William McDonough kicked off the release of The Upcycle with a speech at the San Domenico School on Wednesday April 17.
The event was covered by the Marin Independent Journal. Here’s an excerpt:
As architect and sustainability pioneer William McDonough signed copies of his latest book, “The Upcycle,” two deer strode through the grass just a few yards behind him, visible through the windows of San Domenico School’s Hall of the Arts on Wednesday.
The San Anselmo campus seemed a fitting place for the first stop on McDonough’s national tour promoting the book, co-authored with chemist Michael Braungart. The two also co-authored the 2002 bestseller “Cradle to Cradle,” which suggested that items be designed and manufactured so they could be easily recycled and reused. McDonough has been honored by Time magazine as a “Hero for the Planet,” saying the author’s utopianism “is changing the design of the world.”
Earlier, McDonough, of Charlottesville, Va., told a group of about 200 students, architects and solar power builders, “Let’s not just reduce our carbon footprint. Let’s leave little green footprints all over the Earth.”
McDonough, whose efforts focus on the business world, said the term “eco-efficiency” was coined in 1992 by the Business Council for Sustainable Development.
“Using fewer resources and generating less waste and pollution was a good start, but it accepted that there would be waste,” the author said.
“Being less bad is not being good. If you are a terrorist and you do it more efficiently, you are worse. You need to be doing good things. That’s the first priority, and then doing it more efficiently,” he said.
Read the full post here.
