[Sdpg] The Hannover Principles: Design for Sustainability
Wesley Roe and Marjorie Lakin Erickson
lakinroe at silcom.com
Fri Jul 25 09:00:00 PDT 2003
Something for the mix...MBDC is celebrating the 10th anniversary of their
"Hannover principles" for designing for sustainability.
http://www.mbdc.com/features/feature_july2003.htm
William McDonough and Michael Braungart recently
celebrated the 10th anniversary of the
publication of
their groundbreaking manifesto, The Hannover
Principles: Design for Sustainability with a new,
updated edition. This feature is excerpted from an
article in the May/June 2003 issue of Green at Work
magazine, which was adapted from the new edition,
which is available from William McDonough +
Partners
and McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry.
Just over a decade ago, when the City of
Hannover, Germany, asked us to develop a set of
design principles for the 2000 World's Fair, design
for sustainability was in its infancy. By 1992, the
desire to move toward a solar-powered world had
gained significant momentum among the
environmentally conscious, and the ideas that
inform ecological design had begun to manifest
themselves in encouraging innovations in "green"
architecture and technology. But a coherent
framework for applying sustainable design to all
sectors of society had yet to emerge. Imagining
designs that celebrated nature and technology,
aesthetics and commerce was
even further off the map.
The Hannover Principles were conceived to lay
the foundation for this hopeful,
new paradigm (see inset of Principles, at
bottom). We knew at the time that our
efforts were just a first step. Though we were
striving to identify universal
principles based on the enduring laws of
nature, we also understood that our
knowledge of the world was incomplete. So, too,
was our ability to predict all the
many ways in which the creativity of the
world's designers, architects, business
leaders, and NGOs would push design for
sustainability beyond the limits we
could imagine in 1992. Thus, we saw the
Principles as a living document—a set
of enduring ideals and an open system of
thought that would evolve as it was
put into practice.
And evolve it has. Our firms, and many others,
continue to use the Principles in
their original form. Yet, as the Principles are
applied in the design process or
used to guide everyday decision-making, new
ideas and practices emerge. The
language we use is a good example. Whereas some
of the Principles were
originally expressed with "shoulds" and
"musts," today we use a more
celebratory language that expresses our growing
faith in humanity's ability to
create mutually beneficial relationships
between people and the natural world.
Pursuing this positive vision over the past
decade has driven the evolution of an
entirely new approach to design. When one takes
seriously the idea that the
concept of waste can be eliminated in the
worlds of architecture, commerce,
manufacturing, and transportation—indeed, in
every sector of society—the
purview of design shifts radically. Not only
are we obliged to include the entire
material world in our design considerations, we
are asked to imagine materials
in a whole new way. We can begin to create and
use materials within
cradle-to-cradle systems, in which there is no
waste at all.
When the Principles become practices, when
industrial and architectural systems
are modeled on the earth's flows of energy and
nutrients, the notion that
humanity must limit its ecological footprint is
turned on its head. Indeed, as
cradle-to-cradle thinking continues to be
enriched by the inspired work of our
colleagues, we are increasingly able to design
products and places that support
life, that create footprints to delight in
rather than lament. This changes the
entire context of the design process. Instead
of asking, "How do I meet today's
environmental standards?" designers are asking,
"How might I create more
habitat, more health, more clean water, more
prosperity, more delight?"
Questions such as these, emerging from the
daily application of the Hannover
Principles, are stimulating the worldwide
evolution of cradle-to-cradle design.
Examples of work inspired by the Hannover
Principles are growing more
numerous all the time. The work of William
McDonough + Partners, MBDC, and
EPEA testify to the lively relationship between
principles and practices. And a
host of our client companies are also
implementing these principles.
Ford Motor Company is executing a
cradle-to-cradle renovation of its famous
Rouge River industrial site, and its 2003 Model
U concept car embraces a
cradle-to-cradle vision. Shaw Industries, the
largest producer of commercial
carpet in the world, has begun to apply the
Hannover Principles and
cradle-to-cradle thinking to the company's
product development process. The
Chicago Principles, which will be announced by
the City of Chicago in 2003, will
provide a reference point as Chicago develops
community plans and
cradle-to-cradle systems that will make it a
national model of how industry and
ecology, nature and the city can flourish side
by side.
There is really no end in sight—and that's the
point. As we seek constant
improvement by the sharing of knowledge, as our
understanding of the world
evolves, the Hannover Principles will continue
to be our touchstone and
inspiration for new designs. This process,
merely a decade old, has already
created hopeful changes in the world and is
transforming the making of things
into a regenerative force. Ultimately, we
believe the principled practice of design
will lead to ever more places and ever more
products that honor not just human
ingenuity but harmony with the exquisite
intelligence of nature. And when that
becomes the hallmark of good design, we will
have entered a moment in human
history when we can truly celebrate our kinship
with all life.
