EPEA History

 

In 1987, the Environmental Protection Encouragement Agency (EPEA) was founded in Hamburg, Germany by Prof. Dr. Michael Braungart, founder and former leader of the chemical division of Greenpeace. In 1988, EPEA became independent from Greenpeace. The word "encouragement" was used to contrast the term "protection," found in the U.S. Environmental Protection Act. . The emphasis on co-operation across every sector, from green organizations to industry and government, was a cornerstone of EPEA company philosophy, encouragement to improved environmental performance being an important part.

Verification has also been a crucial part of EPEA methods from the start, in the context of cooperative working relationships.

The institute's first contracts reflected this theme. One contract was with Greenpeace to evaluate halogenated hydrocarbons. The other was with the Ciba Geigy Company (now Novartis) to establish a methodology for assessing chemicals. Together, these characterized EPEA's strength: a capacity to work with industry with an independent, critical eye.

Through articles and conferences, EPEA made the case that environmental protection would only succeed if products were designed for their whole life cycle. The methodology for this--the Intelligent Products System (IPS)--was developed between 1987 and 1992. It is still evolving through the development of new tools as more companies adopt it.

In the beginning, EPEA focused on waste-related issues to demonstrate why IPS was required and how it might be applied. EPEA advised municipalities, companies, and citizen initiatives regarding incinerators, waste dumps, soil restoration, sewage treatment, water, and air pollution. These activities then expanded into consumer product assessment. EPEA analysed television sets in 1987 and found 4360 different chemicals in a single TV set. This finding led us to ask the question, "Do you as a consumer want to own hazardous waste or watch Larry King Live?" and for asking this simple question about whether consumers wanted to own toxic materials, we were called "eco-communists".

EPEA's work emphasized systems approaches and product development. Rather than acquiring laboratories and centring activities on laboratory work as so many other organizations had done, EPEA devised testing regimes that other labs then applied under contract. This freed EPEA to work with different types of labs without having to support its own equipment infrastructures.

Another early aim was to disseminate the methodology by training interns, before they went to work in government, academia, or industry. Many interns who started with EPEA went on to form their own organizations, or work as professors, economists, and researchers in Europe, the US, Latin America, and Asia. The institute also trained corporate and government personnel in environmental and water protection, for example, at Germany's technical standards inspection agency.

By 1992, EPEA was working in Hamburg, London, New York, Moscow, and Sao Paulo. In 1994, its structure was superseded by EPEA Internationale Umweltforschung GmbH, a new corporate entity with the same ownership. From 1990 to 1994 a subsidiary, EPEA Ltd., operated in New York. Cooperation with William McDonough Architects began in New York and resulted in the creation of McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) in Charlottesville, Virginia, 1995. Michael Braungart also began a professorship at Universität Lüneburg, Germany.

The EPEA spectrum expanded to UN organizations such as UNIDO, FAO, and UNICEF. Large companies, including consumer product manufacturers, also began warming up to the methodology.

Since its beginning, EPEA has been opposed to the mainstream environmental protection strategy of end-of-pipe technologies. The institute foresaw that such a strategy would only mask the pace of ecological degradation, rather than eliminate the source of the problem. In 1996, a different approach of Life Cycle Development was required to find a solution.

The terms "Life Cycle Assessment" and "Life Cycle Development" seem similar. Each encompasses these well-known steps: inventory, impact assessment, and optimization. Each derives from original EPEA concepts that were adopted by the Society of Environmental Toxicology And Chemistry (SETAC) in 1992 (see publications). Life Cycle Assessment was later standardized by the International Standard Organization (ISO 14.040ff); however, this standard emphasizes inventory and efficiency aspects rather than the effectiveness of environmental goals' implementation.

Life Cycle Development was the precursor to Cradle to Cradle Design.

EPEA personnel also provide pro-bono support to the Hamburg Environmental Institute (The German-language name is Hamburger Umweltinstitut e.V. or HUI). This is a nonprofit organization for research on solutions to environmental problems. It works with citizens groups, environmental organizations, and media, along with individuals who lack their own resources.

It is EPEA's ambition to mainstream the Cradle to Cradle methodology and practice. In such context, "environmental protection" will have lost its meaning, as we shall live happily in harmony with our natural environment, guilt ridden "ecological footprints" being a distant memory.