William McDonough

McDonough addressed the Arctic Circle China Forum in Shanghai and laid out a framework for how to "bring back breathing cities" in May 2019. This system seeks to avoid focusing on releasing less carbon and fewer toxic chemicals into the air and instead shifts to integrating renewable energy such as geothermal as a transformative solution to air pollution and climate change. This vision encourages cities to break out of the urban linear flow of, “take, make, waste,” and embrace a circular flow of "take, make, retake, remake, restore" to implement a Circular Carbon Economy.

In June 2019 William McDonough delivered a keynote address at Sustainable Brands on "A Bold New Vision for the Collection, Processing, Circularity and Productivity of Plastic Waste". As a step toward solving the plastics crisis, McDonough directed the audience to "refuse refuse", or reject plastics which are not reusable, recyclable, compostable and recoverable.

The Cradle to Cradle Certified™ Products Program is based on five attributes, Material Health, Circular Economy, Renewable Energy, Water Stewardship and Social Fairness. On June 18, 2019, McDonough delivered a plenary at GreenBiz's inaugural Circularity '19 conference, where he spoke about the program encouraging a safe then circular economy to prevent recirculating harmful chemicals, which he refers to as retox.

McDonough was named as one of Fortune Magazine's World's 50 Greatest Leaders in 2019 at number 24 in recognition of his contributions to the green building movement, being a leading proponent of the circular economy and his efforts to redesign plastics.

He was recognized at the 2017 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland as the recipient of the Fortune Award for Circular Economy Leadership for outstanding contribution to the development of a prosperous and sustainable economy.

William Andrews McDonough is an American architect, designer and author. McDonough is founding principal of William McDonough + Partners, co-founder of McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) as well as co-author of Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things and The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability—Designing for Abundance. McDonough's career is focused on creating a beneficial footprint. He espouses a message that we can design materials, systems, companies, products, buildings, and communities that continuously improve over time.

At the January 2014 World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting held in Davos, Switzerland, William McDonough led the first CEO workshop that was centered around sustainable design, with an added focus on Cradle and Cradle, The Upcycle, and the circular economy. Prior to the 2014 meeting, McDonough participated in the organizing process in Geneva, when the WEF partnered with the United Nations to review the issue of climate change. It was later determined that climate change and the circular economy would be the main focus of the 2014 WEF meeting.

McDonough was appointed as Chair of the Forum's Meta-Council on Circular Economy in July 2014.

In 2013, Stanford University Libraries began the William McDonough “Living Archive". Stanford University Libraries will also host the William A. McDonough Archive (WAMA). This will be a first of a kind real-time "Living Archive".

Dedicated in 2012, the NASA Ames Research Center's Sustainability Base is designed to harvest more energy than it needs to operate and to cleanse its own water. It was designed to meet a conventional budget and tight timeline, be a test bed for NASA technologies, and it exceeds LEED Platinum metrics. The facility is designed to "learn"—and continuously improve—over time.

On May 20, 2010 at Google Corporate Headquarters, the Googleplex, McDonough announced the launch of the Green Products Innovation Institute, which was later renamed the "Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute." The Institute builds on the 2008 California state law that establishes the nation's first green chemistry program. The non-profit public/private Institute has received the Cradle to Cradle Certified™ Products Program on an exclusive, worldwide basis to accelerate the transition to safe material use and increased material reutilization. Executives from Google, Walmart, YouTube, Shaw Inc. and Herman Miller Inc. joined McDonough for the announcement.

In May 2008, Vanity Fair magazine offered an extensive profile of McDonough, which included a close look at several of his clients and projects, in the piece "Industrial Revolution, Take Two." Similar profiles about McDonough and his work have been published by the San Francisco Chronicle, Discover Magazine, and Time Magazine.

A number of large corporate projects for The Gap, Nike, and Herman Miller, led to his commission for a 20-year, US$2 billion environmental re-engineering of the Ford Motor Company's legendary River Rouge Plant in Dearborn, Michigan. The project included rolling out the world's largest "living roof" in October 2002. The roof of the 1.1 million square foot (100,000 m²) Dearborn truck assembly plant was covered with more than 10 acres (40,000 m²) of sedum, a low-growing ground cover.

William McDonough and his architecture and urban design firm, William McDonough + Partners, ground their work in Cradle to Cradle Design, a philosophy developed by McDonough and German chemist Dr. Michael Braungart in their 2002 book, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. The goal is to frame design as "a beneficial, regenerative force—one that seeks to create ecological footprints to delight in, not lament." The primary goal of Cradle to Cradle Design is to shift thinking from doing "less bad" to being "more good." McDonough has also articulated the Cradle to Cradle Design framework as The Five Goods™ (Good Materials, Good Economy, Good Energy, Good Water, Good Lives) to help companies focus and evaluate their efforts on becoming "more good." The Five Goods were also designed to offer a streamlined method of addressing each of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.

In 1996 McDonough became the first and only individual recipient of the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development. In 1999 Time called him "Hero for the Planet". In 2002 he wrote (with Michael Braungart) Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. In 2004 he received a National Design Award for environmental design from the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council.

McDonough's architecture practice, William McDonough + Partners, operates in Charlottesville, Virginia. McDonough moved his practice from New York City to Charlottesville in 1994 when he was appointed as the Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia. He served as Dean until 1999 and has since served as a professor of business administration and an alumni research professor. He is chief executive of McDonough Innovation, which provides high-level consulting to global companies, organizations and governments and co-founded the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute. He is also co-founder of McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC), based in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In 1984, McDonough and his colleagues designed the Environmental Defense Fund office in New York City. Since then, William McDonough + Partners has been responsible for other milestones in the movement, such as 901 Cherry Ave in San Bruno, California, completed in 1997 for Gap, Inc.; it is now home to Google's YouTube. The building features a 70,000-square-foot (6,500 m) green roof that helps to prevent water runoff, insulates the building from noise and provides a habitat for several species, and received the BusinessWeek/Architectural Record Design Award in 1998. The Bernheim Arboretum Visitor Center for the Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest, in Clermont, Kentucky, completed in 2005, blurs the line between outdoor and indoor space. This project, like others designed by William McDonough + Partners, draws heavily on the biophilia hypothesis - the study of the human desire and physiological need for contact with nature. The building was awarded the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Platinum rating.

McDonough was born in Tokyo, the son of an American Seagram's executive, and trained at Dartmouth College and Yale University. In 1981 McDonough founded his architectural practice, and his first major commission was the 1984 Environmental Defense Fund Headquarters. The EDF's requirement of good indoor air quality in the structure exposed McDonough to the need for sustainable development.