Environmental design is a new approach in planning consumer products and industrial processes that are ecologically intelligent, sustainable, and healthy for both humans and our environment. Based on the work of innovative thinkers such as architect Bill McDonough, chemist Michael Braungart, physicist Amory Lovins, Swedish physician Dr. Karl-Henrik Robert, and business executive Paul Hawken, this movement is an effort to rethink our whole industrial economy. During the first Industrial Revolution 200 years ago, raw materials such as lumber, minerals, and clean water seemed inexhaustible, while nature was regarded as a hostile force to be tamed and civilized. We use materials to make the things we wanted, then discard them when they no longer are useful. "Dilution is the solution to pollution," suggests that if we just spread our wastes out in the environment widely enough, no one will notice.

This approach has given us an abundance of...