Cradle to Cradle: What happened to the momentum?
A short analysis of why we need more open-source life-cycle assessment tools.
It’s been 14 years since Michael Braungart and William McDonough wrote their archetypal book called, Cradle-to-Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things.
When I first picked up a copy, I was working on my senior thesis project in college. The year was 2012.
I tore through it. I was enamored with the entire concept. Plus the pages we’re pretty cool — they we’re made from a synthetic resin, a technical nutrient, that was meant to be continuously be remade.
There was so much common sense within its covers. If we reduce the amount of complicated chemicals we use in products it’ll be easier to take them back and re-purpose them into other things.
It was the first approach to regenerative design I had ever seen.
Regenerative design describes processes that restore, renew or revitalize their own sources of energy and materials — creating sustainable systems that integrate the needs of society with the integrity of nature.
Cradle to Cradle is one kind of regenerative design theory that attempts to make a distinction between our material streams and reassess and more clearly define what goes where.
This distinction between our biological nutrients and our technical nutrients is the cornerstone of C2C.
Technical nutrients are strictly limited to non-toxic, non-harmful synthetic materials that have no negative effects on the natural environment; they can be used in continuous cycles as the same product without losing their integrity or quality.
Biological Nutrients are organic materials that, once used, can be disposed of in any natural environment and decompose into the soil, providing food for small life forms without affecting the natural environment. This is dependent on the ecology of the region; for example, organic material from one country or landmass may be harmful to the ecology of another country or landmass. (Again — slow knowledge of place is still important.)
Cradle to Cradle promises to be an economic, industrial and social framework that seeks to create systems that are not only efficient but also essentially waste free.
The model is not limited to product design or manufacturing it can be applied to many aspects of human civilization such as cities, economics and social systems.
This is what a Cradle to Cradle economy would look like below — see Solution 2.
C2C offers waste only in the form of biological nutrients — stuff that can be easily digested by our natural environment or returned to the resource pool. Products are returned to the resource pool once they become obsolete – like with FLOR carpet tiles.
Some other notable examples of Cradle to Cradle products include:
- Ecovative Design packaging made with Mycellium
- Eco-Products compostable dishware
- Nike Considered a more sustainable shoe
But that about covers it. There are some developments underway but those are some of the only finished on the market products that are relatively well known.
So what’s the hold up?
Critics say its probably because the methodology isn’t open source — and I agree with them.
Their non-profit institute, the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, is the only organization that can issue the certification. Essentially, you can create a C2C product but you’ll still need verification from the official board.
The easiest comparison I can think of is the LEED certification. Many firms can become practitioners of the LEED design and certification process which allows third party verification internationally, instead of relying on one team, in one location.
C2C also ignores the use phase of a product. According to the Variants of Life Cycle Assessment the entire life cycle of a product or service has to be evaluated, not only the material itself. For many goods in transport, the use phase has the most influence on the environmental footprint. This phase is ignored in C2C analysis.
Life-cycle assessments need to be way more widespread and we need to include transportation metrics, including extraction. These methodologies need to be implemented on a global scale and made as open source and collaboratively as possible.
Without the cheap, accessible and common sense tools, there is no way everyone collect the right metrics to bring to the table.
How will manufacturers know that they need to be more transparent about materials, sourcing and transportation? How will anyone know what to measure?
If anyone knows of any companies doing great work with their own life-cycle assessments and certifications post in the comments below!
This is part four of my series on Design & Nature.
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