“One of the things about sustainability is that it’s going to take forever. That’s the point,” explains sustainable design strategist William McDonough. “So i think we’re going to see a long hard road of product out by product out by product out, but that’s how revolutions happen.”

McDonough and his partner Michael Braungart founded the Cradle to Cradle approach to design as a ways to model “human industry on the integrated processes of nature’s biological metabolism”. They’ve applied their waste=food model to hundreds of companies as consultants and through their Cradle to Cradle (C2C) certification process.

They, and their firm MBDC have been credited by Time Magazine with creating “a unified philosophy that—in demonstrable and practical ways—is changing the design of the world.” This design revolution hasn’t happened overnight, and there are plenty of critics of the philosophy in practice, but Cradle to Cradle is only growing in influence worldwide.

In this video, McDonough talks about the future of Cradle to Cradle, MBDC and just what C2C certification means.