William McDonough, best-selling co-author of the seminal sustainability book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, and executives from such companies as Levi Strauss, Autodesk, and Fair Trade USA are among the several sustainability leaders who will speak at events hosted by the Center for Responsible Business this month.
McDonough Presentation and Book Release
The first event will feature McDonough speaking on his new book, The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability–Designing for Abundance, and signing books from 12:45 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. April 18 in Room 105, Boalt Hall, UC Berkeley School of Law. Please bring your own lunch if you wish.
In the book, McDonough and co-author Michael Braungart, a German chemist, outline how to redesign our activity to improve the planet, rather than just protecting the planet from human impact. Using design as a tool for positive impact, they suggest industry can do better than "do no harm" and instead actively make improvements. Their new book draws on lessons gained from 10 years of putting the ecological manifesto outlined in Cradle to Cradle (2002) into practice with businesses, governments, and ordinary people.
Called a "Hero for the Planet" by Time magazine, McDonough advises commercial and governmental leaders worldwide through McDonough Advisors and is active with William McDonough + Partners, his architecture practice, as well as McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry, the Cradle to Cradle consulting firm. He also co-founded the nonprofit Make It Right with actor Brad Pitt to bring affordable, Cradle to Cradle-inspired homes to post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans.
To register for this event, visit theupcycle.eventbrite.com
ARCS Forum
The second event is a one-day forum co-sponsored by the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability (ARCS) on April 29 that will link corporate responsibility in practice with the latest academic research on models for driving sustainability.
The ARCS Forum will kick off with sustainability veteran Mark Lee, executive director of SustainAbility, providing an overview of emerging sustainability trends based on the annual GlobeScan/Sustainability Survey. The survey takes the pulse of the most influential sustainability thought leaders from more than 60 countries.
Other sessions will include discussions about new ways of interacting with customers to change consumer-use behavior, strategies for end-of-life recovery, natural capital markets such as mitigation credits, and driving sustainability from within organizations. Participants will include faculty from Harvard, MIT Sloan, and Dartmouth’s Tuck School as well as executives from a wide range of companies, including Levi Strauss, SAP, and Clif Bar.
The day will culminate with a conversation between Neil Hawkins, vice president of global sustainability at the Dow Chemical Company, and Glenn Prickett, chief external affairs officer of the Nature Conservancy, on their collaborative experiment to incorporate the value of nature into business decisions.
The forum will be followed by ARCS' annual research conference April 30 and May 1. The conference, to be held at Haas for the first time, is designed to bring together scholars interested in corporate sustainability strategy and management.
To register, visit arcs2013.eventbrite.com.