EPISODE 59 FEATURES WILLIAM MCDONOUGH

Meet legendary thinker, innovator, disruptor and Cradle to Cradle hero, William McDonough. Architect, designer, thought leader, and author – his vision for a future of abundance for all is helping companies and communities think differently. He was the inaugural chair of the World Economic Forum’s Meta-Council on the Circular Economy and currently serves on the Forum’s Global Future Council on the Future of Environment and Natural Resource Security. For more than 40 years, he has defined the principles of the sustainability movement.

This interview is a must for anyone who is interested in the circular economy, or indeed just cares about the future of our planet. 

We discuss why we should we view waste as a resource, and how we can transition to doing that. We talk about sustainable development, about look at how we measure society’s success now, and how we might change that in future.

As Bill and his co-writer Michael Braungart write in Cradle to Cradle, “In the race for economic progress, social activity, ecological impact, cultural activity, and long-term effects can be overlooked.”

We also dig into emptiness vs. abundance. Unpick the idea of fashion as a verb. Look at how weaving and mathematics are linked. And talk about clothes and Diana Vreeland, beauty and the importance of language. Bill can talk about any subject in a completely delightful way. Buckle up for a wild conversational ride.

NOTES

DIANA VREELAND was the legendary editor of American VOGUE from 1963 to 1971. Her work was known to be both wonderful and bemusing. The magazine editor in Funny Face is based on her. In the last chapter of her career, she worked as a consultant for the Met Costume Collection, helping to organise exhibits, which set the stage for the fabulous Met Gala we know today. 

The CRADLE TO CRADLE concept. Bill calls it “the counterpoint to cradle to grave, in which there is no end - we design for end of use and for next use.”

NUTRIENT CYCLES. Biological nutrients are things that come from life and go back to life. Biological nutrients can be consumed. Like food. Technical nutrients, however, are man-made materials that could be designed for endless reuse. That’s the aim for the circular economy. Bill says we don’t/should not consume technical nutrients. “If they’re technical nutrients, you’re a customer not a consumer.”

“PEOPLE DON’T REALISE THE POWER OF THEIR OWN ABILITY TO CREATE AND THAT THAT POWER IS REALLY INFORMED BY THEIR PERCEPTION OF THE WORKD AND CAN BE INFORMED BY THEIR INTENTIONS.” - WILLIAM MCDONOUGH

In an 1838 essay for Harvard, American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson asked, “If humans are natural are therefore all things made by humans natural?” After thinking it through, he said nature is all those unchangeable essences. Elements that are too big for humans to affect. His example was the oceans. That comment has clearly not aged well, as oceans come immediately to mind as a natural element humans have succeeded in polluting. 

MOUNTAIN TOP MINING. For the full story, read Clare’s book Rise & Resist, Chapter 8, “The Rise of the Climate Movement.”

“ARE WE BUILDING A MACHINE IN THE GARDEN OR ARE WE TURNING THE GARDEN INTO A MACHINE?” -WILLIAM MCDONOUGH

OUR RESPONSIBILITY. “Stewardship is implicit in dominion, because you can’t have dominion over something that is dead.” Bill eloquently sums up why it is our responsibility to care for the earth. 

The ANTHROPOCENE is defined as the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment. “For design now, we are in the age of the anthropocene. We are affecting the environment,” Bill says. 

FASHION IS A VERB. Our guest explains how when you think about ‘fashioning’ an item, then fashion is an action, and all actions have consequences. So we must think about the consequences of fashion. 

WEAVING. The first manufacturing was weaving, back in ancient times. The word ‘manufacturing’ comes from the Latin for the word ‘hand’ - ‘mano.’ The shift to machines was an enormous innovation, but created concerns that it was taking the ‘mano’ out of ‘manufacturing. Today, 3-D printing brings on a whole other set of ethical concerns and potential positives. Bill tells a charming story of how his grandmother was a weaver, and his grandfather would set up the loom for her. A loom is a complicated machine, even if it may seem primitive to us today. Bill remembers how the complicated pattern to set up the loom actually looked a lot like algorithmic code and compares the loom to a 2-D computer. 

Being less bad is not the same as being good. That is part of the reason why he doesn’t like the word SUSTAINABLE. Telling a customer what you are not going to do is not actively good. It does not help that much and does not tell the customer what you are going to do. 

THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY needs to provide benefits over and over again. Companies are beginning to catch on to the idea of a circular economy because of the economic benefits. Reusing resources over and over saves the resources and money. But Bill argues that we cannot just make the same bad things over and over again - we need to start with better materials. “It is about a system change,” he says. The shared economy must actually be shared. We cannot just share emptiness, but we must share abundance. In the United States, three men have the same wealth as 150 million people, half of the rest of the population. We must actually share goods. 

FASHION FOR GOOD. Bill helped found Fashion for Good in Amsterdam. You can find out more about the organisation here. 

The SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS are goals laid out by the UN to achieve improvements in the health of our planet and people by 2030. Learn about each of them here.

Thank you for listening!