) is a Swiss business man and billionaire.

Life

Schmidheiny was born in St. Gallen

St. Gallen

St. Gallen is the capital of the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland. It evolved from the hermitage of Saint Gall, founded in the 7th century. Today, it is a large urban agglomeration and represents the center of eastern Switzerland. The town mainly relies on the service sector for its economic...

, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

, in 1947 and completed his Law studies with a doctorate at the University of Zurich in 1972. He started his business career at Eternit Niederurnen and in 1976 he was named CEO of the Swiss Eternit Group. Years later he diversified his investments, building up a multinational conglomerate of shareholdings by adding enterprises in the areas of forestry, banking, consumer goods, power generation, and the electronic and optical equipment. During this period he shaped many industries and became a renowned industrial architect. In recognition of this role, he became a member of the boards of directors of leading companies such as ABB Asea Brown Boveri, Nestlé

Nestlé

Nestlé S.A. is the world's largest food and nutrition company. Founded and headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland, Nestlé originated in a 1905 merger of the Anglo-Swiss Milk Company, established in 1867 by brothers George Page and Charles Page, and Farine Lactée Henri Nestlé, founded in 1866 by Henri...

, Swatch

Swatch

Swatch is a brand name for a line of wrist watches from the Swatch Group, a Swiss conglomerate with vertical control of the production of Swiss watches and related products...

, and UBS AG

UBS AG

UBS AG is a Swiss global financial services company headquartered in Basel and Zürich, Switzerland, which provides investment banking, asset management, and wealth management services for private, corporate, and institutional clients worldwide, as well as retail clients in Switzerland...

.

In the 1980s he created FUNDES, an organization that supports the development of small and medium-sized enterprises in several Latin American countries. According to recent Swiss accounts, Stephan Schmidheiny began buying Chilean forest land in 1982, and he now owns over 120,000 hectares in Southern Chile, near Concepcion, landwhich the Mapuche Indians claim has been theirs since time immemorial. The Mapuche charge that some of the land Schmidheiny bought was stolen from them during the Pinochet dictatorship, using that regime's standard techniques of intimidation, torture, and murder.

In 1990 he was appointed chief adviser for business and industry to the secretary general of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), better known as the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit

Earth Summit

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development , also known as the Rio Summit, Rio Conference, Earth Summit was a major United Nations conference held in Rio de Janeiro from 3 June to 14 June 1992.-Overview:...

 of 1992. To better fulfill his mandate, he created a forum in which leading businessmen from all parts of the world developed a business perspective on environment and development challenges. This forum later became the World Business Council for Sustainable Development

World Business Council for Sustainable Development

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development is a CEO-led, global association of some 200 international companies dealing exclusively with business and sustainable development....

 (WBCSD), an organization that today counts the world’s 160 most important companies as its members. Stephan Schmidheiny was elected Honorary Chairman.

In the 90s he also established the AVINA Foundation

AVINA Foundation

-Overview:It was founded in 1994 by Stephan Schmidheiny. Its Chairman is Brizio Biondi-Morra and its CEO is Sean McKaughan. It has offices in Buenos Aires in Argentina, Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, Santiago in Chile, Bogota in Colombia, Cuenca in Ecuador, Asuncion...

, which contributes to sustainable development in Latin America by encouraging productive alliances among social and business leaders and today is a leading player in that field.

After the creation of VIVA Trust in 2003, Stephan Schmidheiny retired from all of his executive functions, including his positions in GrupoNueva and AVINA.
Furthermore, he has realised various book projects, among others the bestseller “Changing Course” which was translated into more than a dozen languages.

Stephan Schmidheiny has received a great number of prizes and distinctions in acknowledgment of his leadership and contribution to sustainable development: Among others, the Instituto Centroamericano de Administracion de Empresas (INCAE) awarded him a PhD Honoris Causa in 1993; he received the same degree from Yale University in 1996; and from both Rollins College and Universidad Católica Andrés Bello

Universidad Católica Andrés Bello

Universidad Católica Andrés Bello is a private university in Venezuela. One of the biggest universities in Venezuela, UCAB has campuses in several cities, such as Caracas , Los Teques, Guayana and Coro....

