Cradle to Cradle

We humans need energy to live. By using the planet’s resources to our advantage, we have escaped the harsh challenges of nature and improved the living conditions of more and more people. However, a system error has occurred: We are producing in a linear way, and in doing so, we are unerringly directing all resources from the factory to the landfill. Through this short-sighted strategy, we are causing long-term damage: We waste limited resources, poison the air, soil and water, and disrupt biological cycles. In doing so, we are endangering our own livelihood.

Given our eco-balance, we humans perceive ourselves as pests. This is understandable, but it leads to a wrong solution strategy: We try to reduce our mistakes. But by renouncing and reducing, we only do less wrong, but by far nothing truly right. In this way, we postpone problems into the future instead of solving them in the long term. With the political tunnel vision of reducing CO2 emissions, we want to address the climate problem – and have neglected the resource problem on top of it. We are looking at interrelated problems in isolation, and that is our problem.

The C2C school of thought addresses this misconception and shows holistic solutions for interrelated problems. Instead of doing less wrong, C2C actors set positive goals and create real added value through their positive contribution: ecologically, economically and socially.

Cradle to Cradle is the path to a world in which we humans have found our way back into nature’s closed-loop system. We cover the increasing energy requirements for the growing world population exclusively from regenerative sources and consistently use recyclable plants for this purpose. We keep CO2 as an important raw material in cycles in which it does not cause a greenhouse effect. Only healthy and recyclable materials are used, so that all components of all products can be endlessly recycled. Everything circulates in biological or technical cycles.

This is how we act on nature’s example – everything goes from cradle to cradle: water which flows out of the factory cleaner than it went in. Buildings that provide healthy interiors and generate more energy than they consume. House facades that insulate, clean the air and are recyclable. Farms that produce healthy food while their farmland becomes more fertile each year. Products that are designed with appropriate materials for technological and biological cycles. There are already examples of all this today.

So the future has already begun – let’s shape it positively!