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We prefer to talk about 100% renewable instead of zero carbon. When you say zero carbon, you are not positively defined.

William McDonough

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William McDonough
Age: 73
Born: 1951
Born: February 20
Architect
Designer
Environmentalist
Writer
Tōkyō
William Andrews McDonough
Positively
Carbon
Zero
Prefer
Defined
Instead
Talk
Renewable

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We realized we don't have an invention, that's why we gave it away.
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Honor commerce as the engine of change.
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We are not a green standard, we are a quality standard. We're different, we're multi dimensional.
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In planetary terms, we're all downstream.
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Designers are inherently optimistic people who try to make the world a better place
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I'd so much rather have exciting architecture that causes one to stop, breathe, and reflect on the potential of the human mind, the craft, and exploring things.
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Our concept of eco-effectiveness means working on the right things - on the right products and services and systems - instead of making the wrong things less bad. Once you are doing the right things, then doing them right, with the help of efficiency among other tools, makes perfect sense.
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Sustainability takes forever. And that's the point.
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Our goal is a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy, and just world, with clean air, water, soil and power – economically, equitably, ecologically and elegantly enjoyed.
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Designing renders visible our hopes and dreams. It is the first signal of human intentions.
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I can't imagine something being beautiful at this point in history if it's destroying the planet or causing children to get sick. How can anything be beautiful if it's not ecologically intelligent at this point?
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The problem I have with carbon as a bad thing issue, is that people go out and say they want to be zero carbon. You see it everywhere.
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The surest way to heal an eco-system is to connect it to more of itself.
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The problem carbon is that everyone thinks we have an energy problem, we don't. We have plenty of energy. We have a carbon problem. Carbon is a material, so we have a material problem, not an energy problem.
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Design is inherently optimistic. That is its power.
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The eco-effective future of industry is a world of abundance that celebrates the use and consumption of products and materials that are, in effect, nutritious - as safe, effective, and delightful as a cherry tree.
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Here's where redesign begins in earnest, where we stop trying to be less bad and we start figuring out how to be good.
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I just think it is so delightful to see people, let their elbows free. I think the exuberance of it all is really exciting to me. It's a signal of the abundance of diversity and creative expression.
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It would be nice if all that exuberance and abundance was connected to a deep ethos of planetary responsibility.
William McDonough
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I am working right at both the levels- with the most wealthy clients in the world, but also the poorest. I spend half my time designing for people that have nothing.
William McDonough