A while back I noted Fast Company‘s big expose on green guru William McDonough. Despite the hype and promise around McDonough’s intellectual work, it hasn’t done much to change the business world, for reasons having to do with what his critics characterize as ineptitude and vanity. Specifically, his cradle-to-cradle certification process has remained jealously guarded, run only through his firm, woefully behind on assessing products and responding to requests.
Now author Danielle Sacks has a short follow-up, about a Dutch attorney and several Dutch gov’t organizations pleading with McDonough to open up the C2C process, if not completely open source then at least to public-private partnerships.
It’s odd. The notion of keeping this stuff jealously guarded, proprietary, and for-profit seems so counter to the spirit of McDonough’s work. I can’t make sense of it.
Comments
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J. Walsh Posted 3:15 am
02 Mar 2009
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JMG Posted 3:40 am
02 Mar 2009
Why should environmental consultants be paid for their ideas when polluters are so willing to reduce their income?
The 5% Project
Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.
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danielle sacks Posted 8:15 am
02 Mar 2009
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anotherID Posted 5:47 am
03 Mar 2009
Nice work on the article. Someone has to check hubris.
Take it easy on optimator he isn't very bright, but you knew that already.
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J. Walsh Posted 1:00 pm
30 Apr 2009
lobbing grenades, twisting words, selectively publishing quotes,, bad at having
the tables turned and the spotlight pointed the other way. revealing no? to
revist that Fast Company piece, er brilliant journalism, there was so clearly an
ax to grind there, and it labored so heavily on the ad hominems, and painting Bill
McDonough as a buffoon that it is easy to dismiss away what could and should be
a legitimate, and now twice stated as totally acceptable for the slow readers, take on McDonough's
words and deeds and impact that are indeed worthy of much discussion and yes,
much criticism. and intersting that you call me a sexist, and know nothing of
my gender. working with whatever your wrong assumptions are, those are pretty
retrtograde gender politics on your part, no? and anotherID shall we revisit some pithy comments from you?
"Lawyers and neo-classical economists at the bottom of the sea would be a
great start." and "All elected officials practice social engineering." and "Hubris is eventually punished even in today's society." as worthy discourse? really? that's it? pretty sure you dont know much about much, so
zip it. 'k?
Johnny Walsh (and guess what, Johnny's a girl's name here -
whoops)
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