Cradle to Cradle

Cradle to Cradle is a design framework developed by chemist Michael Braungart and architect Bill McDonough. [43] It takes inspiration from nature, where everything is a resource for something else - the “waste” of one system becomes food (nutrients) for another. [72] The framework models natural systems, treating all materials involved in industrial and commercial processes as nutrients. [73]

The nutrients are classified into the following two categories, which are cycled in their respective cyclical systems:

• Biological Nutrients
  • Materials that naturally biodegrade and can be returned to the ecological system to become nutrients for new products. [74] [75] The system that cycles the biological nutrients is known as the biological cycle (also referred to as biological metabolism or the biosphere). [76] [73]
• Technical Nutrients
  • Materials other than biological nutrients that can be recycled or reused at high-quality within closed loop systems. [74] [75] [43] Such systems that cycle technical nutrients are called technical cycle (also referred to as technical metabolism or the technosphere). This high quality circulation of materials is possible, provided they are not mixed with biological nutrients. [74] [75]

The framework promotes design that enables everything to be disassembled and safely returned to the soil as biological nutrients, or re-utilized as technical nutrients for new products. [72]

The Cradle to Cradle framework is based on three principles:

• Everything is a resource for something else, i.e. nutrients remain nutrients (or Waste = Food). [72] [75]
• Use clean and renewable energy. [72] It supports human and environmental health as it is clean (at the point of use), low-cost to operate, creates no emissions in use, and capitalizes on abundant resources. [43] [72]
• Celebrate diversity - To prefer designs that respond to the challenges and opportunities offered by different geography so that the products fit elegantly and effectively into their own niches. [72] [43] It helps build resilience in the system similar to how diversity builds resilience and flexibility in natural systems. [43] [75]

It focuses on design for effectiveness in terms of producing products with positive impact in addition to the traditional design focus of minimizing negative impacts. [43] [73] [75]

Performance Economy

Performance Economy (also known as Functional Service Economy) is a concept developed by Walter R. Stahel - an architect and economist. [77] [43] It proposes that the business model of selling goods as services (performance) instead of selling the goods themselves is the most profitable strategy within a circular economy (or an economy in loops). [77] [78]

Performance Economy optimizes the use (or function) of goods and services and thus the management of existing wealth (goods, knowledge, and nature). The economic objective of the functional economy is to create the highest possible use value for the longest possible time while consuming as few material resources and energy as possible. [79]

In addition to the advantages inherent in a Circular Economy, a Performance Economy:

• retains the ownership of goods and the embodied resources, thus providing future resource security for companies and nations. [77]
• internalizes all costs of risk and of waste over the entire product-life of goods, which constitutes a strong economic incentives for risk management and loss prevention. [77]
• gives a life-long quality and performance guarantee to its customers. [77]

Other key characteristics of a Performance economy include - substitution of manpower for energy within a regional economy, reduction of energy and material consumption, prevention of end-of-life product waste and increase in economic competitiveness, compared to the global industrial economy (since the reuse and service-life extension of the stock of manufactured capital is cheaper than manufacturing equivalent replacement new goods). [77] [78]

Biomimicry