Michael Braungart (born 1958) is a German chemist who advocates that humans can make a positive instead of a negative environmental impact by redesigning industrial production and therefore that dissipation is not waste.

A former Greenpeace activist who once lived in a tree as protest, he is now considered to be a visionary environmental thinker.

In addition to his achievements with EPEA, Braungart also serves as Scientific Manager of the Hamburg Environmental Institute, the non-profit research center which produces the "Top 50 Study".

This study ranks the quality of environmentally sound production of companies within the chemical industry.

He has initiated scholarly and scientific inquiry into the adverse environmental and physiological impacts of industrially produced consumer goods.