Ed: Woods Seminar: Bill McDonough of Cradle-to-Cradle

Posted by: Max Dunn on October 16, 2008 09:40:35

A Celebration of Abundance: Something Lived, Something Dreamed

Woods Energy Seminar
Bill McDonough of Cradle-to-Cradle

Overview

• Opportunity to celebrate the abundance of life and prove the intelligence of our species
• Celebration of the abundance of the world
• Design is the first signal of human intention
• Lives in a house designed by Thomas Jefferson. His tombstone lists his legacies, not his work
• The people in this room could be considered the 7th generation of Thomas Jefferson

What is our intention as a species?

• Did we intend to pollute the rivers, change the climate? If so, then we are doing great.
• What is the first question? How do we love all the children of all species fro all time?
• Our goal is delightfully diverse, safe, healthy and just world, with clean air, water, soil and power – economically, equitably, ecologically and elegantly enjoyed.

Triangle

• We have been somewhere between socialism and capitalism. However any “ism” has not been good for the environment.
• But there is a third “ism” – Ecologism
• Need a balance between all three: equity, economy and ecology
• Economy prime issue – profit
• Equity prime issue- racism, sexism
• Ecology prime issue: are we following nature’s laws?
• Often when people focus on sustainable development they focus just on the economy triangle.

Guardian/Commerce

• Guardian is state – slow, serious, reserves right to kill and regulate
• Commerce is – quick, efficient, honest
• If you get the two mixed up, you get monstrous hybrids, like the Mafia which is run like a business but reserves the right to kill
• A regulation is a signal of design failure

Becoming native to place

• What does it mean to be an indigenous person? One criteria – no plans for leaving
• We are all indigenous to this planet – we are not leaving
• There is no way to throw things “away” – they all stay on our planet

Cradle-to-Cradle

• The first “plastic” book
• How would we design a tree? Impossible
• Why take something as amazing as a tree and smash it to make paper?
• One idea: Being less bad is not being good
• If we are going to Canada, it doesn’t help to go slowly to Mexico
• Look at the Cherry tree for inspiration. It has an abundance of blossoms and is not very efficient
• Fundamental premise is cycle of materials
• Looks at effectiveness, not efficiency

Growth is good

• Some discoveries in the last century that were important for design: E = mc2 and DNA
• E = mc2 means a little matter produces a lot of energy
• We have thousands of times more energy than we need coming from the sun
• We will probably solve the energy crisis because we have energy “income”
• Silliest thing to do with fossil fuels is to burn them. Better to use it for making products
• The idea that we would take a resource like chromium and distribute it around the world where it pollutes, is silly
• Could human artifice be a living thing?
• Living thing: growth, free energy (usually from sunlight), open metabolism
• Then the question becomes: what do we want to grow?

What is our target? What is our trajectory?

• 100% goal of optimal sustainability
• Trying to things efficiently is inefficient. For instance, trying to save fossil fuel energy usage doesn’t lead to being renewably powered
• Drucker: “Executives job do the right thing (effective), a managers job is to do things the right way (efficient).”

What is eco-effective design?

• Waste = food, or better food = food
• Use current solar income
• Celebrate diversity
• Two metabolisms: Biological and technical
• We cans see things as nutrients in these two metabolisms
• Biological nutrients are things that go in the soil, technical nutrients go back into industrial cycles forever
• This leads to products as a service. For instance, people really want carpets for covering, warmth, look, not a square of yarn

Designing Sustainable and Clean Products

• State of the art used to be a company working for RJ Reynolds that as trying to show that second-hand smoke wasn’t a problem in the workplace
• When manufacturers asked about their products were told they were legal and go away
• Most manufacturers don’t even know all the components of the formulations that they buy
• Material Selection: Currently: restricted substances, (Prop 65), next should do an Inventory, finally do optimization
• Criteria: Design with materials that are nutrients, Design products to be recycled, Work with systems to recycle products
• Cadmium in batteries is bad since a child could be poisoned and it ends up in landfill, but in solar panel where the manufacturer will be responsible for re-using it is good

Cradle-to-cradle Product Examples

• Fabric company in Switzerland used to have trimmings classified as toxic waste – imagine what the product was like!
• Now, has fabric for airplanes that is clean enough to eat and water coming out of plant is drinkable
• Shaw Industries: eco-works and eco-solutions-Q carpet
• Milliken: wall coverings
• Other certified cradle-to-cradle: MechoShade, Twithchel, Steelcase, Haworth, HermanMiller,
• Cradle-to-cradle certification has 4 levels: Basic, silver, gold and platinum

Issues facing us by design

• We know of some: Climate change, pollution of water
• Others are: Pacific Gyre (sp?) in Pacific Ocean where there is 6 times as much plastic as plankton
• Oceans are sequestering CO2 and PH is going down (acidifying), which could cause food chain to fail
• Buildings like trees, cities like forests

Building Examples

• Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies, Oberlin College, OH
  • Produces 30% more energy than it needs
  • Purifies its own water using a living machine
• U-tube’s headquarters in So SF
  • Has an orchid on its roof. Birds look down and see nothing different
  • Grass roof has lots of benefits: including acoustic damping of airplane noise
  • Window’s that open
• Herman Miller factory in Michigan
  • Factory floor has light and fresh air
  • Productivity went up, maybe double
• Ford Rouge Center
  • Redesigned from ugly factory
  • Green roofs. Kildare (birds) nesting in 5 days after roof went up
  • Saved $35 million from storm water system reduction

Renewable Energy Projects

• BrightSource Energy 900 MW of solar thermal
• Better Place – electric cars. Goal was to get Israel off oil

Liuzhou

• Designing this city in China
• Surrounded by sugar cane
• Asked how to make the city self sufficient – closed cycle
• Recycle sewage
• Provide its own power
• Gardens on the roof

By design, the Earth is designed to become more fecund and grow more soil, so asphalt is worrying

Questions

• How does the economic downturn affect this vision?
  • We hope that the kinds of issues we are dealing with will be essential to economic prosperity and will still be important to the new administration.
  • After 1973, whenever alternative energy sources appeared, the oil producing countries dropped the price of oil to destroy them
  • With India and China coming online as oil consumers,
  • A lot of investments in alternative energy will continue to happen because the price of oil is not likely to drop much below $100 for long
• How to design completely recyclable products?
  • It is hard
  • First, look at how to get chemicals right so they are worth recycling
  • Secondly, develop the take-back systems themselves. Usually value of stuff getting back is really low, maybe even a cost. Technical nutrient cost is low (although it will get higher) but real advantage is having the customer come back to get a new product. For instance, Nike spends something like 70% of its budget on marketing, so getting them back is more valuable as a marketing tool that creates a relationship with the customer
• Level of effort from Federal government?
  • Look at renewable energy proposals, like Al Gore’s and T. Boone Picken’s
  • Find a way to release the entrepreneurial spirit to be unleashed to solve these problems.
  • Energy efficiencies initiatives should be strengthened
  • Materials – cradle-to-cradle initiatives