Anyways we got talking about a very well known architect, designer and author William McDonough. The idea of Cradle To Cradle is to remake the way we make things. In his Ted talk in 2005 he discusses how the world is kind of like a toilet that doesn't flush. In a sense, fixing this toilet is the premise behind Cradle To Cradle. So, for example a child's blanket is made with warning labels about how the materials may cause the child harm if ingested. Why not manufacture a blanket that when a child chews on it, it gives them nutrients. Then once the child is done with the blanket, the materials are 100% recyclable or biodegradable. It's such a simple but great concept. Take a look at William McDonough's Ted talk...

His book:  Cradle to Cradle - Remaking How We Make Things

One Word... WOW!  

Jaie

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After almost two weeks, our worms seem to be thriving and have devoured beyond recognition the first couple days worth of food that we gave them; I've noticed that even with a plastic bin full of worms and food, our apartment smells decidedly better than when we were throwing our food scraps into a garbage bin; and since we know we need to gather food scraps for the worms, we keep an old yogurt container by us while we cook and put the scraps in there, making cleanup a breeze.  When the yogurt container is full, we simply burry its contents under a bedding of damp, shredded newspaper and the worms have at it!  As I understand, they'll continue to digest the scraps for two to three months, at which point we'll have a tub of worm castings rich in nutrients for our houseplants, or to dump in an empty lot to fertilize the plant-life there.

Cradle to Cradle is a protocol I've developed with a German chemist, Michael Braungart. We characterize things as either being part of nature—biological nutrients—or being part of technology, which we call technical nutrients. We look at the world through these two lenses and we say, let the things that are designed to go back to soil, like textiles and clothing, be designed in order to be returned safely to soil, to restore it. But the cars and the computers … [should be] designed to go back into closed cycles for technology.

Read the full Q&A -- and have a look at the gallery -- here:
The Future of Green Building

Precautionary Principle

The true origin of the Precautionary Principle seems unclear, though Wikipedia points to the German concept of Vorsorgeprinzip (precaution principle) from the 1930s. One of the most popular definitions of the PP in the U.S comes from the 1998 Wingspread Statement from the Wingspread conference, convened by the Science & Environmental Health Network. That statement says:

"When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof. The process of applying the precautionary principle must be open, informed and democratic and must include potentially affected parties. It must also involve an examination of the full range of alternatives, including no action."

It can sort of be summarized as first, do no harm; or, better safe than sorry.

Code for Corporate Citizenship

Whether a fan or a foe of corporations, most people can agree that the main purpose of a corporation is to make a profit for its shareholders. So, even if a company wants to “do the right thing” for people, animals and the planet, if it harms the bottom line, it’s not to be done. Lawyer Robert Hinckley has developed a Code for Corporate Citizenship, 28 words to add to a corporation’s charter, that would allow them to do good AND make money. Those 28 words:

“…but not at the expense of the environment, human rights, the public health or safety, the communities in which the corporation operates or the dignity of its employees.”

Hinckley is trying to get each state to adopt the code as a requirement for all corporate charters.

Cradle to Cradle

In 2002 William McDonough and Michael Braungart published Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, a “manifesto calling for the transformation of human industry through ecologically intelligent design.” The authors offered a new paradigm for using natural systems as a guide for how we make and “dispose of” all the stuff we think we need to live. Cradle to Cradle has become an important philosophy for many businesses, governments and communities, and has spawned a C2C certification. C2C basically means that:

“...products are developed for closed-loop systems in which every ingredient is safe and beneficial – either to biodegrade naturally and restore the soil, or to be fully recycled into high-quality materials for subsequent product generations again and again."

On the surface, these three (and the many others out there like them) seem like great, adoptable ideas; so why are they meeting such resistance? Are they realistic and implementable? Or, are they too idealistic and costly? (Can you be too idealistic?)

