Eco-Effectiveness 

Eco-Effectiveness is a strategy developed by renowned architect and sustainability leader William McDonough for business growth and prosperity that generates ecological, social, and economic value. It represents a fundamental conceptual shift away from the flawed system design of the Industrial Revolution, not just a damage management strategy.

Eco-effectiveness seeks to design industrial systems that emulate the healthy abundance of nature. The central design principle of eco-effectiveness is waste equals food.

When waste equals food, the "be less bad" imperatives of efficiency fade. When a product returns to industry at the end of its useful life and its materials are used to make equally valuable new products, the minerals or plastics of which it is made do not need to be minimized-because they will not become waste in a landfill. Industry saves billions of dollars annually by recovering valuable materials from used products. Similarly, products designed to be made of natural, safely biodegradable materials can be returned to the soil to feed ecosystems instead of depleting them.

On-line Publications and Articles

"Waste Away," The New Yorker

"Prophet of Bloom," Wired Magazine

"Reinventing The World," Green at Work Magazine

"Think Green," Metropolis Magazine

"The Next Industrial Revolution," The Atlantic Monthly

Publications

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (ISBN: 0865475873)

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