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Welcome back, we're here at the 400th day, no-no its only like the 4th day, here in Davos,
Huffington Post Live, our coverage of the World Economic Forum. A real pleasure, at
the moment we have William McDonough, who I- we were trying to discuss how I can introduce
him because he's so many things; he's a designer, you're an author, you're a leading voice in
sustainable lifestyles- is your business card this big?
Actually it's very simple, it just has my name, my telephone number and my email address,
and that's it.
So it'd be like, "you know what I do."
I don't know what to say, I do lots of things, just pick the one you want.
Well speaking of that, you know just looking at the things your working on later, it's
a massive spectrum, I mean you're working on from the space station to the oceans, the
garbage...
To Molecules.
How do you- I just had this thought, it wasn't the first question, but Multitasking, do you
find yourself distracted or do you have a really regimented way of approaching: I do
this at this time, I do that at that time.
I collaborate with lots of people, and I see all of these things as one design assignment.
If you look at the planet as our pallet, and we realize that is the world we inhabit is
both the thing that we use, but the thing we need celebrate and restore, now. We've
been using nature as a tool and for our purposes and we end up disposing of it and so on and
so forth.
I think its time for humans to become tools of the natural world and in order to do that
we have to restore butterfly habitat; we have to design products that eliminate the concept
of waste, well that gets very commercial very quickly because why would a business make
something it cant sell? And the value propositions are huge,
So it's very exciting.
So we design everything from safe chemistries to products, to packaging to buildings to
cities, to whole systems like we're working now with the Chinese and circular economy.
Well I was thinking about reading some of the stuff, very practical stuff, and you frame
in a different way though, I don't think most people look at the cereal box, for instance,
I know you are working on this area, and you go "wait a minute this is ac collection of
toxic items, holding this stuff I'm about to put in my body" but you look at as part
of this holistic picture whether we are in balance or out of balance?
Well as a designer and wanting to do principal* innovation, we design into the biosphere or
techno-sphere, and try not to confuse the two. So if we are going to design something
that's going back to soil, water where on our skin to be safe on our skin we would like
that to be safe in our biosphere, so no more toxins. And if we can re use these things
create methane with them use the methane to create plastics instead of the atmosphere,
put it back to the soil those are biological cycles. If we look at technical cycles like
making a computer or a cell phone I don't mind using lead in a telephone as a solder
as long as I'm going to get it back and use it again in the technical cycles. The minute
it gets to the biosphere, it's a toxin. Okay? So, we keep these very carefully managed as
designers.
So when I looked at the cereal box, there cereal box is made of recycled paper board
and the inks from the magazines went into it, and now, many of which are not safe for
consumption, have migrated back into the cereal in measureable quantities.
So as a design if I'm sitting in a dumpster, where I have to sit, I like to sit in garbage
cans, metaphorically, because then you have a very low center of gravity, and then you
can look up and say "what is this?" "really?" you know what am I supposed to do with this?
And so, if you're in the dumpster and someone sends a cereal box, you've got this paper
thing, covered in inks and glues that are undefined, nobody is going to pull out the
plastic bag, so if you recycle this paper that's contaminate with plastic, and you recycle
this plastic that's contaminate with paper, silly. And so, now I got this bag with the
cereal in it left over and I've got these migrated toxins or whatever and now how I
recycle this plastic? I can't because it's got food in it. So I look at this whole thing
and Wal-Mart has hired me to redo the cereal box and we're starting with that and their
private label and we're looking at it as a biological nutrient package, very simple,
that you'll recognize as a cereal box, but if it does gets to the waste handling system
seen as a biological nutrient, the whole thing the inks the glues, everything. Then it can
be sent to methane production and sent back to soil safely.
So it's a biological nutrient packing system. So we're looking at all foods being packaged
this way so we can use it for soil health and like that, and the technical materials,
we're developing a marking system, so we can see them in the system, we know which is which,
it's a lot of fun.
There's a way of contemplating our daily lives in a different way, I mean I know you said
that a lot of the packaging has sort of dominated the product.
Right.
It's become this thing, and you forget, what's the purpose?
well okay, I just saw this thing for certified gluten free organic kale chips, and the package
is 1/5th of the weight, there's no mention what's in the package, and its not recyclable,
it just says: no gluten, no GMO, ... no, no, no but the package might as well say " not
recyclable", "no defined materials, "no use to the future," you know, whatever "no value"
but we don't mark the package, just the content. Go figure.
As we talk to you, you have your hands in so many different things. One of the things
that obviously made a lot of news, got a lot of attention was your work post Katrina, in
New Orleans, could you give us a status report with your work down there and the work you
did with Brad Pitt?