Guidelines (or rules, or concepts -- however you want to think of them) like these provide great opportunities for us to examine our own lives at home, work, and in our communities and to explore what's possible (and what's not). If we want to help guidelines like these become mainstream, we need to understand some important elements, such as: What about these ideas work well and are easily adopted? What about them is more complex? Why do people support them? Why do people oppose them? How can we bring together stakeholders with opposing views and come to consensus on solutions that work for everyone?

Whatever guidelines and principles our local and global communities adopt, in our own lives we can always choose to return to the core MOGO question: What will do the most good and least harm for people, animals and the planet?

~ Marsha

Image courtesy of Tigr.

Most packaging (which makes up about 50% of the volume of the municipal solid waste stream) can be designed as biological nutrients, what we call *products of consumption.* The idea is to compose these products of materials that can be tossed on the ground or compost heap to safely biodegrade after use--literally to be consumed. (105)

The concept of "connecting to natural energy flows" is ultimately a kind of energy management--an issue of energonomics:

In the long run, connecting to natural energy flows is a matter of reestablishing our fundamental connection to the source of all good growth on the planet: the sun, that tremendous nuclear power plant 93 million miles away (exactly where we want it). Even at such distances, the sun's heat can be devastating, and it commands a healthy respect for the delicate orchestration of circumstances that makes natural energy flows possible. Humans thrive on the earth under such intense emanations of heat and light only because billions of years of evolutionary processes have created the atmosphere and surface that support our existence--the soil, plant life, and cloud cover that cool the planet down and distribute water around it, keeping the atmosphere within a temperate range that we can live in. So reestablishing our connection to the sun by definition includes maintaining interdependence with all the other ecological circumstances that make natural energy flows possible in the first place. (131-132)

Humans have come to rely on fossil fuels rather than "harnessing and maximizing local natural energy flows" (31):

For the majority of our simple energy needs, humans could be accruing a great deal of current solar income, of which there is plenty: thousands of times the amount of energy needed to fuel human activities hits the surface of the planet every day in the form of sunlight." (31, 32)

I am happy that human ingenuity is beginning to turn its attention to capturing, storing, and efficiently employing energy. Perhaps it is not too late for us.

He's also German, and in my book that makes him very efficient.

‘The successfully interdependent nature of biological systems suggests that achieving a sustainable system of consumption and production is not a matter of reducing the footprint of our activities on this planet, but transforming this footprint into a source of replenishment for those systems that depend on it.' Michael Braungart's Vision.

The piece goes on to define the central strategy behind this concept Cradle-to-Cradle design, what Time calls "a unified philosophy that-in demonstrable and practical ways-is changing the design of the world." The design ‘defines a framework for designing products and industrial processes that turn materials into nutrients by enabling the formation of cyclical material flow metabolisms.'

To me it sounds like permaculture (‘a design system which connects various components so that the waste of one process becomes the raw material for the next'), but one developed in a lab rather than out in the fields. And that is not a bad thing.

His resume is disgustingly brilliant:

• Founder of the EPA - check out the products, their eco-tastic!

• Scientific Manager of the Hamburg Environmental Institute - producing of the environmental performance of the world's largest chemical companies

• As the name suggests, he is co-top guy in McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry working with companies on issues of on ‘materials assessment, waste and energy balances, life-cycle design, and design for dissasembly'.

What he proves, and what this thread is always trying to highlight and promote, is that there are a lot of very intelligent, practical, dedicated and resourceful individuals out there in a position to tackle head on the problems we face as a nation and as a global community.

What we need to do is give individuals and companies like these the power to put their plans in motion, in much the same way that industrialists in the 19^th century did.

I suggest you stop by each of his web-sites and soak up the goodness for a little while. Industry is not going away. Products are not going away. But at least now we know that they can be produced and dispensed in ways that not only avoid harming the earths systems, but add to them as well.

Not that I expect you to be suffering from withdrawal symptoms or anything, but if you're in desperate need of an interesting CR fix in the meantime, you could do a lot worse than visit www.ted.com.

It's an absolutely amazing site, built on an amazing concept. Once a year, some of the world's leading thinkers and doers are gathered in the same place and given 18 minutes to give the talk of their lives - all captured on video and available to download directly into your iTunes library.

