CHRIS: cradle to cradle

The concept of cradle to cradle responsibility developed by William McDonough and Michael Braungart is a massive leap forward in the way we can approach sustainability, recycling and design. The notion of being able to return a product to the earth and the change in decision making processes for manufacturing are groundbreaking and are ideas that help realise sustainability in the future. McDonough and Braungart have taken a hands approach and shown that the process can work.

For many years, intelligent, articulate, educated, charismatic and influential people have been warning us of the dangers of our approach and treatment of the environment and the consequences that we will face. We have also been given the opportunities to address these issues as well. Cradle to Cradle is another, possibly presented in an era of greater awareness, but what worries me is that, like so many other opportunities to realise sustainability and reverse our impact on the environment, Cradle to Cradle will get swept up in the process of politics and economics. The fact that many of the issues that surround the environment havent changed and are in many ways worse than ten or twenty years ago is compelling.

The environment has and will always be it seems, a poor cousin to politics and economics. Those two factors seem to always stand in the way of meaningful change on the environment. Cradle to Cradle requires a radical rethinking across the board of the way many parts of society function but it is possible. To achieve ambitions and goals like the ones that can be achieved by a cradle to cradle design ethic needs strong awareness and leadership from many people. As individuals we can all take responsibility for our own impacts on the environment but the bigger global picture is the one that, until leaders in business and politics take responsibility and stewardship for the environment and give the incentive for meaningful change and steps towards sustainability. Indeed for these people as well that takes a radical overhaul of the way they think but it would be better than the garbage they currently give us.

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