ANN ARBOR—As a prelude to the National Town Meeting for a Sustainable America sponsored by the President’s Council on Sustainable Development and the Global Environment & Technology Foundation scheduled for May 2-5 in Detroit, the University of Michigan presents a series of January lectures on sustainable development, community and business.

The lectures have been convened by U-M’s Erb Institute and Corporate Environmental Management Program in partnership with U-M’s Business School; School of Natural Resources and Environment; College of Literature, Science, and the Arts; College of Engineering, and the Office of the Vice President for Research.

All the lectures will be held in Hale Auditorium, located in U-M’s Business School at the corner of Hill and Tappan streets. All are open to the public and free.

Lecture schedule:

Monday, Jan. 11, 6 p.m.: William McDonough on “Sustainable design”

Founding Principal of William McDonough & Partners Architects and Planners. Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia. Author of The Hannover Principles: Design for Sustainability. Winner of the President’s Award for Sustainable Development. Sustainable design work for Wal-Mart, The Gap, Herman Miller, Monsanto, Steelcase. Deemed “the leading designer of sustainable industrial systems in the United States.”

Tuesday, Jan. 19, 6 p.m.: Herman E. Daly on “Sustainable economies”

Professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Affairs. Formerly Senior Economist in the Environment Department of the World Bank. Co-founder and Editor of the journal Ecological Economies. Author of For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy Toward Community, the Environment and a Sustainable Future (with John Cobb) and Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development. Awarded the Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Called “the most prominent advocate of the need for a change in economic theory in response to environmental crisis.”

Thursday, Jan. 21, 6 p.m.: Michael Hough on “Sustainable cities”

[The Harlow O. Whittemore Lecture of the Landscape Architecture Program] Principal and Founding Partner in the Landscape Architecture firm of Hough, Woodland, Naylor, Dance, Leinster Ltd. in Toronto. Professor in the Faculty of Environmental Studies of York University. Author of Cities and Natural Process and Out of Place: Restoring Identity to the Regional Landscape. Numerous national and international awards for urban ecological planning and design work, e.g. for “Ontario Place” on the Toronto Waterfront. Called the “gentle revolutionary” of the “work with nature” philosophy.

Monday, Jan. 25, 4 p.m.: Betsy Taylor on “Sustainable consumption”

Executive Director of the Center for a New American Dream, a national non-profit organization dedicated to helping individuals and institutions reduce and shift consumption to enhance the quality of life and protect the natural environment. Served as Executive Director of the Merck Family Fund and Vice-Chair of the Environmental Grantmakers Association. Member of the Population and Consumption Taskforce of the President’s Council for Sustainable Development.

EDITORS: This is an opportunity to link with, and build up to, the National Town Meeting in Detroit with weekly “bite-sized chunks” over a three-month period. Arrangements for interviews with the speakers before their arrival or while they are on campus can be made by contacting Rachel E. Fineberg (fineberg@umich.edu) or Cyndy Cleveland in the Erb Institute at (734) 763-8155.

Arrangements for broadcast facilities can be made by contacting Joanne Nesbit at (734) 647-4418 or at mjnesbit@umich.edu.

For background/logic of the series contact Thomas N. Gladwin, the Max McGraw Professor of Sustainable Enterprise and Director of the Erb Institute at U-M, (734) 647-4491 or at tgladwin@umich.edu.