There's a whole thread on sustainability, featuring the likes of Al Gore, Amory Lovins and Janine Benyus, and it really brings home the message that economic progress and the preservation of the planet needn't be mutually exclusive.

My personal favourite? A thought-provoking and at times very amusing talk by Bill McDonough, co-author of Cradle to Cradle - the book that, along with Jonathon Porritt's Capitalism as if the World Matters, first got me interested in thinking more deeply about CR.

Check it out. I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

De igual modo, se le reconoce también como el dragón 'Illuyankas' de los hititas y con el sinónimo de otros monstruos fenicios, ugaritas, canaaneos, etc. Para el profeta Isaias, en su Apocalipsis, el Leviatán representa el poder del maligno que, en sus revelaciones, nos dice que deberá quedar sometido al poder del Altísimo, para ser más tarde derrotado por el propio Mesías, después de su venida. En tanto que esta venida del Mesías se haya producido o se vaya a producir, según diferentes creencias, el hecho cierto es que el Leviatán acaba de perder su última batalla por el poder y la hegemonía de este mundo. Las fuerzas de la naturaleza —el agotamiento de los recursos naturales, en especial, el petróleo y las leyes físicas— le han puesto freno a su alocada carrera y lo han tumbado. Ahora el neoliberalismo sólo vive su agonía. Una agonía que nos ocasionará, por culpa de sus poderosos adeptos, demasiados sufrimientos y penalidades. Pero ya, en el mundo que emerge, nunca podrá volver a florecer de la manera que lo hizo anteriormente.

Este poder sombrío, y a veces tan oculto, que entraña el Leviatán fue analizado, en el siglo XVII, por un gran pensador, como lo fue Thomas Hobbes, que se rebeló contra las ideas imperantes de la época, donde la corrupción y los privilegios de unos cuantos se ejercían a costa del sacrificio y de las penalidades de la mayoría. El absolutismo imperante en la época era el sistema que se había transformado en un monstruo de injusticias y de iniquidades. Se había convertido en un sistema que atentaba incluso contra la dignidad de los seres humanos, en un etapa tan importante para el desarrollo de la humanidad. El Leviatán se identificaba con un Estado totalitario sujeto a una gran burocracia. Para Thomas Hobbes, el hombre era un lobo para otro hombre: homo homini lupus.

A su juicio, el hombre, por su propia naturaleza, se mueve por la fuerza de sus deseos y pasiones. Son los deseos, las pasiones y las ambiciones de los hombres quienes crean el Leviatán que caracteriza el Poder Supremo al que, a veces, en tiempos de Hobbes, se le llamaba Estado o República. Los hombres luchan entre sí porque la codicia de unos les presiona para que roben o maten a los otros. El estado natural entre los hombres sería el de la guerra o el de la anarquía. Sin embargo, los hombres tienen miedo de morir  y, además, son egoístas. Pero no son tontos, pues saben que no podrían mantenerse en guerra todo el tiempo pues también saben que todos perderían con ello. Por ello, optan por la paz para así poder disfrutar tranquilos del botín.

Así pues, para evitar la muerte y la aniquilación mutua, los hombres abdicaron de su soberanía y se sometieron a un soberano o rey que les garantizara la paz y el progreso, a través del contrato social que el rey impone para ejercer su arbitraje todopoderoso. Con el paso de los años, y tras la revolución francesa, la figura del rey fue sustituida o arrinconada para ceder su puesto a los electos de la democracia. El Leviatán apenas tuvo que variar su 'look'. Donde antes eran los privilegios de la nobleza, ahora serían los de la burguesía.

