(Page 1 of 3)

• August 2002: “Beyond the Triple Bottom Line” • July 2002: “New Bio-Based Products—but wait, there's more...” by James Ewell, MBDC Manager of Client Development • June 2002: “Exploring New Horizons in Product Design” • May 2002: “This Book is Not a Tree” by Joseph Rinkevich, MBDC VP, Client Relations and Business Tools • April 2002: “Anatomy of a Transformation” • March 2002: “Making the Environment a Corporate Strategic Priority” by Gary Mayo, Visteon Corporation, Global Director of Environmental Affairs • February 2002: “The Promise of Nylon 6" • January 2002: “A Footprint Worth Celebrating” (Step 5: Reinvention) • December 2001: “Just Doing It. Nike's Track to Ecologically Intelligent Products” by Darcy Winslow, Nike Director of Women's Footwear • November 2001: “The Breakthrough to True Eco-Effectiveness” (Step 4: The Active Positive List) • October 2001: “Do you know what they want to do now?” by Tim O'Brien, Director, Ford Environmental Quality Office • September 2001: “Transforming Product Design within Current Production Systems” (Step 3: The Passive Positive List) • August 2001: “Synthetic Materials for Eco-Effective Design” by Jay Bolus, Director of Project Operations • July 2001: “Textile Mills Lead Another Revolution” • June 2001: “Positive Design Decisions in an Imperfect Market” (Step 2: Personal Preference) • May 2001: “The Five Steps to Reinventing the World” (Step 1: Free of...)

Intelligent Materials Pooling (IMP) is a collaborative, business-to-business approach to managing the industrial metabolism. Partners in an intelligent materials pool agree to share access to a common supply of a particular high-tech, high-quality material, pooling information and purchasing power to generate a healthy system of closed loop material flows. As partners share knowledge and resources, they develop a shared commitment to using the healthiest, highest quality materials in all of their products. Together they form a value-based business community focused on eliminating the concept of waste from manufacturing cycles. Ultimately, Intelligent Materials Pooling creates life support systems for sustainable business.

IMP is built on MBDC's Cradle to Cradle Design Protocol, which recognizes materials as nutrients that cycle through either the biological metabolism or the technical metabolism. The biological metabolism is made up of natural processes that circulate the pool of materials or nutrients—water, oxygen, soil, CO2—that support life on Earth. The technical metabolism, designed to mirror natural nutrient cycles, is a closed loop system in which valuable, high-tech synthetics and mineral resources circulate in an endless cycle of production, recovery and reuse. Following MBDC's Protocol, companies are creating products and materials designed as biological or technical nutrients, which either safely biodegrade or provide high-quality resources for subsequent generations of products. While nature manages the cycles of the biological metabolism, an IMP is a nutrient management system for the technical metabolism.

Business-to-Business Support

The evolution of an intelligent materials pool follows the same steps as almost any kind of community or nation building: The community decides what it does not want; it chooses what it does want; its members support each other against those who endanger the community; a culture bound by shared values forms. The result: a life support system for sustainable commerce; a community supported by, and committed to, Cradle to Cradle Design.

From a business perspective, the process begins with an agreement to phase out a hazardous material, such as PVC, common to a number of companies. Out of this shared commitment to intelligent design comes a community of companies with the market strength to effectively engineer the phase-out and develop innovative alternative materials. Together, they specify for preferred materials, establish defined-use periods for products and services, and create an intelligent materials bank from which each partner deposits and withdraws. This business support system, built on cradle-to-cradle principles and embodied in the materials bank, gives companies the strength and know-how to make material flows management an ongoing harvest of assets rather than an endless exercise in managing liabilities.

Origins: A Materials Pooling Metaphor

Fly-fishing is a great way to get a visceral understanding of industrial material flows. I realized this while standing hip-deep in a cold Icelandic stream as my friend, colleague and fishing partner, Darcy Winslow, gently removed the hook from a salmon she had just caught and released it back into the pool. The fish wriggled on the surface for a moment, seemingly getting oriented, and then darted away, joining a dozen other healthy salmon at the bottom of the stream. Darcy handed me the fishing rod we were sharing. It was my turn now, and as I cast, I knew that if I were half as good at fly-fishing as Darcy, I had an equal chance of catching a fish; there were a dozen in the pool when we started and their were a dozen now. With support from my fishing partner—tips on technique and choice of fly, where the fish were biting—my chances were even better.

This is essentially how Intelligent Materials Pooling works. Like salmon, resources for high-quality technical materials—the cadmium used in solar collectors, for example—are rare and precious. To catch and eat salmon at will would likely end their time on Earth. The same is true for rare mineral resources; to use and discard them mortgages the future. But if materials are used in a system that echoes catch-and-release fishing, they can be used for a defined period and then returned to a common pool, providing technical resources for the next generation of high quality, high-tech products.

In a materials pool, multiple companies using a common, standardized ingredient, such as nylon, are creating a materials bank. As partners draw materials from the bank to create new products, they also replenish it with used products they have recovered and returned for recycling. An athletic shoe manufacturer, a furniture design firm, and a high-tech materials company might together create a nylon bank and a support system that gives them the market strength not only to profitably manage their common supply chain, but to be effective innovators as well. Creating a community of shared values gives the partners far more strength than they could ever have alone.

From Metaphor to Practical Vision

This is precisely what I discussed with Darcy Winslow as we navigated the riffles of that chilly Icelandic stream. Darcy (Director of Nike's Women's Footwear Division), along with Keith Winn (Herman Miller's Advance Projects Program Manager at the time, and now principal of Catalyst Partners) and Ed Guerrini (BASF's Director of Innovative Business Solutions), had joined my colleague Bill McDonough and me to spend some time relaxing together in the outdoors and talking about the future of manufacturing and commerce.

Imagine, I suggested, if Nike, Herman Miller, and BASF created a materials pool and shared access to high-quality nylon. Nike and Herman Miller would enjoy the cost savings generated by their ability to generate purchases in larger volumes than either company could generate alone, while BASF, the nylon manufacturer and bank, would be supported in its efforts to develop innovative, ecologically intelligent polymers. Nike and Herman Miller would also be able to depend on the high quality of the nylon circulating through the pool and use it for a variety of new purposes as they learned about its qualities. The more the material is used, the more information is gained and shared, which would optimize its processing, recovery and re-use. With mutual support, the companies could begin co-branding, creating a strong, shared identity built on a cradle-to-cradle vision of quality, which in turn would generate a strong and valuable market identity.

In this scenario, the information about the material becomes as important as the material itself, making the distinction between the old and new economy obsolete. BASF would in effect become a high-tech communications company, materializing information. That is, it would provide material intelligence as it gained technical information from processing and reprocessing a material over time. Rather than downcycling a material for use in a product of lesser value, BASF would be upcycling, adding value and information to a material as it cycled through the bank. Together, the companies could create an ecologically intelligent culture of innovation. They wouldn't eat the fish; they'd share materials, information and success.