The Hannover Principles
1.
Insist on the right of humanity and nature
to co-exist in a healthy,
supportive, diverse and sustainable condition.
2.
Recognize interdependence. The elements of
human design interact with
and depend upon the natural world, with
broad and diverse implications at
every scale. Expand design considerations to
recognize even distant
effects.
3.
Respect relationships between spirit and
matter. Consider all aspects of
human settlement, including community,
dwelling, industry and trade, in
terms of existing and evolving connections
between spiritual and material
consciousness.
4.
Accept responsibility for the consequences
of design decisions upon
human well-being, the viability of natural
systems and their right to
co-exist.
5.
Create safe objects of long-term value. Do
not burden future generations
with requirements for maintenance or
vigilant administration of potential
dangers due to the careless creation of
products, processes or standards.
6.
Eliminate the concept of waste. Evaluate and
optimize the full life cycle of
products and processes to approach the state
of natural systems, in which
there is no waste.
7.
Rely on natural energy flows. Human designs
should, like the living world,
derive their creative force from perpetual
solar income. Incorporate this
energy efficiently and safely for
responsible use.
8.
Understand the limitations of design. No
human creation lasts forever, and
design does not solve all problems. Those
who create and plan should
practice humility in the face of nature.
Treat nature as a model and
mentor, not as an inconvenience to be evaded
or controlled.
9.
Seek constant improvement by the sharing of
knowledge. Encourage
direct and open communication between
colleagues, patrons,
manufacturers and users to link long-term
sustainable considerations with
ethical responsibility and to reestablish
the integral relationship between
natural processes and human activity.
The Hannover Principles should be seen as a
living document committed to
transformation and growth in the understanding
of our interdependence with
nature so that they may be adapted as our
knowledge of the world evolves.
I first became aware of William McDonough's work
in 1984, when he redesigned the national
headquarters of the Environmental Defense Fund.
The redesign of the EDF office was a watershed
event. Not only was it the first "green" office in
New York City, it also laid the foundation for
a new
design philosophy: a commercially productive,
socially beneficial and ecologically intelligent
approach to the making of things that Bill and his
colleague Michael Braungart would come to call
eco-effectiveness.
When I hired Bill to design the Heinz family
offices and Heinz Foundation offices in Pittsburgh
in 1991, he and Michael had just been
commissioned by the City of Hannover to develop
a set of design principles for the 2000 World's
Fair. Having chosen "Humanity, Nature and
Technology" as the theme of the fair, the city
wanted to showcase hopeful visions for a
sustainable future. The Hannover Principles were
to put forth an inspiring standard, presenting to
the world the first coherent framework for
rethinking design through the lens of
sustainability.
Getting to know Bill and Michael as colleagues and
friends over the last ten years has given me
the opportunity to see firsthand the
impact of the Hannover Principles. From their
elegant insistence on "the rights of
humanity and nature to co-exist" to their call
to "eliminate the concept of
waste," the Principles echo the deep human
instinct—and wisdom—to care for
the world. Indeed, they have become a cultural
touchstone, providing
information and grounding not just for the
design community but also for all
those devoted to bringing forth a world of
social equity, environmental health
and peaceful prosperity.
At their core is a
simple truth: Human health,
the strength of our
economy and the
well-being of our
environment are all
connected. I learned
this lesson early in life,
as a child growing up
in Mozambique. In the
East Africa of my
youth, the interplay of
nature, health and
survival was a given,
something that people
who lived close to the
natural world
intuitively understood. For me,
that understanding was
reinforced by having a
father who was a
doctor. Observing him and
the questions he asked of his patients taught
me how illness can be related to
environment and the practices of daily life.
We lived in a place where nature's laws of
cause and effect were fairly clear. If
you went swimming at sunrise or sunset, feeding
time for sharks and river
crocodiles (and indeed, for all the animals in
the savannah), you might get a
nasty nibble. We learned to respect the rules
of the natural world because they
had such obvious implications for people's
personal well-being. Nature taught us
the virtues of prevention—of solving problems
by not creating them in the first
place.
Industrialized societies tend to be less in
touch with nature's rules. In the
nineteenth century, the paradigm was that we
should tame nature; in the
twentieth, it became a sense that we are almost
immune to its rules. Today, we
tend to think of the natural world as somehow
separate, an entity "out there"
that can be controlled, held at bay or even
ignored. Even our efforts to protect
the environment have been informed by this "us
versus it" mentality, a sense
that we are in competition with the natural
world and that the best we can hope
for is to mitigate the damage we cause.