El Leviatán no tuvo ningún problema para aceptar figuradamente el arbitraje que impone el modelo democrático ya que le reconfortaban excesivamente las aguas del capitalismo. Sólo había una pega. Había que mutar del keynesianismo al neoliberalismo, como así se hizo. Esas serían las mejores condiciones para que el Leviatán mutara y se encargara después, con sus malas artes, de confundirnos. El Leviatán constantemente nos ofusca u obnubila para que no nos percatemos de que, con democracia o sin ella, siempre será la plutocracia —el gobierno de los más ricos— quien mande. Esa plutocracia que incorpora a la mayoría de los rentistas del sistema, a los que más se benefician. Son los eternos amigos del poder, los que gobiernan en la sombra, los que consiguen que unos tengan que escupir sangre para que otros, unos pocos, vivan en la abundancia.

Hace unos años, surgió un nuevo paradigma que, poco a poco, nos fue descubriendo su verdadero rostro. Se trataba del nuevo avatar del Leviatán que, esta vez, se había presentado a la humanidad disfrazado de neoliberalismo. Nadie, ningún Estado siquiera, por poderoso que fuera, osó, durante mucho tiempo, oponerse ante su poder y sus leyes. El neoliberalismo surgió con fuerza, en los años 1990, como respuesta a la crisis prolongada que padecimos durante los años 1980.

Surgió como la verdadera solución a los males económicos y sociales de aquellos tiempos. Su empuje fue tan fuerte y arrebatador que ni tan siquiera los gobiernos de los grandes países se atrevieron a hacerle frente. Adoptaron su credo y se convirtieron en sus máximos valedores. Así, los países ricos, entre los cuales nos encontramos nosotros, consideraron al neoliberalismo como el único arbitro solvente del desarrollo y esa misma condición sería la receta que también se impuso a los países en vías de desarrollo. Tras la caída del comunismo en la URSS y en los países socialistas de la Europa Oriental, se inicio el asalto al ‘dragón comunista’, China. A partir de la muerte de Mao Tse Tung las escaramuzas duraron muy poco y concluyeron con el consiguiente pacto entre el neoliberalismo, auspiciado por las empresas multinacionales y, paradójicamente, el sistema que más combate las libertades individuales: la dictadura china. Fue como un matrimonio de conveniencia que dura hasta nuestros días.

De este modo, en nombre del progreso y de la libertad de comercio, en nombre del modelo de globalización neoliberal, se impulsaron en aquel país del Extremo Oriente, los planes de crecimiento y desarrollo 'a cualquier precio', impuestos a todo un pueblo, sometido a la mayor explotación conocida en este siglo. Una cruel y despiadada explotación humana en el trabajo, que cuenta con el consentimiento del partido comunista chino y su máximo poder fáctico, representado por el ejército de represión, y con la colaboración y apoyo inexcusables de los paladines de las 'libertades': multinacionales y gobiernos títeres. ¡Menuda apología mundial del cinismo!

De manera aparente, y a nivel mundial, la batalla se planteó en el plano económico pero, sin embargo, la verdadera batalla, se desarrolló en el plano político. A falta de nuevas ideas en la política, fue el capital el que se hizo con las riendas del poder y comenzó a campar a sus anchas, por los mares del desconcierto y del caos. Para algunos actores inocentes — los que conocemos habitualmente como los eternamente bienintencionados— se trataba de superar las barreras que se oponen al comercio libre y al progreso científico y tecnológico. Así, la consigna: 'globalización de la economía', se convirtió en el mensaje clave del nuevo Leviatán. Pero, como complemento, también se hablaba de la no intervención de los Estados en la economía  y de las nuevas reglas de juego manejadas por las multinacionales que deberían regir la competencia internacional.

En principio, todo parecía que serían conceptos positivos pero no fue más que un espejismo ilusorio. Ello ocurrió porque nadie los analizó en profundidad. La excepción, como casi siempre, fue la de algunos ‘locos’ prospectivistas —entre los que me incluyo— que, desde el inicio, consideramos las desviaciones y las consecuencias nefastas que aquel fenómeno tendría en el largo plazo, si es que su desarrollo se basaba —tal como al menos yo estaba percibiendo— en la avaricia y en la maximización de los beneficios de las empresas.