Sure, well Brad and I after Katrina decided to see if we could help out, as Brad has a
house down there, he is very dedicated to New Orleans. So we decided to help with the
Lauren Nightsworth. So rather than do a house or a demonstration we decide to do 150, and
we hired architects from all over the world and then we help them with their cradle to
cradle thinking on their materials, all of them. And so we started building houses, we're
at about 110 right now, we're going do a 150 total so we're doing pretty well, you know,
its not easy to do this stuff and so the materials are safe and so on. The houses are lifted
above floods, so they are flood houses, which is obviously a good idea. But my favorite
stories are the kids coming back from the FEMA trailers with asthma and once they are
in these houses for a few months, their health comes back, so beautiful. And the people,
they can afford to live there. They have reasonable mortgages, they have solar power so their
energy bills are going to be diminished; it's quite something
well when we look at things like that and you know obviously altruistic efforts and
we see the power in American, at least in celebrity, can you talk about the value of
having someone like Brad Pitt championing something like that?
Well I think the most important thing for me and working with brad is that, he is so
authentic as a human being, that every bit of celebrity he has, he deserves. Obviously
for being talented as an actor but as a human being, he's just a spectacularly genuine human
being; this is the real thing, this person.
So, I don't know how he deals with it, but the power of celebrity in his case, is an
authentic, force that he knows he has to deal with because he can't help it you know everybody
starts swooning when he moves around for a good reason, I mean he's an incredibly wonderful
human and its very attractive to be near him be around him because he's smart, dedicated
and he brings gravitas to it which is authentic. And this is the deep work we're trying to
help people understand what the future might be. We give them hope; that's what this is
about.
We have this very weird contradictory approach to celebrity in America. On the one hand,
we like to build people up and sort of trash them, and criticize and throw "How dare George
Clooney talk about DARFA?" You know, who are they to tell me? And then at the same time
its angulation in this sense of oh I want to wear what he wears, I want to look like
them you know it's a very complicated thing but when its put to the use of an altruistic
use, put a spotlight on an issue it seems to me better use of it then just the spotlight
on them.
As long as the spotlights are around, they might as well look at something good. You
know? And the thing to remember, people like brad, brad actually is really good designer
and he's really interested in architecture, but the thing to remember is we are synthetic
people. In order to be synthetic, we have to be analytic and then we have to synthesize
something new. Critics are analytical, they don't have to make anything, all they have
to do is complain or lawed, but they don't have to do anything, they don't have to create
anything, see? So for a lot of people who are just in the analytical world, criticism
is their stock and trade. So they're just trying to get interest, and if its more interesting
criticized negatively, and get more attention, they're going to do that. So its really sort
of, in order for us t o do our eco-design thinking, innovate, you know we have to think
about ego management at the same time, but sometimes it's the ego of the person who's
not paying attention to what we are trying to accomplish and they just want to focus
on whatever it is that interest them. Which is fine, its normal.
So you just stand on the sidelines, as they get in the game.
Well you know, there was $9 billion dollars posted for sustainability consulting last
year; $9 billion. When I started all of this and consulted with people, you know we were
alone, right, and alone. And now there's $9 billion spent on sustainability consulting.
If you look at it, it went to all the people who were doing metrics, they're recording
on people are doing less bad, right? Showing carbon reduction, showing toxic reduction
as if it's okay to do toxic reductions or carbon in the atmosphere at this point in
history. So it would be $9 billion dollars spent on score keeping, not creative work
rot get rid of these issues. Interesting, This would be the equivalent of going to a
football game and to watch the scorekeepers. Right, what we are looking for are the people
who are willing to get on the field, figure out where the goal is together, kick the ball,
run, gall down, skin your knee, *** into stuff, get up, do it again; that's the game.
So as we do our work, you know it's not easy what we do, we *** into walls we try stuff
out.
We had a wood we that we were trying use in New Orleans that was not using pressure treated
chemical wood for outdoors, and there was a product being sold that could do this using
morphis glass which sounded very exciting and the company had given it a 40year warranty,
and it started to rot, so we have to replace it. Well we're innovating, we tried it, were
going to make them replace it, ok. Its what you do, you try stuff out, you fix it, you
move on. You know, you try things. That's the way it is
I hadn't thought of this at first, you know its fascinating because you're obviously a
very public figure you've been awarded president, lauded by Time Magazine, so obviously you
know, that kind of attention comes with it, and then you get criticism.
oh yeah.
So as a public figure, who maybe that wasn't your plan initially, you know you kind of
wanted to become architect or designer, you've kind have become this sort of spokes person,
so how do you deal with that as a person?
At the beginning it was be very hurtful, because there was people that'd say you know you can't
be just be perfect, so there must be something we can complain about. But I found it very
strange and you learn just try and stay centered with what you're doing, keep you center of
gravity low and keep moving. You know Gandhi had an amazing thing on this, you know he
said first they ignore you then they ridicule you then they attach you then you win. (Laughter)
And I think what were doing is good for all the people and young people get it two minutes
and it's exciting for them. So it's great.
