Episode 3: Integrating Ancient Wisdom Into Regenerative Green Tech with Brando Crespi (Part 1)
In this episode:
I am very honored to have Brando Crespi as my guest in this episode. Join this global change-maker and climate activist as he shares:
His incredible journey from having a near death experience that opened him up to shamanism and non-dual consciousness, to his successful career in luxury fashion and branding, introducing U.S. consumers to Italian brands like Fendi and Versace, and to becoming a leader and pioneer of sustainability before the term ‘sustainability’ existed in the zeitgeist.
He recounts his research deep into the Amazon and other tropical forest canopies, discovering an extraordinary array of biodiversity where life forms his team collected are still being analyzed today.
He also shares the importance of deep listening and engagement with local communities as the most effective approach to successfully implementing green technology.
Brando details how he and the team at Pro-Natura International discovered a way to make green charcoal from agricultural waste and invasive species, originally geo-engineered by the ancient indigenous Amerindians called Terra Preta de Indio. The resulting biochar not only increases fertility and farm yields from 50% to 300%, it reduces the hazardous health risks of burning regular charcoal that disproportionately affect women and children, addresses deforestation and also make it possible for extreme agriculture in places like the Sahara desert.
*Part 2 of this interview continues on episode 4!
About Brando:
Brando Crespi is a global change-maker and climate activist with a deep background in sustainability, branding, and innovation. He is the Co-Founder and Executive Vice Chair of Pro-Natura International, which created arguably the world’s largest carbon sink, by planting over 2 million trees in the Juruena region of the Brazilian Amazon. Since the pandemic, Brando has moved to New Mexico's high desert and joined Santa Fe Farms as Head of Sustainability to deploy hemp, biochar and regenerative agroecology on a number of Native American reservations.
Pro-Natura organized 13 large expeditions to collect half a million samples of all life forms, and designed and executed reforestation projects in 63 countries. Over the last 35 years Brando has designed, funded and implemented numerous agro-ecological projects in the Americas, Africa and Asia, especially on the use of Biochar, advancing an ancient indigenous Terra Preta de Indio soil, or ‘dark earth’, making it possible to grow plants in any environment! By implementing innovative carbon sequestration strategies they were able to provide long-term food and water security, as well as sustainable employment for the local communities. If fully implemented, technology can offset up to between 20-30% of all greenhouse emissions.
Brando was raised in Rome and educated in Italy, Switzerland, the UK, and at Georgetown University, where he studied anthropology and economics. After a few years of Italian journalism and Amazonian anthropological fieldwork exploring shamanism he moved to Los Angeles in 1977, where he had enormous commercial success launching Rodeo Drive - opening the first Fendi, Pratesi, and Versace stores, and the Hard Rock Café, and also representing licensing needs for luxury brands such as E. Zegna, Salvatore Ferragamo, Ungaro, and many others.
In LA he also started the Samadhi Flotation Centers (the first “mind spas”) and co-founded the Mobius Group, an applied parapsychology lab. “The Alexandria Project” recounts their search, using teams of world-class scientists and intuitives for Alexander’s tomb and Marc Anthony’s and Cleopatra’s Palaces (they found the last two and much more).
In the early 1990s, Brando worked on Pro-Natura’s international growth, continuing his consulting work, focused primarily on “green” innovation. He created the hemp “eco-jeans” line for Armani, rebranded Habitat’s 109 stores (the urban Ikea) and developed “green” value-driven products at L’Oreal, Procter & Gamble, Givaudan, and other top consumer goods companies.
Learn more and support Pro-Natura’s mission at http://www.pronatura.org/
Watch how today’s atmospheric greenhouse gases can be decreased to the level of the 1950s with Brando Crespi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4LK9re5DT8