Cradle to Cradle

The best argument for good design is that it lasts. The best argument for good science is that it deplores waste. I’m bored with guilty and technologically illiterate environmental Luddites describing a future of guilt and privation led in caves. There’s an alternative responsible future persuasively offered by Braungart and McDonough. The survival of the planet can be re-stated in terms of stimulus, opportunity, challenge and reward. Works for me.

– Stephen BayleyAlready embraced by far-thinking manufacturers and governments. * Food Ethics Magazine *It’s one of the most thought-provoking books I’ve ever read – Ellen Macarthur * Daily Express *Environmentalists too rarely apply the ecological wisdom of life to our problems. Asking how a cherry tree would design an energy efficient building is only one of the creative ‘practices’ that McDonough and Braungart spread, like a field of wild flowers, before their readers. This book will give you renewed hope that, indeed, ‘it is darkest before the dawn’ – Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra ClubAchieving the great economic transition to more equitable, ecologically sustainable societies requires nothing less than a design revolution - beyond today’s fossilized industrialism. This enlightened and enlightening book shows us how - and indeed, that ‘God is in the details.’ A must for every library and every concerned citizen – Hazel Henderson, author of “Building a Win-Win World and Beyond Globalization: Shaping a Sustainable Global Economy”[McDonough and Braungart’s] ideas are bold, imaginative, and deserving of serious attention – Ben Eh

Michael Braungart is a chemist and founder of the Environmental Protection Encouragement Agency (EPEA) in Hamburg. He has been lecturing at universities, businesses and institutions around the world since 1984 on critical new concepts for ecological chemistry, and is the recipient of numerous awards, honours and fellowships.

William McDonough is an architect and founding principal of William McDonough + Parners based in Virginia. In 1999, Time magazine recognised him as a ‘Hero for our Planet’, and in 1996 he received the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development, the highest environmental honour given by the United States.