William McDonough: Cradle to Cradle, the Circular Economy, and the New Language of Carbon

The Built Environment Trust is delighted to present a talk by one of the world’s pioneering thinkers in sustainable development, William McDonough.

Trained as an architect, McDonough’s interests and influences range widely and he works at scales from the global to the molecular. He is the architect of many recognised flagships of sustainable design, including NASA’s Sustainability Base, one of the most innovative facilities in the US government portfolio. He was the Inaugural Chair of the World Economic Forum’s MetaCouncil on the Circular Economy (2014-2016) and serves on the Forum’s Global Future Council on the Future of Environment and Natural Resource Security.

McDonough has written and lectured extensively on design as the first signal of human intention. In 2002 he co-authored Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, widely acknowledged as a seminal text of the sustainability movement, which was followed by The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability— Designing for Abundance (2013).

McDonough advises commercial and governmental leaders worldwide through McDonough Innovation. He is also active with William McDonough + Partners, his architecture practice with offices in Charlottesville, VA, and San Francisco, CA, as well as MBDC, the Cradle to Cradle consulting firm co-founded with Michael Braungart. He co-founded two not-for-profit organisations to allow public accessibility to Cradle to Cradle thinking: GreenBlue (2000), to convene industry groups around Cradle to Cradle issues; and the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute (2009), to expand the rigorous product certification program. McDonough co-founded Make It Right (2006) with Brad Pitt to bring affordable, Cradle to Cradle-inspired homes to the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.