Prof. Dr. Michael Braungart is a German chemical engineer, founder and managing director of the EPEA (Environmental Protection and Encouragement Agency) in Hamburg and scientific director of the Hamburg Environmental Institute. Furthermore, he works as a professor of Process Engineering at the University of Applied Sciences in Lüneburg (Germany), also serving as director of an interdisciplinary materials flow management masters program.

Together with William McDonough, developed the Cradle to Cradle concept and founded the product design and development MBDC McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry in Charlottesville, Virgina, USA.

His ideas about redesigning industrial production processes in order to create a positive ecological human footprint are famous around the world and among his supporters one can find Hollywood actors like Brad Pitt, Susan Sarandon or Cameron Diaz. Film director Steven Spielberg is not only planning to make a movie about his ambitions, he also supports them with donations. Currently he holds the Cradle-to-Cradle chair at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, is a professor at the University of Twente as well as a visting professor at the TU Delft, Netherlands.

Submitted by: Martyn Eustace
2/10/2012