Eco-Effectiveness

 

An eco-effective solution maximizes compatibility of products with biological systems and their performance simultaneously. It combines economy, equity and ecology in an integrated quality mix of products and services.
The terms "eco-efficiency" and "eco-effectiveness" are often lumped together. However, a world of difference separates them: Eco-efficiency quantifies and eco-effectiveness qualifies.

Nature qualifies before it quantifies. Think of an apple tree: The production of apples requires blossoms, the petals of which will fall down to the soil , as most fruits will before they have reached maturity. Eventually, all the leaves fall down later in autumn. When viewed as analogous to industrial processes, these huge amounts of seemingly lost materials may be regarded as production waste. However, because they serve as nutrients for soil organisms, biodegrade and are taken up by other animals or plants (even in the apple tree a year later), they are not an environmental problem. Furthermore, the waste intensity of apple production may differ from the waste intensity of pear production. However, this difference has no significance for the difference in environmental quality between the fruit trees. Both effectively produce fruits and enable the reuse of every bit of waste as nutrients for other organisms.

Cradle to Cradle Design transfers the principle "quality before quantity" to industrial systems, so that materials and material flows emanating from them are designed to support regeneration of either biological or technical resources that originally lead to them. The consequences are freedom from the obligation to minimize adverse environmental impacts (or slow rates of contamination and depletion) and liberation from a culture of guilt. After having set the supremacy of quality of materials, efficiency of their involvement is a valuable economic option.

For more on the debate between eco-efficiency versus eco-effectiveness, see "Eco-Efficiency vs. Eco-Effectiveness - Lovins vs. Braungart" in Press.