends to mitigate climate change.

“If humans are truly going to prosper, we will have to learn to imitate nature’s highly effective cradle-to-cradle system of nutrient flow and metabolism, in which the very concept of waste does not exist. To eliminate the concept of waste means to design things—products, packaging, and systems—from the very beginning on the understanding that waste does not exist.”

More energized and emboldened than ever to pursue a career in circularity. For others similarly interested, this is a must read!

Maybe, 2.5 stars, but not by much.

While the overarching message was good (resources should be transformed rather than “used up”), I thought the rest of the book came off as preachy, outdated, over-optimistic, and unhelpful.

The authors argue that it isn’t good enough to be less bad (that polluting less is still polluting). I guess so, but polluting less is definitely better than polluting the same, or even more…

One example of the authors being over optimistic and unhelpful is when they argue that car exhaust should be a good thing that nourishes the environment - Nitrogen compounds captured to me made into fertilizers, carbon emissions captured to be made into carbon products such as new tires. While that’s all ideal and great on paper and in a perfect society, I personally don’t see that happening any time soon. The don’t even give an actual solution, they say “wouldn’t this be great? Yeah, so this should happen”. There are other, more feasible alternatives. And the book is full of similar examples to that one.

like i always said, i think most sustainability movements nowadays are bullshit. organic this, natural that, no plastic packaging. we're contributing to sustainability! yay! or nay?

to answer, we need to know how things were designed. Braungart and McDonough explained that the approach to solve most problems is already wrong: we’re using brute force, one-size-fits-all kind of answer. this applies to almost everything, e.g. your detergent. we actually should differ the detergents being used in places with soft and hard water. another bigger problem it creates: it has been polluting our water systems & soil. to be "sustainable", we don’t need a better choice, we need good choice with better design—safe for us & the environment, and also can give back positive impact to it. detergent that acts as food for the fishes too, perhaps?

also on shoes: it's pretty dilemmatic cos previously we used vegetable tanning on leather shoes; = cutting more trees although it’s safer for the environment. now they're using chromium = not cutting trees but absolutely toxic. how about the health of the workers making the shoes? does the factory have an SOP to protect the workers from the exposure to hazardous chemicals? and how is the waste management? also, as shoes wear off over time, how will the chemicals it uses to polish the shoes react with the environment? how about its stability? will it release anything dangerous?

this book gave me so much insights, led me to think no book has ever made me, but i’m also questioning the writers: do they really care about the environment or are they also the children of neoliberalism? cos I just looked at the ig profile of one of the authors and he posted a collaboration between their NGO and Amazon. in case you're new: Amazon is exploitative. it's dumb that you care so much about the environment but you're supporting one of the most exploitative companies on earth and neglecting the workers' rights. agreeing with Venda, "we need to be careful on reading anything related to climate crisis which was written by western scholars. sometimes their approach is too technocratic or mono-dimensional."

read this book carefully.

5 minutes video about cradle to cradle approach https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP8PR...

This book is a must read for everyone curious about sustainable design.
I've made an incredible amount of notes from this book, so I won't even start going through them here. Just read the book :) At least chapters 1, 2 and 6.

Book's motto: "Because Being “Less Bad” Is No Good."