 (UCAB) in 2001.

Schmidheiny was a major donor to the Peterson Institute in 2006. His 1992 pamphlet Changing Course: A Global Business Perspective on Development and the Environment, argued that eco-efficiency and sustainable development were good for business.

Stephan Schmidheiny was awarded the Philanthropy award in 2007 at the PODER-Green Forum, organised by PODER and the Boston Consulting Group.

A biography of Stephan Schmidheiny “Sein langer Weg zu sich selbst – Erbe – Unternehmer – Philanthrop“ was published by Stämpfli-Verlag in 2009.

Bilanz a Swiss magazine for economics put his fortune at nearly GBP 1.9 billion in its December 2008 issue despite the donation of over USD 1 billion in 2003.

Negligent behavior trial

Stephan Schmidheiny and the 88-year old Baron Luis Jan Marie Ghislain De Cartier De Marchienne from Belgium, were charged for allegedly negligent behavior in exposing Eternit's workers and citizens to asbestos. The legal proceeding began at the Palace of Justice, Turin, Italy on December 10, 2009. The trial was a mass civil action in which some 6,000 people were seeking damages over the deaths of around 3,000 people who worked at or lived near Eternit’s plants in Italy. After years of investigation, the Prosecutor Raffaele Guariniello and his team acted on behalf of 2,619 former Eternit employees from the Italian factories in Casale Monferrato

Casale Monferrato

Casale Monferrato, population 36,058, is a town and comune in the Piedmont region of north-west Italy, part of the province of Alessandria. It is situated about 60 km east of Turin on the right bank of the Po, where the river runs at the foot of the Montferrato hills. Beyond the river lies the...

 (Province of Alessandria

Province of Alessandria

The Province of Alessandria is an Italian province, with a population of some 430,000, which forms the southeastern part of the region of Piedmont. The provincial capital is the city of Alessandria....

), Cavagnolo

Cavagnolo

Cavagnolo is a comune in the Province of Turin in the Italian region Piedmont, located about 30 km northeast of Turin. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 2,334 and an area of 12.4 km²....

 (Province of Turin

Province of Turin

The Province of Turin is a province in the Piedmont region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Turin.It has an area of 6,830 km², and a total population of 2,277,686 . There are 315 comuni in the province – the most of any province in Italy...

), Rubiera

Rubiera

Rubiera is a comune in the Province of Reggio Emilia in the Italian region Emilia-Romagna, located on the Via Emilia about 50 km northwest of Bologna and about 13 km southeast of Reggio Emilia.-History:...

 (Province of Reggio Emilia

Province of Reggio Emilia

The Province of Reggio Emilia is one of the eight provinces of the Italian Region of Emilia-Romagna. The capital city, which is the most densely populated comune in the Province, is Reggio Emilia....

) and Bagnoli

Bagnoli

Bagnoli is a western seaside district of Naples, Italy, well beyond the confines of the original city. It is beyond Cape Posillipo and, thus, looking on the coast of the Bay of Pozzuoli.- History :...

 (Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

) and 270 family members or local residents who received para occupational or environmental exposure to Eternit asbestos.
The prosecution requested the maximum sentence of 12 years imprisonment and demanded eight more years be added on the grounds that asbestos can trigger ailments decades after exposure.
On July 4th 2011 at the Turin court of justice, near the end of this trial, the Prosecutor asked for a 20 year term in prison for both Stephan Schmidheiny and Cartier de Marchienne.
The prosecution’s five-year inquiry determined that the two executives were effectively responsible for Eternit’s Italian operations at the time of the contaminations in the 1970s, a claim rejected by the defence team.

External links

• Official website of Stephan Schmidheiny
• BBC Official Web site http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8406471.stm
• Article St. Galler Tagblatt on July 6th 2011 by Dominik Straub http://www.suedostschweiz.ch/boulevard/schmidheiny-soll-asbest-arbeiter-vorsatzlich-getotet-haben