100 Minds

Aus der ganzen Welt

Michael Braungart

Founder, EPEA Intermationale Umweltforschung GmbH

Hamburg, Germany

Learn how to celebrate our ecological footprint instead of worrying about minimizing it…how to be beneficial and not “less bad.”

Michael Braungart Bio:

Professor Dr. Michael Braungart is the founder of EPEA Internationale Umweltforschung GmbH, Hamburg. He also is co-founder of McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) in Charlottesville, Virginia (USA) and Scientific Manager of Hamburger Umweltinstitut (HUI), the non-profit research center, which edits the "Top 50 Study," a ranking of the environmental quality of companies of the chemical industry. EPEA, MBDC and HUI share common values which include intelligent and eco-effective design.

Braungart studied Chemistry and Process Engineering at Konstanz und Darmstadt Univerisities (Germany). During the 1980's, he was committed to the work of the environmental organization Greenpeace and subsequently spearheaded the formation of the chemistry section of Greenpeace International. By the time he completed his PhD in Chemistry at the University of Hannover in 1985, he had assumed leadership of Greenpeace Chemistry. He founded EPEA in 1987.

Since then, he has been conducting research in the field of eco-effective products - products and processes that are conceived of in close loop systems and are not harmful for people and the environment. On the contrary, they are useful. As a consultant Braungart cooperates and conducts work for various organizations and corporations, from varying fields.

Since autumn 2008, Braungart has held a chair position at the Dutch Research Institute for Transitions (DRIFT) at Erasmus University Rotterdam, combined with the TU Delft, for which a Cradle to Cradle®-chair was founded. Dr. Braungart has been a professor of Process Engineering at University of Lüneburg (Germany) since 1994. Moreover, in 2002 he accepted a visiting professorship at the Darden School of Business in Virginia, USA, lecturing on such topics as eco-efficiency and eco-effectiveness, Cradle-to-Cradle design and Intelligent Materials Pooling.

Professor Michael Braungart received the Environmental Award of the German team for environmentally aware management (Bundesdeutschen Arbeitskreis für Umweltbewusstes Management e.V. - B.A.U.M.) in 1999 for his outstanding scientific achievements.

Braungart is co-author of the "Hanover Principles of Design: Design for Sustainability," which served as development guidelines for the World's Fair in Hannover, 2000. In 2002, he also co-authored Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things with William McDonough.