William McDonough, the godfather of green design, has been hailed by everyone from Hollywood to Silicon Valley to the Chinese government as the environmental savior. His radical "cradle to cradle" idea -- in which every product, building, and city is designed in an infinite loop with zero waste -- has earned him the Presidential Design Award for Sustainable Development. He was Time's "Hero for the Planet" and has been profiled in documentaries from Thomas Friedman's "Addicted to Oil" to Leonardo DiCaprio's "The Eleventh Hour." And yet, McDonough may in fact be paralyzing his own design revolution.READ»
