STORY
ECO-DESIGN
While studying the Javanese farm which inspired his Living Mchines, Dr John Todd realised that this was something almost unheard of in western farming - 'a complete agricultural microcosm', in which 'trees, soils, vegetable crops, livestock, water and fish were all linked to create a whole symbiotic system in which no one element was allowed to dominate.' However, this intrinsic harmony would be destabilised by the introduction of just one external input: 'One single toxin, like a pesticide, will kill the fish and unravel the system.'
The long-term sustainability of traditional agriculture is therefore in total contrast to the intensive, disruptive inputs of the modern agri-business. As Todd concluded, we are faced with a simple choice: 'we can create ecological agri-systems and let nature do the recycling, or we can manage a complex system chemically and ultimately destroy its underlying structure.'
In the same way that Todd was inspired to design Living Machines, Michael Braungart and Bill McDonough's company MBDC have reached similar conclusions with their Cradle to Cradle design process, which seeks to 'design industrial systems that emulate the abundance of nature.' So, rather than looking at raw materials and waste, MBDC see 'biological' and 'technical nutrients' which, rather than being downcycled, like plastic bottles turned into park benches, can be upcycled, retaining their high quality in closed-loop industrial cycles.
MBDC therefore, sees the 'next industrial revolution' being the application of these principles to design buildings that, like trees, produce more energy than they consume, accrue and store solar energy and purify their own waste water; factories where effluent water is cleaner than influent; products which do not become landfill waste but decompose as food for plants and animals, helping to rebuild topsoil in the process.
Role models like Living Machines, ZERI and Cradle to Cradle design, prove that, by treating waste as food, zero waste becomes an achievable goal.