Hoy en día, nos abruman los frutos de aquella insana corriente. Durante el camino, hemos perdido muchos principios y valores éticos, de gran valor y que conferían y daban dignidad a los seres humanos. Lo más absurdo e incomprensible ha sido que, como recambio de todo ello, nos ha quedado como herencia una nefasta visión cortoplacista de los proyectos que nos está llevando al desastre. De este modo, y sin que apenas nos demos cuenta, es como ha triunfado un hedonismo rancio y obcecado por la satisfacción del placer en el instante.  Así mismo, la lucha por el poder y la acumulación de riqueza se ha convertido en el único ‘leit motiv’ de nuestros políticos y dirigentes empresariales.

A su vez, y por detrás de estas evoluciones, se ocultaron otra serie de objetivos que llegaron a erosionar incluso, hasta los cimientos sobre los que se asienta la propia democracia. Durante todos estos años, la plutocracia —los más ricos, los rentistas del sistema— ha permeado el poder hasta sus entrañas, comprando, de paso, las almas de muchos dirigentes. Ello ha contribuido también a la fácil generalización de la corrupción política en algunos países que sufren una fuerte crisis de valores como los nuestros.

A lo largo de mi vida, muchas veces he sostenido que si el comunismo fue el cáncer del socialismo, el neoliberalismo lo sería del capitalismo. La desregulación de la economía que impuso el neoliberalismo fue una pura pantomima para ocultar que también con el neoliberalismo se perderían muchas libertades e incluso que se resentiría el Estado del Bienestar. El objetivo era ocultar que lo que verdaderamente le interesaba al neoliberalismo era seguir acumulando poder, riqueza y capital, a costa de los demás.

En definitiva, se ocultaba que el rico cada vez sería más rico y que, por el contrario, el pobre sería cada vez más pobre. Se ocultaba que dada la limitación de recursos, lo que uno obtuviera de más, obligaría a que otro u otros  lo harían de menos. Un objetivo del neoliberalismo consistía en continuar con la privatización de los beneficios y, por si vinieran malos tiempos, con la 'socialización de las pérdidas', tal como ha quedado bien al descubierto con la crisis inmobiliaria, crediticia y financiera que actualmente sufrimos. Los diferentes gobiernos de los países desarrollados, y sus correspondientes bancos centrales, han tenido que intervenir para salvar a muchas instituciones financieras mientras que, los que antes fueron defensores acérrimos del neoliberalismo, permanecían callados, cuando no, suplicando a gritos la intervención de los gobiernos como hicieron promotores de la economía del ladrillo, bancos y cajas de ahorro, etc.

La crisis actual cada vez se nos agravará más, debido a los altos precios de las energías. El último informe de la Agencia Internacional de la Energía sobre previsiones del mercado del petróleo, a medio plazo, ha puesto de manifiesto la incapacidad de la oferta actual de petróleo para hacer frente a la demanda de crudo. El petróleo se agota y con él, también el neoliberalismo. Estamos situados ante el fin de una era. El precio de la inacción será el que las cosas vayan de mal en peor. El Leviatán del neoliberalismo ha caído y ello nos impone reflexionar sobre el futuro, ya que no podemos seguir haciendo más de lo mismo. Entre otras cosas, impone replantearnos lo que queremos que sea la globalización de nuestra economía. Hemos visto ya que no es bueno que los gobiernos no puedan tutelar siquiera sus propios mercados. Tampoco es bueno que no se puedan aplicar políticas efectivas que luchen contra la creciente lacra de la pobreza y las desigualdades sociales.

En el orden mundial, deberemos ser muchísimo más solidarios con el resto de países pobres y/o en vías de desarrollo. El sentido de la globalización, por fuerza, habrá de ser completamente diferente a lo que hasta ahora hemos conocido. En nombre de la globalización, se deberá trabajar, a nivel mundial, siguiendo una estructura en red y en base a la cooperación y la solidaridad entre las diferentes naciones que integran el planeta. La globalización, hasta ahora, ha perseguido apuntalar unas estructuras jerárquicas de dominación de unos países sobre otros. La globalización no ha sido otra cosa que la expresión de la concentración de las decisiones económicas, a nivel mundial, desde los diferentes centros financieros: Nueva York, Londres, Paris, Frankfurt y Tokyo.

