Michael Braungart

Michael Braungart (born 1958 in Schwäbisch Gmünd ) is a German chemical engineers and chemists. He developed the Cradle - to-cradle concept with William McDonough. Braungart is a professor at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, CEO of EPEA International Environmental Research GmbH in Hamburg and scientific director of the Hamburg Environmental Institute.

Life and career

After studying chemistry and chemical engineering in Konstanz and Darmstadt Braungart his PhD in 1985 at the Department of Chemistry, University of Hannover. In parallel, he worked since 1982 with the construction of the chemistry department of Greenpeace Germany, which he headed from 1985 to 1987.

In 1987, Braungart the EPEA Institute. Together with the American architect and designer William McDonough, he is also founder of the design and development firm McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry ( MBDC ) in Charlottesville ( Virginia). From 1994 to 2008 he taught at the University of Lüneburg power management, since Fall 2008, he is Professor of the cradle-to -cradle degree at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. He has also accepted a visiting professorship at the University of Virginia.

Since 1994, talks and publishes Braungart on the topics realization future-proof " intelligent products ", development and implementation of environmental protection concepts, environmentally friendly production and life cycle assessments of complex commodities.

Together with McDonough, he is also the author of several books in which a rethinking of sustainable production and utilization of products are demanded by the principle of eco-efficiency.

In 2003 he received the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Braungart is married to the German politician Monika Griefahn and has three children. His brothers are the scientists and Georg Wolfgang Braungart.