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This bestselling book suggests a different approach to manufacturing
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The UK construction industry should be well aware of the imperative to use environmentally responsible products. For many, however, this has been about complying with legislation that sets minimum environmental performance standards and not striving to achieve more. Many people in the industry genuinely care about the environment but find it difficult to know what to do for the best, other than to wait for tougher regulations. Unexpectedly an answer came during the presidency of George W Bush, as people got fed-up with waiting for Government intervention and realised they had better do something themselves and the cradle-to-cradle concept was born.
Cycles of life
Its very name implies cycles of life rather than a life cycle: it goes beyond cradle-to-grave. Manufacturers from the industrial revolution onwards largely concentrated on the product itself and insufficient consideration was given to the damage and waste cause by the processes of production, such as the extraction of raw materials. Nor did anyone appear to bother much about the use or disposal of the products. In those times of plenty there was always enough raw materials to continue production. The rubbish bins that were the sky, land, rivers and oceans had limitless capacity – or so it seemed. We now know there are implications to this attitude, but like a person who is hooked on hard drugs, it is not easy for an economy to kick a dirty industrial habit.
Redesigning our expectations
In the bestselling book Cradle to Cradle: remaking the way we make things, authors Michael Braungart (a material scientist) and William McDonough (an architect) propose a more subtle solution to the problem: to redesign our concept of and expectations from the industrial process itself. In essence, the idea is simple. There is nothing wrong in producing building products, providing they do not damage anybody or anything while sourcing materials, manufacturing and using the product. When the product is past its useful life, it can turned back into its constituent raw materials for reuse in another process.
Beyond recycling
The way we recycle is often not good enough. The usual process is, in effect, downcycling: material is downgraded by the recycling process, becoming of lower and lower quality and value until it is useless. Downcycling only delays the material ending up as waste. But if the product or its raw materials can be recycled endlessly without ever going to landfill then we begin to approach the cradle-to-cradle ideal. The difference is profound. As McDonough and Braungart say: being less bad is not the same as being good.
The book Cradle to Cradle represents an accumulation of some 20 years work for its authors and was first published in the USA in 2002, but was only published in the UK in 2008. During this time a quiet revolution has been taking place with a number of manufacturers bringing their products and processes into CtoC compliance, as it is commonly known. I suggest that things are about to move much faster.
Spreading the word
As architects we have been developing our own policy relating to CtoC compliance. For any product or material we are considering specifying, we now send information highlighting the existence of the cradle-to-cradle concept to the manufacturers and ask how their products comply. We make clear that even if a product fails to meet the objectives we might still specify it, providing it is heading that way. Our experience showed that several manufacturers have not heard of cradle-to-cradle but are meeting many of the principles and just need a little encouragement to go that extra mile.
In the last couple of months we have specified around £250K worth of CtoC-compliant products, or at least products that are approaching the ideals of CtoC. In two years time we, as a company, aim to specify only CtoC-compliant products. I would like to encourage all architects, specifiers and builders to adopt a similar approach.
Christopher Hill is from Linedota Architects. For further information visit www.linedota.com .
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