Let me ask you this you mention at the beginning of our interview- China; you've done a lot
of work over there, have been there many years you know as an outsider we look at and we
see this incredibly quickly growing economy, rising middle class, and yet also the problems
that come with the modern economy like that: pollution; can't go outside; they are afraid
to let the kids play asthma through the roof; having to wear masks. What's happening there
and should we be optimistic or should we be you know, pessimistic?
Well I'd say the first thing to realize is these are unintended consequences of rampant
behaviors and when did we see that before? How about in the UK had crises in air quality
in London in the fifties. We had crises in the US, 1969 in Chattanooga, you needed to
take two shirts to work, and they were driving around at noon in Chattanooga with headlights
on. We forget that. Now we exported all the foundries because we don't have that, we have
Clean Air Act you know, and they don't. So all these things we are seeing it's horrifying,
and they just declared millions of hectares off limits to agriculture, which is very desperate
for them. Because they are toxified, because the soil is being toxified, the rivers are
running black, kids are getting sick, they have cancer villages now that are being cataloged
by the hundreds, they can't see each other in Beijing, so they're hitting the wall. So
what we're seeing in china is sort of everything we did, took us 200 years to do, they're doing
it in thirty, but its who we were, but in a very compressed form.
So if we stop and think about it, you know, this is the next task is to clear the air
on this one and get moving. And the Chinese will do that, they're moving at all levels.
They're building the biggest wind industry in the world, just over night. They have 350
super high-speed trains, I mean how many do we have? About
And our high-speed trains are crawling between two points. So when they get their mind to
it. But it's a horrifying thing, this industrialization, without care for these issues. And if we look
at it historically in the big context, in the 1700's certainly in the united states
but coming out of Europe with Hobbs, Russo and Locke, and so forth, this idea of natural
rights, coming out of the Enlightenment and human rights is the beginning of the road
to feudalism primogeniture, the divine right, so you start to get this idea of equality,
then the next century after Adams Smiths Wealth of Nations we have economy, the market economy,
again the destruction of feudalism, primogeniture alright where the market starts to happen.
And you've got communism, capitalism, right, you have a market. So social, market. And
then, we have a social market economy coming in the 1900s but it's forgot the environment.
So the 1900s we had equity, then we have economy, but then 1900s what do we get; it's the pollution
century and the Chinese caught up as fast as they could. So at the end of this last
century we're crashing into the wall of pollution b/c we were unprincipled and we discovered
fossil fuels, and we don't have an energy problem that is not true we have energy all
over the place the problem is, which is the material problem, carbon in the atmosphere.
It's the material carbon that we should love, we are carbon, in the atmosphere --Oops, wrong
place. The material in the wrong place is a toxin. See what we should stop to realize
is we got the lead out of our gasoline because we don't want the lead in our rivers, in our
children's brains it's a neurotoxic. Carbon atmosphere is just like lead in a river. It's
a toxin for future generations, how long are we going to let our children suffer from this
poison. So get that out of there and lets get on with the war. So the next century and
the Chinese understand this is the ecological century. Because then we can have fairness
equity, economy the market, which we understand is very powerful, and then ecology which is
our home. And you put the three together and you get what the Chinese are now calling is
the ecological civilization. That's interesting.
So at the end of the day are you an optimist about this, because you're on the fronts lines
about the good stuff and the bad stuff, so you know is it just the glass half full or
half empty remedy or is it half full with pollution, what's the state of your brain
Well somebody made a joke about me the other day as a designer see the glass half empty
pessimist or half full optimist, I think its always full of water and air. So the glass
is always full and we can define what's in it, the real issue here is that the glass
isn't big enough. So we have to offer opportunity, all our children everywhere. So when somebody
says "oh we're running out of resources, and we're growing our demand exponentially through
population and consumption patterns and things like that, you cant have a system with declining
resources and exponential growth, doesn't work. Right? You have to be either insane
or an economist or something, I don't know, who can say we can keep this up. You can't
eat your feet grain; you know the seeds; that's what we're doing.
We can't mortgage the future; if we mortgage the future then the world belongs to the dead
and not to living. So if the world is going to belong to living we have to live from current
income. And so that's what we're seeing now; Is this notion that we have to have glass
big enough to share so we don't want to throw things away, away went away. We don't want
to down-cycle everything into park benches on its way to a landfill we can actually recycle
and upcycle materials because we want to create an endless resourcefulness and in the economy
that would be a circular economy and an endless resourcefulness of things and so everything
becomes food: either food for life, food for technology or food for thought. And that way
future generations have hope and they have things to work with and the world keeps getting
better, better and better. Otherwise we're collapsed.
Well when it comes to food for thought you have given us quiet the meal today, I appreciate
it very much and join us again, I hope.