On September 12, 2014 at the World Economic Forum in Tianjin, China, William McDonough was invited to speak on why design is key to the circular economy. The World Economic Forum recently shared some of McDonough’s insightful quotes from the presentation on the Forum blog. William McDonough spoke to Cradle to Cradle® thinking as the more natural processes of creating products. The presentation, titled “Resource Abundance by Design,” emphasized the need to think sustainably from the point of design rather than trying to clean up waste, toxicity and pollution after the fact.
McDonough’s thoughts on the basics of design:
“What we’re looking at is a world of good and how to do that by design, because I see design as a first sign of human intention. And, if we intend to be less bad, perhaps we’ll still be bad, just less so.”
In his presentation, McDonough spoke instead about design for continuous improvement and striving for a 100 percent positive footprint.
