Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate Change By Michael Liebreich, September 2020, Ep7
Bertrand Piccard ‘A Good and Exciting Life’
Bertrand, originally qualified as a psychiatrist from the University of Lausanne, has gained fame primarily as an explorer, aviator, and communicator. He hails from a family with a strong legacy of exploration – his grandfather Auguste pioneered the pressurized balloon capsule and set a world altitude record in 1932, while his father Jacques Piccard dove to the bottom of the Marianas Trench and undertook a month-long, 3,000 km drift dive in the Gulf Stream.
In 1999, Bertrand accomplished the first non-stop around-the-world balloon flight alongside co-pilot Brian Jones. His achievements extended to 2015 and 2016 when he completed the world’s first round-the-world flight in an electric plane, collaborating with André Borschberg.
Presently, Bertrand is actively involved in the Solar Impulse Foundation and the World Alliance for Efficient Solutions. These initiatives are dedicated to certifying 1000 economically viable and environmentally-friendly products and technologies for immediate adoption. As a proud member of the advisory board, he has helped certify 652 solutions as of the latest update.
Source: Cleaning Up by Michael Liebreich. Once a week Michael Liebreich has a conversation with a leader in clean energy, mobility, climate finance, or sustainable development. Each episode covers the technical ground on some aspect of the low-carbon transition – but it also delves into the nature of leadership in the climate transition: whether to be optimistic or pessimistic; how to communicate in order to inspire change; personal credos; and so on.
