In essence, William McDonough’s message was simple and direct: Think ahead, and leave it better than you found it.
McDonough, an internationally known designer involved with major projects all around the globe, was visiting MIT to help mark the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. He told his MIT audience how a change in philosophy can ensure that major building- and product-design projects not only protect the environment but actually enhance it.
“Focus your values; get those clear” before embarking on major projects, he advised the MIT faculty members, students, and staff. “We can be very innovative and entrepreneurial” while respecting the environment, leaving sites as natural as possible and even better than we found them for future generations.
Speaking at an Earth Day colloquium sponsored by the MIT Energy Initiative and United Technologies Inc., McDonough presented his working creed—a concept that he and his German colleague chemist Michael Braungart developed called “cradle to cradle.” While “cradle to grave” implies the generation of waste, cradle-to-cradle design requires that any resource that’s produced is recycled. Nothing is wasted. In designing a building or a product, McDonough said, one must think ecologically—even before the first plans are drawn—to emphasize and ensure environmental enhancement.
Describing project after project—for example, a huge Ford Motor Company factory roofed with a prairie and a new building at Oberlin College that returns 13 percent more energy than it consumes—McDonough emphasized that the idea is not to reduce one’s environmental footprint but rather to leave a positive footprint. He argued that it’s possible to “design to avoid problems downstream” by planning ahead.
When initiating a project or designing a product, he said, the fundamental question should be: “Is this a thing that will take me into the future, or not?” In a construction project, for example, one should look far enough ahead to discern what the facility will be at the end of its useful lifetime. Furniture factories, for example, can be designed for conversion into housing after manufacturing has ended. And cars can be designed using components of pure metals so that at the end of their life they can easily be dismantled, and everything can be separated, saved, and recycled. Pure metals can then be salvaged as pure metals, rather than just being crushed, melted together, and made into inferior—and sometimes unsafe—steel reinforcing bars.
An internationally renowned designer, and founder of the design firm William McDonough + Partners, McDonough has been deeply involved in major projects in China, the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. He and his collaborators think of their approach to design as the “next Industrial Revolution.” He and Braungart presented their ideas in Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, published in 2002. McDonough is also consulting professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, and chairman-emeritus of the China-US Center for Sustainable Development.
Noting that his goal is “abundance, not limits,” McDonough told his MIT audience that “as we go forward we need a positive attitude.” Rather than aiming to be “less bad,” we should strive to be “more good.” And it’s important to consider “design as a signal of intention,” including “the right of all people and all things to co-exist.” He said such an approach will generate more jobs and can actually reduce costs.
Also, he advised designers to plan for change, noting that the founders of the United States based their “democracy” on a voting population made up only of white male property owners—many of whom also held slaves. These “voters” were only 6 percent of the population. But since then the picture has changed dramatically as limits on participation have gradually been erased.
Now, in the 21st Century, McDonough said it’s also important to assess “what is our contribution as a species” to the whole of life on Earth. “We are now the dominant species. What is our plan?” Even if there is no formal, written agreed plan, because of our massive activities “we are now living under a de facto plan” that is clearly changing the Earth—and the life on Earth.
But if we had a “strategy of hope,” what would it look like? What if we left behind “a footprint we could delight in, instead of just asphalt?”
Of course, despite obvious needs, progress is often painfully slow, he added. For example, “why did it take 5,000 years to put wheels on our luggage?”