The simple genius behind the nine Hannover
Principles was that they reframed
the issue. Rather than take a certain amount of
ecological harm as a given, with
people on various sides of the environmental
debate reduced to arguing over
the permissible amount, Bill and Michael
invited us to consider an alternative.
Why not just design products and institutions
that support the environment, they
asked?
The Hannover Principles were the first
expression of that transforming idea. In
nine lean declarations they set forth a value
system and a design framework
that Bill and Michael continue to use as the
foundation of their evolving design
paradigm. As they write in Cradle to Cradle:
Remaking the Way We Make Things,
nature's cycles are not just lean and
efficient; they are abundant, effective and
regenerative. By going beyond mere efficiency
to celebrate the abundance of
nature, the practice of eco-effective,
cradle-to-cradle design allows us to create
materials, dwellings, workplaces, and
commercial enterprises that generate not
fewer negative impacts but more productivity,
more pleasure and more
restorative effects.
The key insight of eco-effective or
cradle-to-cradle thinking is recognizing the
materials of our daily lives—even highly
technical, synthetic industrial
materials—as nutrients that can be designed to
circulate in human systems very
much like nitrogen, water, and simple sugars
circulate in nature's nutrient cycles.
Rather than using materials once and sending
them to the landfill—our current
cradle-to-grave system—cradle-to-cradle
materials are designed to be returned
safely to the soil or to flow back to industry
to be used again and again.
Far more than a
theoretical notion, this central
principle of
sustainability can be readily seen
in the work of Bill's
architectural firm, William
McDonough + Partners,
and Bill and Michael's
industrial design
consultancy, McDonough
Braungart Design
Chemistry. Working with
clients ranging from
small companies like the
Swiss textile mill
Rohner to global
megacorporations like
the Ford Motor
Company, both firms are
showing that
designers attuned to
this cradle-to-cradle
philosophy can
replicate nature's closed-loop
systems in the worlds
of commerce and
community. The result:
safe, beneficial
materials that either
naturally biodegrade or
provide high-quality resources for the next
generation of products; buildings
designed to produce more energy than they
consume; cities and towns tapped
into local energy flows; places in every human
realm that renew a sense of
participation in the landscape.
My own hopes for the urban landscapes of
Pittsburgh brought the Hannover
Principles home, literally. At the Earth Summit
in Rio in 1992, where the
Principles were introduced to the international
community, I invited Bill and
Michael to come to Pittsburgh to share their
ideas. Both were invited to lecture at
Carnegie Mellon University and, as I had hoped,
the Hannover Principles
became a part of the dialogue going on in
Pittsburgh at the time about the
region's environmental future.
Today, Pittsburgh is gaining national
recognition as a leader in green building
and sustainable design. In many ways, that
began with the building of the Heinz
family offices, which represented the first,
commercial-scale use of sustainably
harvested tropical wood. Our offices served as
a laboratory and model for others
to learn from, and not just locally. The
Discovery Channel covered it;
architectural magazines wrote about it; and
builders, designers and architects
from across the country came to study its
features. Since then, the ideas
articulated in the Hannover Principles have
never been far from the minds of the
staff at The Heinz Endowments as they have
advanced our green building
agenda in Pittsburgh over the past decade.
Those ideas are making communities from
Pittsburgh to Chicago and from
Shanghai to Barcelona better places to live.
They are helping people create
buildings and landscapes where natural
processes unfold with renewed vitality.
They are transforming product design and
shaping the work of such influential
companies and institutions as Ford, Nike, BASF,
the University of California, the
Woods Hole Research Center and Oberlin College.
As more and more
companies and institutions adopt these
sustaining principles, there is also the
chance that the global economy as a whole will
begin to find robust health and
long-term strength through the practice of
intelligent design.
Ultimately, that is the enduring value of the
Hannover Principles and the reason
why they are as fresh and necessary as ever.
The Principles urge us to start
seeing ourselves as part of the natural world
and to replicate the joyful,
productive and intelligent practice of life
itself.
Teresa Heinz, chairman of the Heinz Family
Philanthropies and of the Howard
Heinz Endowment, is the creator of the
prestigious Heinz Awards and co-creator
of the H. John Heinz III Center for Science,
Economics and the Environment,
which brings together representatives from
business, government, the scientific
community and environmental groups to
collaborate on the development of
scientifically sound environmental policies.
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