Ahora que el neoliberalismo se resquebraja, si los diferentes países del mundo nos unimos y trabajamos de manera solidaria, será cuando podremos lograr que la globalización resultante permita que todos los países trabajen siguiendo la lógica de una estructura en red. Se trata de construir una red de cooperación mundial donde no existan unos nudos más importantes que otros, a la hora de la toma de decisiones económicas. De funcionar así, ello nos permitiría, a su vez, la ansiada democratización de la economía. De cualquier modo, el reto que supone un mundo habitado por 9.000 millones de habitantes —como será el que, presumiblemente, nos encontraremos antes del 2050— será enorme, cuando no, insuperable. En suma, nuestro mundo no tendrá ninguna viabilidad, si no afrontamos antes la transición exitosa al nuevo modelo energético y productivo.

Necesitamos, cuanto antes, alcanzar este nuevo modelo socioeconómico basado en las energías renovables, el ahorro y la eficiencia energética, la productividad de los recursos y la reducción significativa de residuos. Con la caída del Leviatán, es cuando deberíamos impulsar, a tope, la economía circular y el desarrollo sostenible, para que la bestia no resurja de nuevo. Sin embargo, nada nos será regalado. El camino hacia el futuro estará lleno de emboscadas. En consecuencia, no es bueno que confiemos excesivamente en nuestra suerte.

Además, es bastante seguro que la crisis alimentaria y el Cambio Climático, ya iniciado, nos debiliten mucho y que, aprovechándose de ello, surja con fuerza un nuevo avatar del Leviatán prometiéndonos miles y miles de milagros. Entonces como ahora, nuestra mayor defensa siempre será reforzar nuestra cartera de principios y valores éticos, acelerar la transición al nuevo modelo energético, el desarrollo sostenible y la defensa a ultranza de las libertades y de la democracia. De manera complementaria, añadiré que la defensa de la democracia deberá hacerse sin subterfugios. Como medida precautoria, y para acabar con la mediocridad en la política, considero que nuestros dirigentes deberían ser elegidos mediante elecciones que se celebren en base a listas abiertas. Es una medida necesaria, aunque no suficiente, para que, de este modo, no tengamos nunca más que vivir en libertad condicionada y sujeta al antojo de las cúpulas de los partidos políticos. Necesitamos, cuanto antes, recuperar la ilusión y la esperanza, para así, destinar lo mejor de nosotros mismos a la preparación del futuro.

"You can wear your old shoes in, your new shoes out. There is no finish line."

(what a beautiful slogan for a Nike C2C shoe, btw. There is no finish line."

On the lookout for a new pair, I noticed a shoe at Urban Outfitters here in Toronto that resembled what I had seen from McDonough. I asked the clerk at the store and he had no idea what Cradle to Cradle was. After a little research, I realized the shoes I had found there were actually from Nike's "Considered" line, which were apparently inspired by Cradle to Cradle (although I've seen no evidence of any official endorsement as of yet).

Either way, I picked up this pair. More after the pics on the design of the shoe, including a vid from Jeff Staple, who was involved in the initial stages of the project.

From Wikipedia:

"Nike Considered is a sustainable line of shoes introduced by Nike, Inc., a major American supplier of athletic shoes, apparel and sports equipment. Nike Considered was developed by Richard Clarke, Tinker Hatfield, Steve McDonald and Mike Aveni working with the Innovation Kitchen, located on Nike's 175-acre headquarters campus in Beaverton, Oregon. Nike Considered grew out of Nike’s commitments to design innovation and to sustainability. The designers pulled from the best ideas, both inside and outside the company, with the intent of reinventing footwear design. It also grew out of conversations with consumers who were increasingly asking for more sustainable products.

