Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough

rating: 4 of 5 stars

The central premise of Cradle to Cradle is we need to rethink and retool how we design and manufacture physical products. The authors argue that we currently follow a “cradle-to-grave” model, which results in the loss of valuable materials to landfill (which further poisons the land with chemicals off-gassing and leeching). Alternatively, they propose thinking of all physical resources as nutrients, which, like molecules in nature, can be cycled infinitely without loss of integrity and depletion. This would pave the way to a new “cradle-to-cradle” approach, in which. This main argument is set in the context of a greater, eco-centric philosophical mindset, in which all of our actions have ecological consequences and therefore we should seek to assimilate nature’s rules and existing energy and material flows. Finally, the authors are vocally against being “less bad.” Instead, they advocate breaking out of the current trend of focusing on “efficiency” – continuing to pollute and deplete resources, but more slowly – and focus instead of “effectiveness” – eradicating the dangers of pollution and finite resources entirely.

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I read an interesting article in the NYT last week while researching the fate of Burt’s Bees. We’ve all heard the sad story about how it was bought out by evil chemical giant Clorox, and woe is small companies, etc. But the article offered another view – instead of lamenting the demise of BB as the small independently owned company we all knew and loved, we ought to be celebrating its influence on more mainstream, more environmentally calloused corporations…

As a somewhat wary greenie and also a generally suspicious person, I read this as sneaky marketing on Clorox’s part. Which it probably is. “Nice try, Clorox,” I thought to myself, “But I will continue to boycott BB lip balm in protest of your conniving business moves, even though BB lip balm is one of the best out there.”

But then as I thought about the article, I slowly changed my mind. Maybe the financial analysts are right – maybe we’re actually doing no one any favors by boycotting traditionally “bad” companies’ attempts at self-reform. So what if the self-reform still has to do with profit? The goal of environmentalism is not to make companies and their stockholders poor, but to save the planet. And in order the save the planet, we  need the big product and profit makers to cooperate. And to get them to cooperate, we need to get them to think that, yes, green products do sell better. Speak their language, so to speak.

It’s helpful now that it is actually cool and hip to be green. (No more dirty hippies. The contemporary greenie is a spritely 20-something who drives a fuel efficient sexy car and shops at Whole Foods.) Very very helpful. (I like to think that graphic design was at least partially to blame for this fortuitous turn of events.)

I’ve never thought about it this way before because I’ve always instinctively hated green marketing (most of it smacks of greenwashing). But you know what, if Clorox actually can reduce its environmental impact to zero (Ok scientists, get to work researching non-harmful bleach) and keep true to its word about heading towards greater responsibility… then good for it. Good for all of us.