Class 9: Eco Design
CofC
Maymester 2011
SUSTAINABILITY
VIDEO

William McDonough introduces C2C Part 1
VIDEO

William McDonough introduces C2C Part 2
PUTTING ECO-EFFECTIVENESS
INTO PRACTICE
Ford Factory
 5 Steps to Eco-Effectiveness

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Get “free of” known culprits
Follow informed personal preferences
Create a passive positive list
Activate the positive list
Reinvent
5 Guiding Principles:
signal intention, restore, innovate further, learning curve,
intergenerational responsibility
CH 4: WASTE = FOOD
CH 4: WASTE = FOOD

“Negligence has been described as doing the
same thing over and over again even though
you know it’s dangerous, stupid or wrong. Now
that we know, it’s time for a change.
Negligence starts tomorrow.” (p117)
CH 4: WASTE = FOOD
Blames industry for altering the natural
equilibrium (p92)
 “Throw away products have become the norm”
(p97)
 Landfills contaminate, waste or lose too many
valuable nutrients (p99)
 Sewage no longer carries just human biological
waste – it caries numerous hazardous chemicals
that disrupt or destroy or mutate many natural
cycles in our water resources and farm lands (p
101) Need to rethink the flow.

CH 4: WASTE = FOOD


The notion of a closed system of the Earth (mass) and
sun (energy) and nothing goes in or out of the system.
“Whatever is naturally here is all we have.” Basic
elements are finite and valuable. “If our systems
contaminate Earth’s biological mass and continue to
throw away technical nutrients (such as metals) or
render them useless, we will indeed live in a world of
limits, where production and consumption are
restrained, and the Earth will literally become a grave.”
If humans are to survive we will have to learn to imitate
nature’s highly effective C2C system …” (p103)
Two metabolisms – biological and technical
CH 4: WASTE = FOOD

Technical nutrients and the notion of “products of
service” are introduced (p 109-115).

No elegant examples of complete success at this as was
the case for the wheelchair seat yet (e.g. Carpet, TV’s,
automobiles). Henry Fords model T with the crate as
floor boards, packaging like rice husks used then to
make bricks, etc. We are not there for most products for
the foreseeable future. Suggest using parking lots to
store unmarketable materials until ways to redesign
them or new uses for them can be engineered – running
shoe soles, PET, PVC, etc.
VIDEO

William McDonough introduces C2C Part 3
VIDEO

William McDonough introduces C2C Part 4
CH 5: RESPECT DIVERSITY

Notion of fitting rather than fittest. “Fitting-est implies
an energetic and material engagement with place and
an interdependent relationship to it.” (p121)

All sustainability is local – like politics (p123)

“By seeing sustainability as both a local and a global
event, we can understand that just as it is not viable to
poison local water and air with waste; it is equally
unacceptable to send it downstream, or to ship it
overseas to other, less regulated shores.” (p125)
CH 5: RESPECT DIVERSITY

Net zero does not mean isolated – off-grid.
Contribute to traditional sources – eco-efficient
– transitional – while new technologies and
sources of generation emerge. Lots of minigenerators – more efficient

“Oddly enough, professional architects seem to
get by without understanding the basic
principals that inspired ancient buildings and
architecture orientations.” (p130)
CH 5: RESPECT DIVERSITY

“eco-efficiency in service to a larger vision, not
as a goal itself.” (p131)

“Eco-effective design demands a coherent set of
principles based on nature’s laws and the
opportunity for constant diversity of
expression….What goes for aesthetics goes for
needs, which vary with ecological, economic and
cultural circumstances – not to mention
personal preferences.”
CH 5: RESPECT DIVERSITY
Questions on page 145 for considerations:
 “What has worked in the past, present and what will work in the future?

What kind of world do we intend and how might we design things in
keeping with that vision?

What will a sustainable global commerce look like 10 or even 100 years in
the future?

How can our products help to create and sustain it, so that future
generations are enriched by what we make, not tyrannized by hazards and
waste?

What can we do now to begin the process of industrial re-evolution?”
CH 5: RESPECT DIVERSITY

Smith – “every man working for his own self interest
will be led by an invisible hand to promote the public
good.” Free market – almost divine and highly
dependent on a moral producer. Not consistent with
reality

Marx – everything belongs to the state – meant to
address the need for equity and sharing of wealth.
Capitalism often ignored the needs of the worker but
communism also failed in that regard because the
individual was trivialized. 16% of the former Soviet
Union is unfit for habitation due to hazardous waste
(p148)
CH 6: ECO-EFFECTIVENESS INTO PRACTICE

Five steps to eco-effectiveness:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Get free of known culprits
Follow informed personal preferences – ask
manufacturers questions, tack carpet rather than
glue it, etc. People do not want nor maintain ugly
buildings.
Create a passive positive list – list X, gray and P lists
of constituents.
Activate the positive list.
Reinvent – start over again – circular – signal your
intentions – string commitments to change for the
better
CH 6: ECO-EFFECTIVENESS INTO PRACTICE

Final questions posed:
How can we support and perpetuate the rights of all
living things to share in a world of abundance? (can
be taken many ways)
 How can we love the children of all species – not just
our own – for all time?
 Imagine what a world of prosperity and health would
look like in the future, and begin designing for it now.
 What would it mean to become, once again, native to
this place – Earth – the home of all our relations?
 This is going to take us all, and it is going to take
forever. But then, that’s the point.

VIDEO

Roundtable Rocky Mtn Inst: Natural
Capitalism