McDonough Institute is founded on principles developed over William McDonough's 50-year career.

These principles, once novel, now serve as a compass for sustainable design and redesign happening around the world today. The Institute will continue to share and teach these principles as the vision for a sustainable planet is realized.

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Institute Principles

cradle to cradle graphic

Cradle to Cradle represents a holistic design approach where products and materials are intentionally designed and crafted to cycle endlessly, eliminating waste and environmental harm, and ensuring their continuous renewal and utility in a regenerative, closed-loop system, also known as the Circular Economy.

Cradle to Cradle™

Safe then Circular Economy graphic

A Safe then Circular Economy embodies a strategic framework in which economic activities prioritize the safety of people and ecosystems, while concurrently ensuring the perpetual circulation and restoration of resources, fostering resilience and prosperity for generations to come.

Safe then Circular Economy

Infographic illustrating carbon cycle with sections labeled Fugitive Carbon, Durable Carbon, and Living Carbon. Fugitive Carbon depicts negative behavior with emissions. Durable Carbon shows neutral behavior with product use. Living Carbon illustrates positive behavior incorporating agriculture and sequestration. Includes arrows for CO2 pathways and corresponding actions like fuel combustion, CO2 capture, and soil enrichment.

A Circular Carbon Economy reimagines carbon as a valuable resource, leveraging its potential to contribute positively to the environment while perpetuating its beneficial use within a regenerative, closed-loop system. “Carbon is not 
the enemy.”

Circular Carbon Economy

Core Reading

VITAL PERSPECTIVES

Vital Perspectives
An Agricultural Testamenty
An Agricultural Testamenty

Key Idea: This book advocates for mimicking nature's methods of soil management, particularly by incorporating organic waste and promoting a diverse microbial ecosystem in the soil, as opposed to relying on chemical fertilizers and monoculture practices.

Impact: It serves as a foundational text for the organic farming movement and inspires generations of farmers and researchers to prioritize soil health.

Tristes Tropiques
Tristes Tropiques

Key Idea: This book critiques the narrative of Western progress, revealing how colonialism and development disrupt both cultural and ecological systems. Lévi-Strauss emphasizes that true sustainability honors the diversity of human and natural life.

Impact: A foundational text in ecological anthropology, Tristes Tropiques urged thinkers to value indigenous knowledge and cultural resilience. It continues to influence how we approach design with a sense of place and ethical responsibility.

Of Molecules and Men
Of Molecules and Men

Key Idea: Crick explores the molecular basis of life, showing how biology operates through coded, chemical systems. He bridges the gap between life and design, treating the cell as a system open to understanding and innovation.

Impact: This book helped usher in the biotechnology era, encouraging new ways to design with biology. It continues to inspire approaches to biomimicry, synthetic biology, and regenerative design.

The organism must be able to metabolize, using raw materials for its own synthetic ends...

Francis Crick

William McDonough presents a New Language for Carbon in Marrakech at Emerson Collective’s Elemental Dofest | Fête D’Action, a COP22 affiliated event.

A Circular Economy is only good when it circulates “goods.” William McDonough discusses the importance of first ensuring that materials are safe and healthy when designing for circularity.

Nature's full of sources; we take them and make them into resources so we can use them over and over again

William McDonough's keynote May 22, 2017, at Sustainable Brands 2017 in Detroit: "In Search of More Good How and Why 'Getting the Frame Right' is Essential in Design."

William McDonough addressed the Arctic Circle China Forum in Shanghai discussing how geothermal energy can help bring back Breathing Cities, which operate by the same laws as the natural world.

Fifth Wall co-founder and managing partner Brendan Wallace sits down with visionary architect William McDonough discuss what he sees in the future of the built world.

Principle Library

ESG Design Framework

EESG Design Framework™

Representing the ecology of human concerns, the fractal triangle shows how ecology, economy and equity anchor a spectrum of value and how, at any level of scrutiny, each design decision has an impact on all three. As we plan a product or system, we move around the fractal inquiring how a new design can generate value in each category. The goal: to maximize value in all areas of the triangle through intelligent design.

