"If a man characterised his relationship with his wife as sustainable, you might well pity them both" - Michael Braungart .

From being “less bad” to being good.

Reducing the waste of natural resources is not a viable long-term strategy for business, it is just delaying the inevitable.

When we re-think Cradle to Grave and discover Cradle to Cradle, we can turn outputs into inputs, costs into revenues, waste into food.

Waste = Food

“Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdom which cannot help itself” - Ralph Waldo Emerson.

In nature everything is a resource and opportunistic users respond accordingly. As every creature excretes or dies others are lined up to harvest the elemental components and the energy. In industrial systems, just as in nature, nothing exists in isolation. The waste = food principle can be applied to all activities of the business. What we previously viewed as waste becomes a resource and waste management becomes resource management.

Re-thinking resources

Applying the waste = food principle to manufacturing requires a rearrangement of our mental furniture.

We understand that biological materials re-enter the biosphere (e.g. be composted) at the end of their useful life.

We can think of Technical (man made) materials in the same way. When no longer required by the consumer technical materials are returned to the manufacturer to re-enter the technosphere.

Segregation of biological and technical nutrients is vital to avoid contamination of nutrient cycles.