"If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is Nature's way".- Aristotle

Knowledge of waste streams provides a means to determine potential uses. But this doesn't put the waste to a good use, that takes decisions by good managers.

Signal your intentions

• Make it your purpose to become a Cradle to Cradle company rather than a company dedicated to incrementally improving Cradle to Grave.

Understand and prepare for the learning curve

• Learn to design your future rather than trying to predict it.
• Develop the creativity and collaboration skills of everyone in your business
• Identify and eliminate self-imposed constraints.
• Record and learn from your decisions.
• Keep innovating; gather data from your firm’s environment to redefine your markets and products.

Six steps to eco-effective manufacturing - the design brief for your future

• Use less materails and energy
• Substitute input materials e.g. non-toxic for toxic, renewable for non-renewable
• Reduce unwanted outputs; cleaner production
• Convert outputs to inputs, adopt the Cradle to Cradle principle waste = food.
• Separate technical and biological nutrients
• Re-invent, take a systems approach and include regeneration by design

Cradle to Cradle is not just a good idea, it is an ecological law. Our societies will only survive if the industrial vision of limitless growth is replaced by an integral vision of development.

Adapted from "Cradle to Cradle", McDonough & Braungart