The Next Industrial Revolution

After having read very pessimistic, discouraging, and depressive views on the state of the environment and the role human beings have played and continue to play in it. I really appreciated reading Bill McKibben’s and Michael Braungart’s Cradle to Cradle. The two authors offer their audience their vision of “the next industrial revolution, founded on nature’s surprisingly effective design principles, on human creativity and prosperity, and on respect, fair play, and goodwill. It has the power to transform both industry and environmentalism as we know them” (6). Thus, they call for a fundamental shift in the system that our world currently operates so that human beings not only can confront the environmental issues they face today but even solve them.

The focus the authors use in their argument is very production-centered. They call for the re-design of “how we make things” as they way to change the status quo of the world we live in. Given the currently dominant ideology of capitalist growth that guides most influential actors on this planet, I believe that this angle for approaching the issue is valid and promising. I appreciate that McDonough and Braungart don’t put all responsibility on individuals, who as a single entity in a large system capitulate in front of the seemingly impossible challenge of saving the whole world.

Instead, they identify producers as the driving force in the environmentally destructive dynamic that is prospering nowadays, and as an influential group in a world guided by capitalist principles, I do believe that a change on that sphere will have large effects on humanity as a whole. Ultimately, individuals are consumers who can make choices from the goods and services offered by producers and as a country’s success is defined by the amount of its GDP, producers also decide over the success of a government. In this sense, I believe that McDonough and Braungart’s approach is compelling.

However, at the same time, it removers responsibility from other sectors, such as the government but also the individuals and I felt their exclusive focus on the production side was at times a little bit too limited. For example, while their illustration of upholstery fabric that can be removed and the “composted” appears very interesting to me, as a consumer form a developed country – being myself from Switzerland, I know this specific product but also others developed afterwards such as bio-degradable towels, which my family even uses -, I honestly don’t know how much interest it would encounter among people who do not even possess the time to sit down and read a book in their spare time because their 18 hour work days don’t allow for anything else. Thus, evaluating the consumer side from their argument at times might have increased the strength of their argument.

At the same time, though, I have to recognize that both authors constantly pointed out that no generic “one-size-fits-all” solution can be found for the issue of environmental degradation and instead, producers from different parts of this world need to identify context-specific solutions.

(Thus, my previous criticism of degradable upholstery fabric not being a valuable asset for people confronted by realities that don’t even allow them possessing a couch or an arm chair is weakened to some extent, as one might argue that this example was never intended to apply to such a context. However, I do want to repeat that no such more holistic approach was mentioned in most examples.)

Anyways, I felt that this recognition of the diversity of realities on this planet that demands a diversity of solutions was one of the mayor strengths of their argument. They explain that, ants – who for them embody this production that is in harmony with nature – should not be mistaken as one group of the same individuals, but many different forms of ants exists that perform different functions for their species and who’s skills and capabilities are geared towards it.

One very impressive example of this recognition and even celebration of diversity is Bill McKibben’s experience in Jordan. While another team of developers suggested Soviet-style prefabricated housing blocks trucked down from Amman and assembled in the valley for building towns where Bedouins could settle, McKibben and his colleagues created a proposal to adapt and encourage “adobe” structures. “Local people could build these with materials at hand –clay and straw, horse, camel, or goat hair, and abundant sun. The materials were ancient, well understood, and uniquely suited to the hot and dry climate. The team tracked down elder craftspeople in the region who could show them how to build the structures (especially domes) and the train the Bedouins to build with and repair adobe in the future” (124).

Thus, the local context offered a solution that was truly sustainable as its effectiveness came from the local grounding of the project, which also guaranteed the local ownership as it was an indigenous solution applied to an issue and social capital created through it.

Thus, in my opinion, their call for a revolution of the status quo, away from trying to be less harmful to becoming truly eco-effective seems a great concept and while challenging, it appears the most compelling approach I have encountered so far to truly tackle the environmental challenges we are facing currently. Unfortunately, I feel that in their five steps guide to achieve this eco-effectiveness they address only producers in developed countries and not developing countries as the context necessary to implement this strategy needs a “Western” state. For example, step one call for “getting free of known culprits.”

While I agree that manufacturers in developed countries should be obliged to no longer use substances that are known to be harmful, I feel that it is difficult to impose this same rule on manufacturers in developing countries as non-harmful substances are often more expensive and because they compete to simply enter the globalized market, their developing status might be harmed by this requirement. However, without the developing countries on board, a true “next industrialized revolution” cannot be achieved.

The case of the ozone regime showed that this problem can be overcome by Western nations taking on the responsibility to giving aid and technology to developing countries to adopt better practices without experiencing negative effects because of it – however, McKibben and Braungart never touched on the necessity of such a North-South cooperation for the feasibility of their idea.

Thus, going back to my previous criticism, other angles, in this point the one of state governments and the international arena would have been helpful if integrated as they are necessary for a solution to the existing problem of environmental degradation.