Columbia Business School Awards William McDonough the Botwinick Prize for Ethical Practice in the Professions

Columbia Business School has announced that architect William McDonough is the 2003 recipient of the School’s prestigious Benjamin Botwinick Prize in Ethical Practice in the Professions. The award recognizes McDonough’s leadership in the areas of sustainable development and the environment in business and design. This is the first year that a designer has won the award. McDonough received the award on Tuesday, October 7, at a ceremony attended by Columbia Business School students, faculty, and alumni. The event helped launch the School’s new ethics curriculum and reiterate the importance of social and environmental accountability in today’s global business environment.

Read the entire press release.

Winners of EPA/MBDC Cradle to Cradle Design Challenge Announced

On October 13, at the PackExpo convention in Las Vegas, EPA's Robert Springer and MBDC's William McDonough announced the two winners of the Cradle to Cradle Design Challenge for E-Commerce Shipping Packaging and Logistics. Both winners identified innovative packaging and design solutions to reducing the environmental impacts associated with shipping books purchased online. They created packaging that can be reused, recycled, or composted, viewing all materials as nutrients for technical or biological systems.

The winning professional entry was a collaborative effort between Microsoft (WA), Allen Schluger Company (NYC), and Shorewood Packaging (NYC). The designers created a "Bevelope" with 100 percent post-consumer content paperboard, with a unique design allowing it to expand or contract. It can be either reused or recycled with mixed paper.

A team of students from the Art Center College of Design (Pasadena, Calif.) produced the winning entry in the student category called KNF (Keep it Nature Friendly). The students detailed how to couple Kenaf, a relatively new material, with the traditional concept of the Japanese Furoshiki, a traditional method of wrapping that dates back to the 8th century. The design placed adjustable, protective corners made of kenaf around books of all sizes and wrapped them in kenaf paper. After the customer receives the package, the wrapping materials are given a second life. Consumers can compost the kenaf corners and wrapping paper. Alternatively, a bookmark is included in the package that contains kenaf seeds with instructions on how to assemble the corner protectors into a pot for sprouting the seeds.

View the winning entries on the EPA website at www.epa.gov/oswer/docs/iwg/cradle.pdf.

GreenBlue Assumes Cradle-to-Cradle Education and Outreach Roles

In April 2003, at the EnvironDesign7 conference in Washington, DC, William McDonough publicly introduced GreenBlue, a new non-profit institute dedicated to the development and dissemination of cradle-to-cradle concepts and practices, for wide societal benefit. In July the organization assumed some key intellectual property assets and personnel from MBDC, particularly its cradle-to-cradle education and outreach programs. MBDC's former staff, now with GreenBlue, include: Ken Alston (former MBDC VP of Marketing, Communications, and Education), James Ewell (former Manager of Client Development), and Annie White (former Education and Research Associate). MBDC wishes GreenBlue all the best as it pursues its valuable mission.

Because GreenBlue has assumed this important mission, we encourage everyone to subscribe to the GreenBlue e-mail list, to receive updates on the new organization's activities and services.

Subscribe to GreenBlue's e-mail list.

Six Hours of W. McDonough Interviews ("The Monticello Dialogues") Now Available for Purchase from New Dimensions

The New Dimensions World Broadcasting Network has just made available a CD set containing six hours of host Michael Toms's interviews with William McDonough, known as "The Monticello Dialogues." Whether you have heard portions of the interviews on New Dimensions Radio, or this is new to you, this is a great opportunity to own an extended set of discussions with William McDonough on his vision for a cradle-to-cradle future, and how it is beginning to come about.

"Anyone interested in the future of the planetary ecosystem and how it's possible to create sustainablity and abundance simultaneously need to listen to Bill McDonough," says host Michael Toms. "He is visioning outside the box and, indeed, is reinventing the box."

Purchase the CD set online, and visit the New Dimensions website to learn more.

Journal of Industrial Ecology Special Issue Available Free Online

The recent Vol. 6, no. 2 issue of the Journal of Industrial Ecology, devoted to E-Commerce, the Internet, and the Environment, is available online in its entirety, thanks to a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation. Check out this important publication.

http://mitpress.mit.edu/JIE-e-commerce/

Thanks for staying in touch with MBDC. We wish a very happy holiday season to all.

Phil

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Phil Storey
MBDC, Manager of Communications
phil.storey@mbdc.com