Alexandre Guilluy (EDHEC Grande École 2002), candidate for the EDHEC Socially Responsible Entrepreneur of the Year award - Les Alchimistes

Candidate for the EDHEC Socially Responsible Entrepreneur of the Year award.

I grew up in a small fishing village in the Pas-de-Calais: Étaples-sur-mer.

As the son of a rural doctor, I was among the privileged residents of the town where social challenges were rife.

At EDHEC, I co-founded and chaired an association set up with the aim of building a secondary school in Burkina Faso with the participation of young people from the city of Lille starting out in their careers. The village is now home to more than 600 secondary school students, and the interactions between representatives of the business school and the young Lillois involved left me with many fond memories and allowed me to experience the kinds of human encounters that are sadly all too rare.
I later embarked on similar adventures in Kosovo, India, Morocco and Brazil as part of Ateliers Sans Frontières, an association I headed with a particular focus on overseas work. It included setting up workshops for social rehabilitation and professional training in Morocco, Algeria, South Africa and Romania.

After Ateliers Sans Frontières, I developed the Ethical Property concept back in France, which offers investors a relatively safe and very beneficial investment but with limited returns. Having low returns was a way to offer modest rents to those initiating change (associations, socially-oriented businesses, etc.), affordable office space in third places and co-working spaces in Montreuil, Nanterre, Paris, Lyon, Castres and elsewhere. At the same time, I took over and redeveloped La Ruche, an incubator for social entrepreneurs in Paris, Saint-Nazaire, Marseille, Bordeaux and Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

More recently, I co-founded Les Alchimistes with the purpose of collecting local food waste for compost. The scheme is currently being developed in Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Toulon and Réunion. The aim is to encourage tangible participation to address the circular economy and urban agriculture.

Find out more: alchimistes.co