In particular, the compatibility of C2C and life cycle assessment (LCA) is addressed. Based on student design projects for several multinationals, the strengths and weaknesses of the concept are evaluated. This paper takes a look at the applicability of the C2C concept in day-to-day product development in a business setting.

However, the question of when and how the C2C concept can be applied successfully in business is still being debated. Their guilt-free approach has enthused many new people, drawing them into the field of sustainability. Drawing on their experience in (re)designing everything from carpeting to corporate campuses, McDonough and Braungart make an exciting and viable case for putting eco-effectiveness into practice, and show how anyone involved with making anything can begin to do so as well.The cradle-to-cradle (C2C) concept of McDonough and Braungart, which has a strong emphasis on materials strategy, gives a vision of a sustainable future, inspired by nature. Or they can be 'technical nutrients' that will continually circulate as pure and valuable materials within closed-loop industrial cycles, rather than being 'recycled'-really, downcycled-into low-grade materials and uses. They can be conceived as 'biological nutrients' that will easily reenter the water or soil without depositing synthetic materials and toxins. Guided by this principle, McDonough and Braungart explain how products can be designed from the outset so that, after their useful lives, they will provide nourishment for something new. Why not challenge the belief that human industry must damage the natural world? In fact, why not take nature itself as our model for making things? A tree produces thousands of blossoms in order to create another tree, yet we consider its abundance not wasteful but safe, beautiful, and highly effective. But as architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart point out in this provocative, visionary book, such an approach only perpetuates the one-way, 'cradle to grave' manufacturing model, dating to the Industrial Revolution, that creates such fantastic amounts of waste and pollution in the first place. 'Reduce, reuse, recycle,' urge environmentalists in other words, do more with less in order to minimize damage.

Braungart cradle to cradle