BOOK REPORT
CRADLE TO CRADLE
REMAKING THE WAY WE MAKE THINGS
Author: William Mcdonough & Michael Braungart
2023 APRIL ISSUE
Reported by: Andrew Sia
Share this article!
From the Desk of the Publisher
This book has been with me for many years and because of its title which caught my attention. I have to admit that there are too many books to read, and it is always to have these books around us, especially with those titles that are interesting to us.
For this issue, I have decided to look for the book content in related to environmental and “Cradle to Cradle” came to my attention. It is a very idealist approach as normally we would have thought that basically everything was from cradle to tomb as they would be ended up in landfills or incinerated. Where we were brought up the landfills were used for the reclaimed lands and if the things we discarded would go up in the smoke once they have been incinerated. It is only now we came to know that the global warming is caused by the carbon dioxide emissions and it has caused already the damage to our planet Earth that we would have to change our way of thinking and handling matters.
It is not too late if we can pay attention and out our acts together.
CRADLE TO CRADLE
By
William McDonough & Michael Braungart
Available from Amazon
Hardcover at $26.61
Reported by: Andrew Sia
The authors are urging environmentalists to “reduce, reuse and recycle” in order to minimize damage. This book falls into our Environmental & Sustainability sector and can be used for further discussion. It opens an approach—“cradle to grave”—a manufacturing model that can be dated to the Industrial Revolution in which we throw away 90% of the materials we used as waste, which some of them we found out were toxic.
This book can inspire us to design products, after their life span, can be reused and recyclable and re-enter into our environment and circulate with the closed-loop of our industry cycle. We have to think the use of recycle and not to downcycle into lower grade usage.
We hope that through this book we can explore the similar subjects and look for more titles to help us to practice the principles of “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle”, and later in the book it introduced us the Four R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Regulate”.
The book began with the introduction which was titled as “This Book Is Not A Tree” and inside we can read about the biography about the writers, William (Bill) McDonough and Michael Braungart.
One of the author, Prof. Michael Braungart, founded the EPEA GmbH in Hamburg in 1987. EPEA stands for Environmental Protection Enforcement Agency, and since then it has developed into an international innovation partner for environmentally friendly products, processes, buildings and urban districts. It established the Cradle to Cradle® design framework for a circular economy in all industry sectors.
I would suggest you to visit their website at epea.com/en/about-us
The two of them wrote their second book known as The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability—Design for Abundance, which is the follow-up to Cradle to Cradle. It was after their ten years of publishing their first book and in this book they put the original concept into practice.
I would recommend you to read the book and start a conversation among your peers to find a breakthrough under the current situation. We really need to create a circular economy for our own industry, which is the textiles and fashion apparel.