Cleaning Everest: How a French entrepreneur scaled an insurmountable problem

Mount Everest, the highest point on the planet, has become a tragic example of the environmental damage wrought by humans. Over the past 30 years, climbing to the roof of the world has turned into a profitable commercial enterprise with hundreds of mountaineers spending around $100,000 in a bid to achieve the feat. Yet the ever-growing crowds have left their mark, with plastic bottles, torn tents, piles of human excrement, and abandoned oxygen tanks now littering the once pristine mountainside. 

In 2013, Marion Chaygneaud-Dupuy, founder of social enterprise Global Nomad who has led over 50 humanitarian projects, climbed Everest to diagnose the extent of the pollution. Following that expedition, she decided to set up the Clean Everest project together with Tibetan mountain guides to remove 10 tons of trash from the mountain and encourage responsible expeditions. This was no easy feat.

The project involved dealing with the governments of Tibet and Nepal, local communities and guides, and foreign tour operators. Chaygneaud-Dupuy, a French woman who has lived in the region for many years but was nonetheless an outsider, succeeded in mobilizing the local community and managing multiple stakeholders to achieve sustainable change.

In a wide-ranging discussion with Professor of Sustainable Innovation and Business Transformation Julia Binder, she describes how her training in Tibetan Buddhism gave her a common language in which to engage, and why a strong commercial strategy should be the backbone of any successful sustainable enterprise.