William McDonough

Chief Executive, McDonough Innovation

Bio Current as of September 14, 2022

William McDonough is a globally recognized architect, designer, author and influential leader in sustainable development and design. He is known for his pioneering and seminal leadership in the areas of sustainability, Cradle to Cradle Design™, Circular Economy and now the Circular Carbon Economy. He co-authored Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (2002), widely recognized as a seminal text of both the sustainability and the Circular Economy movements. He advises global leaders through McDonough Innovation and is an architect with William McDonough + Partners. His architecture firm is known for having designed many of the primary icons of the sustainable architecture movement. Through his third firm, MBDC, he created the Cradle to Cradle Certified® Products Program and co-founded the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, which administers the program. Cradle to Cradle Certified® is an independent, science-based, third-party, multi-attribute product standard recognized by the world’s leading retailers, including Amazon, Home Depot, Walgreens and Walmart. He has been active with the World Economic Forum for 25 years and served as the inaugural chair of their Meta-Council on the Circular Economy. He has co-founded four not-for-profit organizations, including GreenBlue, Sustainable Packaging Coalition, and Fashion for Good, a joint-industry initiative aiming to transform the global apparel chain into a force for good. McDonough received the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development (1996), the first U.S. EPA Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award (2003), the National Design Award (2004) and the Fortune Award for Circular Economy Leadership (2017). Time magazine recognized him as a “Hero for the Planet,” noting: “His utopianism is grounded in a unified philosophy that—in demonstrable and practical ways—is changing the design of the world,” and in 2019 Fortune magazine named him one of the World’s Greatest Leaders.