Chief Executive, McDonough Innovation
William McDonough FAIA, Int. FRIBA, is a globally recognized designer, thought leader, and sustainable growth pioneer. For more than 40 years he has set the terms and defined the principles of the sustainability movement (through his companies: McDonough Innovation, William McDonough + Partners, and MBDC), creating its seminal buildings, products, texts, enterprises and preparing the ground for its widespread growth. Mr. McDonough is the architect of NASA’s Sustainability Base, Ford Rouge Center and other flagships of sustainable design; co-creator of Cradle to Cradle®, a global standard for the design of safe, healthy products; and business strategist for leading global companies. William McDonough is also author of The Hannover Principles: Design for Sustainability (1992), which remains a touchstone of the movement, and co-author of the widely influential Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (2002) and The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability—Designing for Abundance (2013). Mr. McDonough has received the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development (1996); the U.S. EPA Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award (2003); and the Smithsonian’s National Design Award (2004), for achievement in environmental design. In 2012, Mr. McDonough began an unprecedented collaboration with Stanford University Libraries to create a “living archive” of sustainability with real-time collection of his work and communications. Time named him “Hero for the Planet” in 1999, stating that his “utopianism is grounded in a unified philosophy that—in demonstrable and practical ways—is changing the design of the world.”