When starting to write this first post for my new blog on sustainability I was drawn to reflect on the 20 past years of my life dedicated to sustainable development. First as a passion about nature and nature protection then as a strong involvement for poor communities around the world, creating value in every possible way, as a true purpose.

From OCDs that drives me to recycle everything I can in my home, or simply where I am, having a very hard time to throw things away, inviting creating ways to reuse, repair, transform, be it food, products… Wasting nothing not to waste life like Bauman would say.

It even took me all the way to India where after the most amazing darshan of my life with Amma I invested 7 years of my life on a PhD started in Tamil Nadu that took me back to Paris in Institut des Mines and Universite Paris Saclay to now inflate my torso when people call me Doctor Guidi.

After a few decades of hard core corporate adventures from Siemens in South of France as well as in Southern Germany, a job of director of a productivity department in a Parisian consultancy, banking in London, I was forced to step down by SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) among other bugs emerging from the healthy climate and life style in London!

Sustaining myself became hence a matter of health, of survival. Finding new ways to deal with life, work, others, climate was not anymore an option but an imperative.

A call that led me to my first darshan (embrace) with Amma end of 2009, and the start of a life of service and volunteering. From Linear Economy and its many faces of waste to circular economy and the discoveries of its immense possibilities, which became the core of my PhD thesis:

Exploring the creation of values through waste management in poor communities as an alternative to waste externalization : participative research examples showing collaborative learning in India, Bolivia and Brazil. http://www.theses.fr/2019SACLE022

And that amazing darshan that connected the dots: “Jnananand, waste, PhD” meaning, my son, go back to University, learn new topics, research on new ways to deal with our world, position yourself differently, learn what knowledge from the heart is about, and inspire others to do so.

In the spam of 7 years I implemented projects in 3 continents, mostly in India, Bolivia and Brazil.

Here is a summary of my PhD research: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lfAiQgt0TA&feature=youtu.be

I developed a model for community empowerment, creating values for very poor communities.

A spiritual PhD as a way to embrace a new purpose, to bow in front of divine love, divine Mother, who had saved my life a few years before when arriving in India with a pre-cancer stage!

This is what I will develop in this blog and along my coaching and consulting sessions on sustainability: how did I change my life from a banker to a university professor working most of the time as a volunteer, with a strong a clear purpose: serving, helping poor communities create values, starting with sanitation projects, recognizing the values at the “Bottom of the Pyramid” and replicating such projects.

The core values I learned with the amazing communities I was blessed to work with along those past 12 years can be summed up in: respect, dignity and contribution.

Bernard Stiegler passed away last year almost anonymously leaving us with “his contribution” the economy of contribution, that I truly believe can be the paradigm shift we are hoping to make this world a sustainable place, together!