I bought The Upcycle, by William McDonough and Michael Braungart, to find out what happened next in the story they began with their first book Cradle to Cradle.
The full title of the book, The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability–Designing for Abundance, gave me pause. I pictured a wide gulf of uncharted territory between sustainability and abundance and was intrigued to learn how the authors would bridge it.
On a mostly blank page, just before the table of contents, readers will find one sentence that succinctly expresses what The Upcycle is all about.
“The goal of the upcycle is a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy, and just world with clean air, water, soil, and power—economically, equitably, ecologically, and elegantly enjoyed.”
This would make a fitting credo for our society.
Book Review
In their 2002 book, Cradle to Cradle, McDonough, and Braungart shared their vision of an alternative to our industrial system of designing and making products destined for the dump at the end of their useful life.
Using Cradle to Cradle concepts designers create products that can be broken down or dismantled into biological and technical resources and infinitely reused in new products. They select materials that are good for people and the environment versus those that are less bad and view waste from one process as food for another.
Over the past decade, forward-thinking designers and makers of products, buildings, and even cities embraced Cradle to Cradle and spread the word.
The Upcycle continues the story and provides real life examples of Cradle to Cradle in action at such diverse organizations as NASA, office furniture manufacturer Steelcase, and the United States Postal Service. Readers will learn how retail store “goodbyers” might contribute to the upcycle and how a building inspired by butterflies could create abundance.
McDonough and Braungart turn the sustainability mantra of reduce, reuse, and recycle on its head and ask us to reimagine the world where products are safe, useful, beautiful, and can be indefinitely upcycled.
- We Don’t Have an Energy Problem. We Have a Materials-in-the-Wrong-Place Problem.
- Get “Out of Sight” Out of Mind
- Always Be Asking What’s Next
- You Are Alive. Your Toaster Is Not
- Optimize, Optimize, Optimize
- You Can and You Will
- Add Good on Top of Subtracting Bad
- Gaze at the World Right Around You…Then Begin
- The Time is Now
- Go Forward Beneficially
The Bottom Line
Architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart met in the early 1990s and formed McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) in 1995. Since the publication of Cradle to Cradle in 2002, McDonough and Braungart have consulted with organizations all over the world, created the Cradle to Cradle Certified Program, and founded the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute.
The Upcycle is an easy to read book chock full of ideas that interrupt our thinking about how things are designed and made. It raises questions and possibilities. Examples from the real world show us what is being done now and others give us a glimpse of the future.
I recommend The Upcycle to anyone interested in looking at the glass as not half full or empty, but as McDonough and Braungart do, as always full.
Related Posts
Resources
