Sorry for not blogging earlier on this. Not an event to be missed. William McDonough Time Hero for the planet in 1999 and author of Cradle to Cradle April 17, 7 p.m. Morrison Center Free Entry

William McDonough is an internationally renowned designer and one of the primary proponents and shapers of what he and his partners call “The Next Industrial Revolution.” Time magazine recognized him in 1999 as a “Hero for the Planet,” stating “his utopianism is grounded in a unified philosophy that in demonstrable and practical ways is changing the design of the world.”

Since 1996, when he became the first and only individual to receive the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development, the nation’s highest environmental honor, McDonough has earned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award as a member of the EcoWorx™ development team for Shaw Industries. Most recently, he received the National Design Award for exemplary achievement in the field of environmental design. Presented annually by the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, it is an award recognizing “excellence, innovation and lasting achievement.”