From Goods to Performance: Q+A with Walter Stahel

05 May 2008 Walter Stahel is the founder of the Product-Life Institute Geneva and author of The Performance Economy. He is a consultant on the policies and strategies of a sustainable development to the European Commission in Brussels. He is an associate member of ESTO, the European Science and Technology Observatory. He regularly lectures at universities and conferences in Europe, Asia and the United States on the insurability of risks, risk management, loss prevention, eco-design, waste prevention and strategies for sustainable development.

The following interview appeared in Kyoto Planet's recent release The Sustainable Enterprise Report: Turning Awareness into Action:

Kyoto Planet: You coined the term "Cradle-to-Cradle" in the 1970s, now popularized by William McDonough and Michael Braungart in their 2002 book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. Could you give a brief overview of what this term means and how it has been received?

Walter Stahel: The original idea was that you could actually turn the economy from a linear industrial economy into a loop and avoid the problems associated with resource extraction and waste management. Of course people concerned, especially in waste management, disapproved because it basically meant that they would lose potential business. What has actually happened, however, is that they have transformed from waste managers into resource managers.

In making the Cradle-to-Cradle concept work, it is actually the manufacturer that is the key economic actor. He controls the design of the goods, the choice of materials, the way to commercialize them. And this is why for me, from a strategic point of view, it's really important for manufacturers to stay in control by closing the loops of goods, materials and also liability themselves.

Kyoto Planet: Have you encountered any resistance from organizations that have unique designs or proprietary technology and do not want their product reused or recycled?

Walter Stahel: No, because re-using, re-manufacturing and technological updating are accepted as long as you change the identity. (Remanufacturing produces goods as good as new; technological updating brings a product up-to-date technologically). Changing the identity means you have to re-manufacture. The re-manufacturers, for example of a Mercedes Benz engine, have to put on their own label, so that it is no longer a Mercedes Benz engine but, for example, a 3R engine. On the part of many manufacturers there is still a defensive attitude, because they refuse to go into the dirty business of re-manufacturing.