Product Description

'Reduce, reuse, and recycle' urge environmentalists; in other words, do more with less in order to minimize damage. But as architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart point out in this provocative, visionary book, this approach only perpetuates the one-way, 'cradle to grave' manufacturing model, dating to the Industrial Revolution, that creates such fantastic amounts of waste and pollution in the first place. Why not challenge the belief that human industry must damage the natural world? In fact, why not take nature itself as our model for making things? A tree produces thousands of blossoms in order to create another tree, yet we consider its abundance not wasteful but safe, beautiful and highly effective.Waste equals food. Guided by this principle, McDonough and Braungart explain how products can be designed from the outset so that, after their useful lives, they will provide nourishment for something new - continually circulating as pure and viable materials within a 'cradle to cradle' model. Drawing on their experience in redesigning everything from carpeting to corporate campuses, McDonough and Braungart make an exciting and viable case for putting eco-effectiveness into practice, and show how anyone involved in making anything can begin to do so as well.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4968 in Books
• Published on: 2009-01-29
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Review
`A rare example of the `inspirational' book that actually is.'
--The Guardian

`A rare example of the `inspirational' book that actually is.' --The Guardian

About the Author
Michael Braungart is a chemist and founder of the Environmental Protection Encouragement Agency (EPEA) in Hamburg. He has been lecturing at universities, businesses and institutions around the world since 1984 on critical new concepts for ecological chemistry, and is the recipient of numerous awards, honours and fellowships. William McDonough is an architect and founding principal of William McDonough + Parners based in Virginia. In 1999, Time magazine recognised him as a 'Hero for our Planet', and in 1996 he received the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development, the highest environmental honour given by the United States.

Customer Reviews

Fancy an educational read in the bath?
This extreme book is an example of it's own preachings. The book doesnt contain a single ounce of paper. In fact it's made out of a fully recyclable plastic material, and the non-toxic ink can be removed with special non-toxic chemicals. Basically it's the future of a fully recyclable book design. Amazing!

Although quite an intense read, it is quite interesting and at times captivating. Based on an architect and a scientist that teamed up and work on projects to basically help companies become more environmentally friendly.

Examples include the book design, Ford Motor company, and other examples of products that can slowly pollute the environment and possible solutions to these products. Alot of the solutions can be recycled over and over, as the cradle to cradle title suggests.

The book also describes the difference between the Technosphere and Biosphere, and how products from these two different environments interact with each other and the world around us.

Reccomended read, and the book is fully waterproof - Genius!

Highly Recommended!
This is an extraordinary and unlikely book. It is not printed on paper, but on a waterproof polymer with the heft of good paper and more strength, a substance that reflects the right amount of light, yet holds the ink fast. It seems like an impossible fantasy, but so does much of what the authors propose about design and ecology. They speak with the calm certainty of the ecstatic visionary. Could buildings generate oxygen like trees? Could running shoes release nutrients into the earth? It seems like science fiction. Yet, here is this book, on this paper. The authors make a strong case for change, and just when you're about to say, "if only," they cite a corporation that is implementing their ideas. However, it's hard to believe their concepts would work on a large scale, in the face of powerful economic disincentives. We believe authors do aim some of their criticism at obsolete marketing and manufacturing philosophies, but the overall critique is well worth reading.

A declaration of principles for a future world
I found out about William McDonough by accident in a magazine article and bought this book on spec out of curiosity. I'm very glad I did. Finally a book with genuine hard and fast ideas of a method to get the sterile, polluted, modern world out of the mess it is in. If we can spread the messages this book imparts, there is a possibility that we can escape the ensuing environmental disaster that even the Pentagon is now predicting. With chemicals affecting every biological organism on Earth in unknowable ways and nature's mechanisms seriously disrupted, someone had to advocate a way forward which can harness the progress of science with the existence of the planet in perpetuity. This is that vision. If you are a business person who thinks that environmentalists are inherently cave dwelling, backward looking bleeding hearts or an environmental activist who thinks that industry and commerce are run by Hitleresque destroyers with no souls, buy this book and get with the program. WE ARE ALL ON THE SAME SIDE. Not only that but we have a lot of work to do and dreams to fulfill. I intend to buy a few copies of this book and send it to people who might be able to make a difference and I implore anyone else who understand its value to do the same.