Cradle to Cradle Design is a biomimetic approach to the design that models human industry on nature’s processes to work towards a sustainable and waste elimination system.
The idea is based around our approach to design and natural resources. Sparked by the rapid depletion in resources and our harmful relationship with the planet, the method focuses on sustainability and a circular system. Our current approach to design is putting excess pressure on the planet and depleting us of our raw materials. Using without thought to ‘reusing’ has lead to unsustainable approaches to the use of natural finite resources . It is becoming a more pressing issue which more of the population have become increasingly conscious of. People have started to try and counteract this development through an array of measures including: reducing raw material consumption, producing less waste, decreasing carbon dioxide emissions and setting a long-term goal of zero emissions to name a few. But this is only really persponing the damage not undoing it.
Cradle to Cradle is a design approach outlook which takes inspiration from the cycles seen in nature and relies on the idea of ‘no waste, only nutrients’. It minimizes the amount of energy used in the life cycle of a product and works to keep all materials in continuous cycles, celebrating diversity. Every product is designed with the intention of bringing it back into the technical and/or the biological cycle. The system works by dividing everything up into 2 categories: biological and technical. Biological is things which are 100% biodegradable. Technical is everything else that is not biodegradable and should be prevented from entering the environment. Using these categories, products are deconstructed into raw materials which, at the end of the product’s lifecycle, becomes the basis of new products, creating a linear cycle.
With the Cradle to Cradle approach, we can not only reduce our negative ecological footprint but, extend our positive one. Products should be designed with this approach in mind, we have to be aware of the fate of all of its components at the end of the product’s life cycle, therefore allowing the deconstruction of the product to happen in an effortless way.
Basically, this approach aims at stimulating a world where all aspects of human existence and industry, use a cyclical and sustainable approach to the use of resources, therefore eliminating waste and boosting our positive impact on the world.
After reading the paper and studying this approach, I am very approving and supportive of the idea. I think it is definitely the way forward in terms of design and lifestyle approach and will help the planet find equilibrium between us and nature , whereas recently it feels more often than not we are working against not together with it.
However, I fear that as stubborn humans who are more or less set in our ways, many industries will be reluctant to redesign their systems for the better of the planet if it affects their profits and flow, if even in the short term. Therefore, whilst in principle this approach is superb and the right way forward, I feel that it is unrealistic to expect the world to conform to this system in a rapid space of time and that the use and depletion of resources might increase before it ultimately starts to go down.
