William McDonough is a globally recognized leader in sustainable development. Born in Tokyo, Japan, on February 20, 1951, Mr. McDonough was first introduced to closed loop material cycles. As an architect, Mr. McDonough's interests and influence range widely, and he works at scales from the global to the molecular. TIME magazine recognized him as a "Hero for the Planet," noting: "His utopianism is grounded in a unified philosophy that--in demonstrable and practical ways--is changing the design of the world." In 1996, Mr. McDonough received the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development, and in 2003 he earned the first U.S. EPA Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award for his work with Shaw Industries. In 2004, he received the National Design Award for exemplary achievement in the field of environmental design. Mr. McDonough is the architect of many of the recognized flagships of sustainable design, including the Ford Rouge living roof and truck plant in Dearborn, Michigan; the Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies at Oberlin College; and NASA's "space station on Earth," Sustainability Base, one of the most innovative facilities in the federal portfolio.

Mr. McDonough has written and lectured extensively on design as the first signal of human intention. He was commissioned in 1992 to write The Hannover Principles: Design for Sustainability as guidelines for the City of Hannover's EXPO 2000, still recognized two decades after publication as a touchstone of sustainable design. In 2002, McDonough co-authored Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, which is widely acknowledged as a seminal text of the sustainability movement. The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability--Designing for Abundance, a follow-up book to Cradle to Cradle, was published in 2013. In 2016, Mr. McDonough proposed A New Language For Carbon in Nature magazine that recognizes the element carbon as an asset rather than the enemy. The new language identifies strategies for carbon management and climate change.

Mr. McDonough advises commercial and governmental leaders worldwide through McDonough Innovation. He is also active with William McDonough + Partners, his architecture practice located in Charlottesville, VA, as well as MBDC, the Cradle to Cradle® consulting firm. He co-founded not-for-profit organizations to allow public accessibility to Cradle to Cradle thinking. These include GreenBlue (2000), to convene industry groups around Cradle to Cradle issues, and the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute (2009), founded at the invitation of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to create a global standard for the development of safe and healthy products. Mr. McDonough also co-founded Make It Right (2006) with Brad Pitt to bring affordable Cradle to Cradle-inspired homes to the New Orleans Lower 9th Ward after Hurricane Katrina. McDonough served as the World Economic Forum’s inaugural Chair of the Meta-Council on the Circular Economy from 2014-2016. He was the recipient of the Fortune Award for Circular Economy Leadership for outstanding contribution to the development of a prosperous and sustainable economy at the 2017 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos.

Professor Dr. Michael Braungart is founder and scientific CEO of “EPEA Internationale Umweltforschung GmbH” in Hamburg. He is also co-founder and scientific head of “McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry” (MBDC) in Charlottesville, Virginia (USA), and founder and scientific head of the “Hamburger Umweltinstitut” (HUI). These institutes share values embracing intelligent, aesthetic and eco-effective Design.

Braungart studied chemistry and process engineering, amongst others in Konstanz and Darmstadt (Germany). In the 1980s he dedicated his work to the environmental organization Greenpeace. From 1982 on he was active in establishing its chemistry department, which he took over in 1985. In the same year he received his Ph.D. from the University of Hannover’s chemistry department. He founded EPEA in 1987.

Since then he has been involved with research and consultancy for eco-effective Products – i.e. products and production processes that are designed for closed loops and do not harm man or nature, but rather contribute to their well-being. He works together with many organizations and companies from different branches; for instance in a partnership with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which has adopted Cradle to Cradle.

Today he holds four academic chairs: at the Rotterdam School of Management of Erasmus University, Leuphana University Lüneburg, University Twente in Enschede and at TU Delft (visiting). In 2013, Braungart was awarded an honorary professorship from TU München in the context of the federal Initiative of Excellence and also received an honorary doctorate from Hasselt University (Belgium).

Mr. Braungart is co-author of the “Hanover Principles of Design: Design for Sustainability”, which served as the development guidelines for the World's Fair in Hannover in 2000. He also co-authored two books with William McDonough: “Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things” in 2002 and “The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability – Designing for Abundance” in 2013.

Michael Braungart has received several awards. Among others the “Océ-van-der-Grinten Award” for the development of the Intelligent Product System (IPS) in 1993, the “B.A.U.M. Award” (by a circle of German entrepreneurs who dedicate themselves to environment-friendly processing and management) for his outstanding scientific achievements in 1999, the “Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award” from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2003 and the “Sustainable Entrepreneurship Award (SEA) of Excellence” for his exceptional commitment to the promotion of sustainable entrepreneurship in 2013.