Sunday Morning Blues

Been reading this book over the past few days and it has really led me to reconsider many of the ideas that I have about conservation and environmentalism. First and foremost is the idea that the best way to go is to increase efficiency. While laudable in one sense ultimately the idea of just making things more efficient is a losing strategy as we are not making things better, just less bad. Put into practice, my Prius is one of the better cars out there now in terms of limiting the impact to the environment but at the same time the car still runs on gas and at the end of it’s life there will still be lots of unusable waste.

Cradle to Cradle is not a philosophy that is anti growth or anti consumerism but one that aims to rethink the way we grow and consume. That is designing products to be positive from production till the end. One example of this would be show designed with biodegradable soles and uppers that can be reused or re-purposed without being downcycled (also known as the recycling of a material into a material of lesser quality, which is what usually happens in most recycling programs). Thus as the sole breaks down instead of releasing inorganic material that may be hazardous, it release nutrients. Then when the sole is worn out you can replace it or return the shoe to the company for a credit towards a new pair. In this way waste is virtually eliminated as the parts that breakdown, breakdown in a helpful manner and the technical materials that can be reused are recycled without downcycling.

One of the key tenets or ideas of C2C is Waste=Food. That is things should be designed so that when they break down they dont just end up in landfills locking up all the raw materials that were used in making it but that they can break down and provide nourishment. One example would be getting rid of most plastic packaging that lasts hundreds of years longer than whatever it was designed to hold.

There are lots of other examples and the authors discuss a number of projects that there design firm has been involved in, and what they all point to is looking not at what we are doing but the way we are doing it and trying to make those processes more in line with the way nature operates. That is creating a cycle where most waste becomes food and the waste that is technical and cannot be easily broken down is designed from the start to be reused without being downcycled. And for the most part creating products and building with these principles in mind is only marginally more expensive upfront, less expensive in the long term and (this is key) truly sustainable/beneficial to the environment rather than just less bad.

I highly recommend this book or at least looking at their philosophy towards production and the environment. I really like this concept, especially from an economic growth perspective is that it can be the opposite of the efficiency movement which looks to reduce consumption since the core of this idea is that when we consume the “waste” has a positive effect. And I just think back to my time in Namibia and how much better it would have been if all the packaging had been biodegradable/nourishing and instead of burning it in barrels people could have used it as compost.

Lastly, the other large concept to take away from the book is that we need to think more about living in harmony with the environment around us. This isnt some super hippie we need to hug trees idea. What this means is designing systems, buildings, houses etc that are in line with environmental realities rather than trying to overcome nature. A perfect example is house design. Take your basic southern plantation mansion. High ceilings, large windows, and (at least traditionally) a straight shot from the front door to the back door. This design works wonders at keeping the house cool and livable during the hot sticky summer months and is (somewhat) environmentally appropriate around Savannah. Take this same house and stick it on the lake shore outside Buffalo and you will spend a small fortune each and every winter keeping it warm as it is designed to dissipate heat.

The legacy of the industrial revolution is man overcoming nature. Obviously this has failed and the real question is why do we have to do things in opposition to nature.