ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces cradle-to-cradle design as a nature-inspired design and innovation approach in the field of design for sustainability and discusses its main sustainability benefits, limitations and unresolved issues, as well as its current and future research directions. The approach is based on three interrelated design principles: waste equals food, eco-effectiveness and respect diversity. Cradle-to-cradle design defines two types of nutrients – biological and technical – and argues that if these nutrients are circulated in open/biological and closed/technical loops, respectively, economic growth in society can continue indefinitely. The potential of cradle-to-cradle design to enable radical innovation and create a mindset change in businesses towards achieving sustainability has been acknowledged as its main value. Nevertheless, it is argued that despite its inspiring vision, cradle-to-cradle design is technically not very well justified and there are practical limitations to the implementation of this broad vision. The approach has also been criticised for creating the risk of shifting the focus of design decisions from the entire life cycle of products to minimising or eliminating toxic materials, thus overlooking the impacts of energy consumption.