The Nike Considered line utilizes materials found primarily within 200 miles of the Nike factory which reduces the energy used for transportation, diminishing the resulting climate change impact. The manufacturing process reduces solvent use by more than 80% compared with Nike’s typical products. The leather comes from a tannery that recycles wastewater to ensure toxins are kept out of the environment, and it is colored using vegetable-based dyes. Hemp and polyester are used to make the shoe's woven upper and shoelaces. The midsole is cut to lock into the outer sole, reducing the need for toxic adhesives. The shoe's outer sole includes rubber made from recycled factory rubber waste.

Check out this vid from one of the shoe's designers, Jeff Staple, explaining what went into the design, manufacture and marketing of the new eco-shoe:

Considered has a new shoe due out soon that will be the first "fully" Considered shoe, which must meet the following criteria:

1. Must be made from recyclable materials. (i.e., 100% recyclable plastics or veg-tanned leathers.)
2. Zero Toxins. Zero chemical adhesives. (no glue.)
3. Mechanical vs Chemical. (using mechanics and engineering to put the shoe together instead of chemical solutions.)
4. Closed Loop Technology. (the shoe must be able to come back 100% as another shoe or something else. Nothing goes to waste.)

Five hundred supporters is great, but why not 500.000 supporters? Who is favor of an economy based on solar income, cyclic production and consumption processes that prevent depletion and pollution by design? Exactly, who wouldn't? Become a supporter too and be an ambassador!

Yesterday I came across a great, easy tool for doing life cycle assessments for practically any product you can think of. The LCA Calculator takes into consideration the entire life cycle including:

1. Extraction

2. Manufacture

3. Transport

4. Use

5. Disposal

Once you've gone through the steps, the LCA emails you a PDF Analysis for your specific product, along with recommendations for changes materials, extraction methods, transportation, disposal, etc.

For example, here was my analysis for the Transport portion of my product. In just experimenting, I said my product was manufactured in North America, but shipped to Asia. As a result, the transport numbers came out HUGE, and it was recommended in my report that I look at reducing weight, size or transport method in order to reduce those numbers.

Documentaire produit, narré et présenté par Léonardo DiCaprio sur le changement climatique.

The talk concerned an interesting study commissioned by the USGBC and completed by the New Building Institute. The key question was how did buildings that received LEED certification when they were completed, perform once they were in operation. 121 certified buildings, representing 22% of the total number, participated in the study. (Note: these were the ones who responded to an invitation, sent to all, to participate in the study, and so do not form a random sample.) The results were that in general, LEED buildings were 25-30% more energy efficient than non-LEED buildings. The data were pretty variable and unpredictable (e.g. some very highly rated buildings performed near the bottom). It seemed like some of the variability could have been mitigated by controlling for building type within the study. Buildings serve different functions. A data center is going to have a different energy use profile than an office building. The results are being used to shape the next version of the LEED rating system. The study is available here.

All told, the symposium showcased many good initiatives and programs. One thing that seemed to be lacking, however, was something along the lines of the cradle-to-cradle viewpoint, with a more critical take on recycling, for instance, and more emphasis on avoiding many of these problems at the outset by more thoughtful design and reuse. There was some evidence of this, as in a different USPS talk about how the amount of hazardous materials they generate has been cut by 90% through green purchasing. But in other cases, recycling programs and green electronics purchases were trumpeted with far less said about reusable over recycled items (such as bottles) and upgrading equipment versus purchasing new environmentally-friendly equipment (like computers). Nevertheless, many steps in the right direction are being taken.

Sorry people, this one is going to be in english, because I can't find any subtitle for this. LEARN ENGLISH. He is saying crazy accurate stuff !!

Cradle to Cradle for ever !

Here’s the point I walked away with:

Sustainability is not about giving things up.

