William McDonough
Chief Executive | McDonough Innovation
William McDonough, FAIA, Int. FRIBA, is trained as an architect, yet works at scales from the global to the molecular. He was the Inaugural Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Meta-Council on the Circular Economy (2014-2016) and currently serves on the Forum’s Global Future Council on the Future of Environment and Natural Resource Security. He advises leaders worldwide through McDonough Innovation; and is active with William McDonough + Partners, architects; as well as MBDC, a Cradle to Cradle® consulting firm.
He has received numerous awards including the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development (1996), the first Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award (2004), the National Design Award (2004), and the Fortune Award for Circular Economy Leadership from the World Economic Forum (2017). McDonough is co-author of Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (2002) and The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability—Designing for Abundance (2013). He also co-founded the not-for-profit Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute; and in 2012, he became the subject of Stanford University Libraries’ first “living archive”.
