Visual Advocacy: Readings

Catherine Gray Reading

Moving society towards sustainability is the thought of Gray's idea, and by getting multinational companies to get involved will help with the significantly impact of the ecosystem. I found this very intriguing for the fact that it is generally true that large companies and corporations work with multiple or use multiple cross platforms like print to website and finding another way to their strategy and operation. She goes on to talk about how they show the companies how to combine basic education and awareness with business analysis, so they can understand where biggest impacts, risks, and opportunities are. All the information is put into the business context, which I feel makes this idea achievable. I find it achievable for the companies to know the opinions out there because giving them knowledge of this information might give them the ability to expand on their work. I feel the Natural Step should be taken on al companies to become sustainable because our planet is in a decline of life-support, like fresh air and clean water. It is very interesting for the fact Natural Step is in twelve countries and the fact that they focus on methodology of that country.

I found that is was amazing that Home Depot took the change to find certified wood, educating their team, merchants, and key staff on the approach to sustainability. When she talked about Nike and how they wanted to have respect in labor practices, was something that I always wanted to know. Then to learn that Nike has impacted both environmental and social issues was one way of learning that they had their designers introduce new methods on sustainability. When it came to Ikea and Starbucks, I learned that they too had Natural Step come in to educate them on the things they use and then to change their method to improve in their field of work. When reading about McDonald's in Sweden, I just wish here in the states that the organic dairy, organic beef, and organic vegetables, and as well as modified organism in food would come here soon even though they are working on globally at the moment. I believe if we had the change here, then maybe the food would actually taste like food, also maybe service will go up and beyond than now. It was interesting to see McDonald's their list of companies they are working with, but I'm happy they are helping them. And I wouldn't mind reading Ant, Galileo, and Gandhi because then we could relate to sustainability better.



William McDonough
Economy, Ecology, and Equity

The Next Industrial Revolution, where industry and environment come together is something vital to the growth, free form of energy and open to systems. In human industry there would be similarly to 'technical nutrition' and that seeing these as 'waste equals food' could be put into a same kind of cycle. The idea of product of consumption would be biologically consumed and put back into the soil, is something that everyone I believe is wishing to happen with all materials. How do we find that way? Then the idea of products of service in which we want service and not the relating to potential has been in the system I believe for a long while with not throwing away computers, but returning it to the industry where they will reuse the material in another way. I feel that making more places available to return items that don't break down naturally is greatly needed because I only know of a few places, so why not more. I love this quote "With eco-efficiency, is being less bad being good, or is it simply being bad, just less so" for the fact is questions itself in a way.

Cradle-to-cradle cycle is having an open metabolism of chemicals that manifest on living or technical systems. "Things are actually getting lower in quality as they go through the process." This quote could be true because you can only think of how many trees are cut down first then how much of the scrapes are left over from the paper that was made before you have to cut down more trees. This is true with the breakthrough of nylon fibers can be chemically recycled ad up-cycled and it somehow comes back better than before because of the mechanical properties have improved, thereby increasing fiber.