Too much of the “green” effort we see focuses on the consumer.  Use less, recycle more.  This is all well and good, but if being sustainable is perceived as losing one’s quality of life, it is going to have a tough time catching on.  William McDonough is a well respected sustainable architect (the first time I ran across his name was when he was Dean of the A School (School of Architecture) at UVA), and Michael Braungart is a chemical engineer.  As designers, they both say the responsibility of a sustainable culture rests on the designers of products, and not those who consume them.  Although there are many things consumers should do, a much greater impact can be had if designers built products with their entire life cycle use in mind, for example cars which are designed to be taken apart and broken down into useable raw materials state.  The go into a top-level separation of two different recyclable materials – technical “nutrients” (metals and other materials which can be recycled and reused) and biological nutrients (materials which can be returned to the environment safely to become again part of the biological process).

There is much more to the book and I won’t summarize all of its points.  I did walk away with another valuable point: you can only do as Good as the best information you have available.  There is an endless level of research that one can do when researching materials to use.  However, if you want to get anything done, there has to be a stopping point.   There is, at some point, a time when either the information stops, or there is so much you cannot get anything done.  As a designer, I deal with that enough.  But we will always improve our processes, and learn to do better on the next one.  This book raises the bar on what sustainability is…  I would like to see these concepts become a reality while I’m still alive.

The Artishok design studio embodies this perfectly, creating furniture from corn based plastics. Artishok's products look no different than other designer stuff and the advantage of the Artishok items is that they virtually do not contribute to your carbon footprint. After use, you can safely throw the furniture on your garden's compost heap without polluting the soil even 1%. That means that the eight students are about as close as any designers to replicating the natural cycle directly. There's likely strong demand for such items because other than recycled materials, 100% natural materials effectively eliminate the garbage problem. C2C based items can be ´fed back´ to mother nature no questions asked! Artishok buys its materials from Biopearls www.biopearls.nl, another Dutch enterprise which makes biodegradable polymers.

C2C has turned the design world on its head in some ways. Everybody agrees that the throw away society must be stopped, but C2C appears to clash with durable design. Because unlike durable designs which seem to deny a product's end point, C2C is sold primarily because of its 'rotting away' value. Critics say that it's the trash heap nightmare, and not nature, which inspires this and that C2C is merely a marketing ploy. Some people also believe that nature doesn't need extra compost. That might very well be true, but [C2C gurus] McDonough and Braungart aren't too extreme. They say that so long as you create stuff that can be re-used by industry, you might consider it on equal terms with biodegradable materials. Every item that´s not ending up in a rubbish dump helps solve the landslide problem.

This is psychologically a bit disconcerting; as noted above, people like to buy things that last, not necessarily things that are compost-ready. This conjures up images of mushrooms growing under the cushions, nature surreptitiously crossing the threshold of the home - a bulwark against the wild - and waiting to erupt. (This may be the reason that though my wife bought me the C2C book a couple of years ago, I have yet to read it.) But those kinds of associations are part of the problem - the idea that we can erect walls that separate us from nature is a fallacy. If economically viable, the compostable couch is a great idea. The only problem is, I don't know any suburban compost heaps big enough.

The Story of Stuff will take you on a provocative tour of our consumer-driven culture — from resource extraction to iPod incineration — exposing the real costs of our use-it and lose-it approach to stuff.

The movie is just the beginning of the story. Watch it, learn more and get involved

Intro:

Part 1:

See parts 2-8 here.

It could be used in a different way, but there are some problems with the waste stream. One being the liquid chemicals that might also be flushed down the drain, making our waste notably less than 100% organic.

Again, in order for our waste streams to truly work, products must be designed for an eventual reincarnation, rather than being sent “away”. If we can develop products that make people feel unique without that implying 'no one else can use it when I’m done', we can replenish more of the nutrients we take from the earth, more often, and in a safer way.

                   “There is no need for shampoo bottles, toothpaste tubes, yogurt and ice-cream cartons, juice containers, and other packaging to last decades (or even centuries) longer than what came inside them…Worry free packaging could safely decompose, or be gathered and used as fertilizer, bringing nutrients back to the soil.”

When looking at creating environmentally sensitive products, the Cradle to Cradle team makes sure they

                  “look carefully at the potential long term design legacy”

And that is something that all green manufacturers should do when designing a new product or redesigning an old one.