Cradle to Cradle Chapter 6: Putting Eco-effectiveness Into Practice

Chapter 6: Putting Eco-Effectiveness into Practice
This chapter looks at the future of applying cradle to cradle methodology and the possible optimistic outcomes. The chapter uses the example of the Rouge, Ford Motor Company manufacturing plant, whose current chairman William Clay Ford Jr. has taken on the immense burden of re-designing the entire plant to meet not only a modern car market but also using the opportunity to ensure that social and environmental concerns are explored at an early stage so that they become forces that help postively shape the entire manufacturing process at every scale and for all participants. The chapter goes further to show how currently the practice is simply to substitute, take an existing process or "recipe" and evaluate each ingredient in order to substitute less bad materials while trying to maintain the valued characteristics of the former recipe. This method is flawed because it is inherently conflicting and shortsighted in so far as it leaves no room for completly original ideas. A better method the chapter argues is to start at the beginning with an open-ended question such as what do i want to achieve. Rather, in the case of Ford, instead of asking how can i make the car better, ask how can we create efficient transportation for the modern world. Therefore the designers are not rooted or handicapped by outdated idealogy and can freely respond to contemporary social, environmental, resource, market, etc. conditions to make the best solution possible now.
Five guiding Principals:
1) Signal your intention, "commit to a new paradigm, rather than to an incremental improvement of the old."
2) Restore, "strive for good growth, not just economic growth"
3) Be ready to innovate further, "remember that perfection of an existing product is not necessarily the best investment.."
4) Understand and prepare for the learning curve, "change is difficult, messy, and takes extra materials and time."
5) Exert intergenerational responsibility.
The last principal and the end of the chapter focuses on the value of ownership. with some beautiful logic in the form of a quote from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, "The earth belongs....to the living..." Meaning contemporary generations should not create debt of any form to be paid by succeeding generations.

Personally i liked the over-arching idea of re-evaluation. I think consistant, periodic and thorough critiquing and testing is critical to ensuring "best" solutions in any scenario across time. Flexibility and Adaptation.

Cradle to Cradle Chapter 5: Respesct Diversity

Hello I am Justine Welsh and this is my response to chapter 5.

This chapter emphasizes the respect we must have for diversity. I liked this point because the ways things are today, everything has become too commercialized. The example they brought up in the book was referring to a manufacturer who decided to rethink the way they make their detergent since not every consumer used the product the same. In most cases the soap was put in a washing machine, however the women in India washed their clothes by hand on large rocks thus introducing the harsh chemicals of the detergent to both their hands and the environment. So instead of following the “one size fits all” idea that we have all become accustomed too, these manufacturers need to start look at products on a smaller scale- every region of the world is unique in of itself and therefore calls for its own special needs. This unique diversity then becomes the foundation of all new ideas. By learning more about the native species, companies can find ways to use these species so that the environment still accepts them after use. For instance the book talks about doing away with Styrofoam packaging by creating a design made entirely of rice stalks and then encouraging people to throw their trash on the ground when finished so it can decompose and give something back to the soil.

The other way we must respect diversity is by finding this multiplicity in our products. The French reuse jam pots as drinking glasses. Something as simple as this needs to be modified in more products. Mankind has come a long way in regards to evolution, so now it is time to step back and rethink the way things are. This chapter lets us know that we have enough knowledge create or improve anything we want, but this time around products need to be more eco-efficient instead of bigger faster stronger. It’s time for a new revolution.