And to use something as elegant as a tree? Imagine this design assignment: Design something that makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, distills water, makes complex sugars and foods, changes colors with the seasons, and self-replicates. and then why don't we knock that down and write on it?

Our concept of eco-effectiveness means working on the right things - on the right products and services and systems - instead of making the wrong things less bad. Once you are doing the right things, then doing them "right," with the help of efficiency among other tools, makes perfect sense.

You need that same creative force that exists in a building like Disney [Walt Disney Concert Hall] to actually tackle that most prosaic of problems.

The problem I have with carbon as a bad thing issue, is that people go out and say they want to be zero carbon. You see it everywhere.

If design is the first signal of human intention.

We prefer to talk about 100% renewable instead of zero carbon. When you say zero carbon, you are not positively defined.

In the end, the question is not, how do we use nature to serve our interests? It's how can we use humans to serve nature's interest?'