Gunter adheres to a philosophy summarised in his book “The Blue Economy” (2009). He proposes to avoid dividing opinions centered around “for or against”. Rather he focuses on finding better solutions! He embraces radical change, shifting from the focus on efficiency and globalisation with ever lower prices, to resilience and the capacity to better respond to the basic needs of all, by generating value with what is locally available. He dedicates half of his time to inspire children with fables that empowers them to create their “World” parents could never have imagined.
- Chairman of Novamont SpA (since 2013) – Europe’s largest bioplastics company based in Italy; the first to convert a defunct petrochemical plant (ENI) into a biorefinery. Novamont is research driven with 1,800 patents, one thousand employees, €500 turnover and valued at €1.2 billion.
- Chairman of Blue Innovations (Suisse) S.A. based in Lausanne, Switzerland – one of the world’s technology accelerators focusing on 12 technologies that change the world. This company owns PORRIMA, the experimental ship that delivers a proof of operations.
- Author of The Blue Economy (2009) A Report to the Club of Rome – the trend-setting book translated in over 50 languages setting the stage for over 100 innovations that will change the way business competes on the market.
- Founder of PORRIMA based in Lausanne, Switzerland – organizer of The Blue Campus – a 9 months hands-on learning program that teaches 500 young and eager the science and technologies that are not taught at university, brought by the inventors and the masters who imagined and created the innovations.
- Designer of the learning system Gunter’s Fables – a series of 365 fables that bring science based on observations in Nature to children. The pedagogy has been adopted by the Chinese Government. To date 324 books have been published in Chinese and distributed to all schools.
- Advisor to Governments. Identified dozens of novel business opportunities and growth sectors as described in books that mobilized billions of investments such as “Plan A for Argentina” and “Morocco’s Model”.
- Leader of the think tank “Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives” created in 1994 at the United Nations University and the Japanese Government to imagine the new business models that avert climate change. This network created breakthrough businesses like “making paper from rocks without water” now with a production capacity of one million tons (China), producing hydrogen from seawater (Switzerland), isolating and destroying nano plastics from the sea with microfluidics, and fishing with air bubbles (like dolphins do) releasing all females to secure denser fish stock in the future. This think tank has consistently been voted one of the most creative top 10 think tanks in the world by Pennsylvania University.