A net-positive chart illustrating continuous improvement. The chart features red and green bars progressing from net negative to net positive. Red bars represent degenerative and linear aspects, while green bars indicate regenerative and circular improvements. The chart depicts a transition from "100% Bad" to "100% Good" with labels such as "Net Zero" and "Net Positive". Decorative red and green squares are scattered on the left side. The bottom section reads "Inventory, Assess, Optimize."

Net Positive

The Net-Positive Chart enables many industry sectors, including product manufacturers, to 1) inventory, 2) assess and then 3) optimize products, processes and systems with positive intentions and beneficial goals.

Diagram showing Cradle to Cradle nutrient cycles with two sections: Biological Cycle and Technical Cycle. The Biological Cycle includes stages like production, product use phase, biodegradation, and biological nutrients. The Technical Cycle involves production, product use phase, return and disassembly, and technical nutrients, based on the book "Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things."

Cradle to Cradle Nutrient Cycles

In their 2002 book, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart presented a science-based design framework that eliminates the concept of waste and provides enduring benefits for society, from safe materials and circular economies to clean air, water and energy.

A flowchart diagram titled "From Values to Value" illustrating a process from values to value. The left side, labeled "Quality," starts with "Values" and flows through "Principles," "Visions," and "Goals." The process continues on the right side, labeled "Quantity," moving through "Strategies," "Tactics," "Metrics," and finally reaching "Value." The diagram highlights the transition from qualitative to quantitative aspects in achieving value.

Values to Value™ Framework

Using a design lens and multi-disciplinary approach, we work with our clients to innovate new systems and solutions for some of the toughest challenges they face. Our process begins with your values.

Diagram of Cradle to Cradle concept showing biological and technical nutrient cycles. Biological cycle includes stages like recycle, recover, and natural carbon sinks, focusing on products for consumption. Technical cycle includes recycle, recover, and use phases, focusing on products as a service.

Cradle to Cradle

As a model for design at all scales from the molecule to cities and regions, Cradle to Cradle is inspired by nature’s principles where waste equals food, clean renewable energy is utilized and diversity is celebrated.

Diagram illustrating carbon life cycle, featuring fugitive carbon with negative behavior such as burning fuel and emitting CO2 and CH4. Durable carbon shows neutral behavior, including CO2 capture and sequestration. Living carbon represents positive behavior, such as CO2 absorption in agriculture and soil.

Carbon Is Not The Enemy

William McDonough has developed a New Language for Carbon that seeks to clarify the terms typically used to describe efforts to reduce carbon emissions and define new, innovative ways in which carbon can be used safely, productively and profitably. In this new paradigm, which was originally published in Nature, the life-giving carbon cycle becomes a model for human designs, enabling us to cultivate urban food systems and closed-loop flows of durable materials in which carbon is an asset rather than a liability.

The five goods graphic

The Five Goods™

The Five Goods concept, based on Cradle to Cradle® and described below, will help companies to focus, funnel and evaluate their efforts along those categories, while enabling the users to innovate and scale their efforts.

Diagram illustrating cradle to cradle circular economy, showing two cycles: biological nutrients and technical nutrients with phases like recycle, recover, and reuse, connected to a central circular economy concept, highlighting aspects like industry, transportation, and energy.

Cradle to Cradle Circular Economy

The Circular Economy is a resourceful economic system and innovation engine, providing benefits to society in the present and the future. It is designed to continuously recirculate clean materials, energy, water and human ingenuity. In essence, the Circular Economy puts the ‘re’ back in resources. 

Diagram showing the circular economy with biological and technical nutrients. On the left, biological nutrients cycle involving soil, living carbon, and energy sources like solar. On the right, technical nutrients cycle involving durable carbon, industry, and resources like hydrocarbon. City skyline in the center connects both cycles.

Net-Positive Carbon City

The Net-Positive Carbon City integrates agriculture, regenerative land management practices and urban design at a regional and international scale. It recognizes both local and distant effects of cities and envisions a holistic, synergistic system to transform fugitive carbon into durable carbon, such as plastics and building materials, as well as into living carbon, such as healthy soils, gardens, crops and landscapes.

© William McDonough — This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.