Bill McDonough, co-author of Cradle to Cradle and a thought leader on sustainability, spoke recently at the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. The title of his talk was "Cradle to Cradle's Triple Top Line: Growing the Economy, the Ecology and Social Revenues." He said that we and those who come after us can have a world of abundance, not limits, if we remake the way we make things. For McDonough, it's a question of design. He advocated using a radically different approach to designing and producing the objects we use and enjoy, from chemicals to energy to communities. Nature's design principles are at the heart of McDonough's approach. He said the pursuit of the abundance and hope that sustainability promises is a global matter that depends on local action.
Here in North Carolina, there's much local action on sustainability. Please join Brooks Pierce on June 22, from noon until 2 p.m., at 18 Seaboard Restaurant to eat lunch and learn more about what's happening locally in the global movement toward sustainability. After lunch, a panel of North Carolina leaders and experts on different sectors in the field of sustainability will talk about what they are seeing and doing in the field. The panel will include:
- Tom Hendrickson, principal in Veridea, the sustainable, mixed-use development in Apex;
- Jo Anne Sanford, former chair of the NC Utilities Commission and expert on energy; and
- Jim Simons, NC's State Geologist and the state official with responsibility for shale gas deposits in central NC.
Bill Ross, of Brooks Pierce, and former secretary of the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources, will moderate the panel.