Cradle to Cradle

"Our planet is alive and the wondrous web of biodiversity provides us with all we need—clean air, water, soil, and energy, as well as food, medicine, resources. Whatever we do, that's what should be the highest priority for protection and we have to adapt everything else to that end. With this book, McDonough and Braungart open our eyes to the way to genuine sustainability by the study of nature and mimicking her ways. This is a groundbreaking book that should be the Bible for the Second Industrial Revolution."—Dr. David Suzuki, Professor Emeritus, University of British Columbia, and author of Good News for a Change: Hope for a Troubled Planet and The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature

"Environmentalists too rarely apply the ecological wisdom of life to our problems. Asking how a cherry tree would design an energy efficient building is only one of the creative 'practices' that McDonough and Braungart spread, like a field of wild flowers, before their readers. This book will give you renewed hope that, indeed, 'it is darkest before the dawn.'"—Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club

"Cradle to Cradle is not only a book of hope based on the power of will and imagination, it is a book of practical actions and solutions. Creativity unites with desire in the minds of William McDonough and Michael Braungart. We see how innovative design can restore not only the planet's integrity, but our own. We can begin to live differently. The goal of sustainability is replaced with organic rejuvenation. These revolutionaries, an architect and a chemist, have drawn us a map for our future using the tools of ecological intelligence and joy. No room for gloom and doom, here—instead, insert delight, celebration, and respect, when rethinking our relationship to a new world that 'honors the children of all species for all time.' This is a brilliant embrace of life."—Terry Tempest Williams, author of Leap and Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert

"Cradle to Cradle challenges society to redesign the materials we use and to revolutionize the manner in which we make them. McDonough and Braungart believe that by respecting diversity, mimicking nature, and implementing eco-effective practices, we can design a 'world of prosperity and health in the future.' Such considerations are key to the development of a sustainable society, and this book articulates a vision for redesigning the materials, systems, and services society depends upon every day."—Mary Kirchhoff, assistant director of the American Chemical Society's Green Chemistry Institute, Chemical and Engineering News

"Achieving the great economic transition to more equitable, ecologically sustainable societies requires nothing less than a design revolution—beyond today's fossilized industrialism. This enlightened and enlightening book shows us how—and indeed, that—'God is in the details.' A must for every library and every concerned citizen."—Hazel Henderson, author of Building a Win-Win World and Beyond Globalization: Shaping a Sustainable Global Economy

"[McDonough and Braungart's] ideas are bold, imaginative, and deserving of serious attention."—Ben Ehrenreich, Mother Jones

"[A] clear, accessible manifesto . . . the authors' original concepts are an inspiring reminder that humans are capable of much more elegant environmental solutions than the ones we've settled for in the last half-century."—Publishers Weekly

"A readable provocative treatise that 'gets outside the box' in a huge way. Timely and inspiring."—Kirkus Reviews