Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the ways we make things

1. CRADLE TO
CRADLE
REMAKING THE WAY WE MAKE THINGS
-William Mcdonough
-Michael Braungart

2. Titanic vs Industrial Infrastructure
• Powered by brutish and artificial
source of energy that are
environmentally depleting.
• Pours waste into the water and
smoke in the sky.
• Thought to be invincincible.
• But the titanic came to an
disastrous end.

3. Living within the limit
• Japanese farm houses
• Bedouines of Jordan river valley
- Tents of goat hair

4. Ants VS Humans
• The Biomass of ants greater than biomass
of humans
• The Ants are industrious for millions of
centuries whereas our industries are in
full swing for few centuries
• Still their industry nourishes plants
animals and soil whereas our system has
already brought a decline to ecosystem.

5. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION – BIRTH OF A WRONG MODEL
• Nature is the essence unchanged by men
• Cradle to grave model
• Built – in – obsolence model
• Universal design solution
• Culture of monoculture
• Brute forces - The nature is enemy
• Crude product
• Activity is prosperity
The 1991 Exxon Valdez oil spill actually
increased Alaska’s GDP. The area was
registered as economically more prosperous
because so many people were trying to
cleanup the spill. Restaurants, hotels, shops,
gas stations, and stores all experienced an
upward blip in economic exchange
Those essence unchanged by men: space, the air the
river, the leaf;
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Universal detergents Vs
shampoo sachets
Conventional
agriculture -
ALIEN
monoculture Vs
Ecosystem
Pesticides
and their
war against
the nature
Your cloth and shoes –
you are protected by
hazards
Strategy of Tragedy

6. World of fabricated Peace
1
Our economy is
working with
wrong
assumption that
we are living in
abundance.
2
We are pushed
towards growth
in a finite area.
3
The analogy of
financial failures of
2008 and increasing
ecological
debts(Proves that
culture of growth will
lead to failure).
4
Failure of
ECOLOGY

7. Concept Of Absolute Decoupling (being less bad is no good)
It refers to the ability of an
economy to grow without
corresponding increases in
environmental pressure.
In many economies, increasing
production (GDP) raises pressure
on the environment. An economy
that is able to sustain GDP growth
without having a negative impact
on environmental conditions, is
said to be decoupled.
We have achieved relative
decoupling - The energy required
to produce a unit of economic
output declined by a third in the
last thirty years, for instance.
But there are very rare evidence
of absolute decoupling – As the
production of economic output is
increasing manifolds as compared
to the decoupling rate and the
gap is increasing

9. ECO-
EFFICIENCY
Eco-efficiency begins with the assumption of a one-way, linear flow
of materials through industrial systems: raw materials are extracted
from the environment, transformed into products, and eventually
disposed of.
In this system, eco- efficient techniques seek only to minimize the
volume, velocity, and toxicity of the material flow system, but are
incapable of altering its linear progression.
Some materials are recycled, but often as an end-of-pipe solution,
since these materials are not designed to be recycled.
End of pipe solutions are : Reduce, recycle (downcycle), treatment,
disposal
It doesn’t solve the problem but slows it down.

10. DOWN CYCLING
• Example- A carpet made out of recycled polyester bottles and drums
• The initial product was never designed with the considerations of redesigning as carpet.
• So the recycling again produced good amount of wastes and used energy and can prove more
expensive to the business.
• As redesigning was unplanned the material handling along the recycling value chain has exposure
to more toxicity.
• The carpet is still on its way to landfill.
• Instead of true recycling, this process is actually downcycling, a downgrade in material quality,
which limits usability and maintains the linear, cradle-to-grave dynamic of the material flow
system.
• Ex. Recycling of papers, recycled polyester clothes.

11. Towards STRATEGY OF CHANGE

12. ECO EFFECTIVENESS
The concept of eco-
effectiveness proposes the
transformation of products
and their associated
material flows such that
they form a supportive
relationship with
ecological systems and
future economic growth.
01
The goal is not to minimize
the cradle-to-grave flow of
materials, but to generate
cyclical, cradle-to-cradle
‘metabolisms’ that enable
materials to maintain their
status as resources and
accumulate intelligence
over time (upcycling).
02
This inherently generates a
synergistic relationship
between ecological and
economic systems, a
positive recoupling of the
relationship between
economy and ecology.
03

13. UPCYCLING
• Upcycling, also known as creative reuse, is the process of
transforming by-products, waste materials, useless, or unwanted
products into new materials or products of better quality or for better
environmental value.
• In consumer electronics, the process of re-manufacturing or
refurbishment of second-hand products can be seen as upcycling
because they are designed to recycle so there is use of reduced
energy and material consumption in contrast to new manufacturing.
The re-manufactured product has a higher value than disposing or
downcycling it.

14. ECO EFFICIENCY VS ECO EFFECTIVENESS
ECO-EFFICIENT BUILDING
• A big energy saver
• Minimizes requirement of air filtration by sealing places that may leak with
sealants.
• It lowers solar income with dark tinted glass and advanced paints.
• Thus decrease the load on AC and hence the energy usage reduced.
• In turn there will be less production of pollutants in power plants.

15. ECO EFFICIENCY VS ECO
EFFECTIVENESS
ECO-EFFECTIVE BUILDING
• A little energy user
• Windows and transparent roof for light at daytime
• Designed in a manner to allow proper circulation of natural
air
• Native grass cover at roof top to absorb water runoffs,
make it attractive for birds and protecting roof from
thermal shocks and ultra violet degradation

17. Biological metabolism
• A biological nutrient is a material or product
that is designed to return to the biological
cycle.
• These are called products for consumption.
• They are composed of material that are easily
biodegradable after i.e literally consumed by
the nature for its nourishment.

18. Technical Metabolism
• A technical nutrient is a material or product that
is designed to go back into the technical cycle ,
into the industrial metabolism from which it
came.
• These are called products for services.
• These are the man made products which when
isolated properly has high quality and can be
upcycled to give a better product rather than
being downcycled.

21. Building blocks of circular economy
Skills in circular
product design and
production
• Material choice
optimized for
circular setup
• Design to last
• More
modularization/
standardization
• Easier disassembly
• Production process
efficiency
New business
models
• ‘Consumer as
user’
• Performance
contracts
• Products
become
services
Skills in building
cascades/ reverse cycle
• Collection systems:
User-friendly,
cost-effective,
quality-preserving
• Treatment/extraction
technology: optimizing
volume and quality
Cross-cycle and cross-
sector collaboration
facilitating factors
e.g., joint product
development and
infrastructure
management through
• IT-enabled
transparency
and information sharing
• Joint collection
systems
• Industry standards
• Aligned incentives
• Match-maker
mechanisms

22. More
Strategies
Be the part of World
organism
Sustainability should
be local in terms of
culture, materials and
energy