About Giorgio Schultze

All of his childhood and adolescence between 1956 and 1968 was spent in a neighbourhood inhabited by immigrants from different countries and religions. He went to primary school in a climate where tolerance and diversity were "normal" and where non-discrimination was an integral part of daily life and culture. He has an older sister who is blind and who he cares for. This experience has developed his sensibility and attention towards people with disability

Once in Italy, Giorgio attended school successfully. In 1975 and 76 he graduated as an Industrial Technician in the ITIS E.Conti Institute of Milan with the highest grade.

Subsequently, he started to work for Innocenti SE, an important metallurgical company in the Milan neighbourhood of Lambrate and, while working, he continued his studies to their conclusion in 1983, graduating in Architecture in Milan Polytechnic, again, with top grades.

In the decade between 1975 and 1985 he developed his passion for technical-scientific studies and his outstanding sensibility in the themes of energy and the environment. And at the age of 15, together with Andrea Poggio, Virginio Bettini, Paolo Sala, Fabio Lopez in the E.Conti Institute, he founded, the first nucleus of social ecology that would give life, to the monthly publication "New Ecology" something that would contribute in the following years, to the formation of a vast movement of opinion.

Immediately after graduating, he became head of the Energy section of PIM (Milan Interurban Plan) and collaborated with the Environment and Energy Commission at the European Parliament. In 1985 together with Laura Conti, Ercole Ferrario, Gianni Beltrame, Legambient, Italia Nostra and WWF, he founded, the Green University of Milan, of which he would become President for 3 consecutive years, involving more than 150 teachers from different Italian universities, and with more than 1000 people registered per year; people of all ages and professions, interested in the themes of social ecology, renewable energy sources, the problem of development between countries of the North and the South of the planet.

He wrote in scientific and environmental journals “Scienza ed Esperienza” and “Medicina Democratica”.

Today, Giorgio is one of the leading experts in Italy and Europe in urban energy planning, energy efficiency and renewable sources of energy.

In 2001 he founded one of the first energy service companies that operate in Italy in the management of Energy Efficiency Bonds and Energy Certification: La ESCo del Sole, of which he is President and Director General.

In the 90s he was an adviser to the Environment-Energy committee of the Lombardy Region. With the Italian Environmental Research Institute he wrote the energy plans for the largest urban areas of Italy (Milan, Rome, Turin, Palermo and Bologna). He has been President of the Energy and Environment Council in Melegnano. Recently he was named President of the Agency for Energy in Parma, constituted within the framework of the EIE Programme of the European Union and named in the Council of Administrators in the Gas Company in Rho City (Milan).

For Bando Fondazione Cariplo he has developed the energy revision for more than 130 councils of Lombardy and Piamonte, he is an advisor to the Province of Milan, to Fondazione Housing Sociale, Bologna city council, and the AMMA of Milan City Council.

With a notable professional profile and dedication to work, Giorgio has been able to maintain a depth and coherent social commitment, that has seen him as a protagonist at a national and international level, in the construction of the Humanist Movement, primarily in environmental and energy matters, in the battle for the defence of human rights, for disarmament, peace and nonviolence.

Between 1985 and 1989, with Green Future, he promoted the international campaign “Amazzonia Vivrai”, concluding with a meeting of the Xavante tribe in Mato Grosso, the Macuxi in Roraima, and a condemnation of the Brazilian government and the multinationals responsible for the destruction of the rainforest and the annihilation of the indigenous population at the United Nations.

In 1989, on the occasion of the 1st Humanist International in Florence, together with other authors, among who were Salvatorre Puledda and Loredana Cici, he wrote the Green Book for Social Ecology and in 1997, he participated in an international conference for sustainable development in Rome, later published in the book "Climate change, energy and the environment".

In the 90s he was among the leading protagonists of the Campaign for the closure of detention centres for immigrants and for the defence of the rights of immigrants.

Between 1993 and 2000 he participated in the Humanist lists as a candidate for the post of Mayor of Milan (‘93 and ‘97) and President of the Lombardy Region in the regional elections of 2000. On this occasion he would have the possibility to participate in the main national TV debates, gaining a great growth in popular support, going from just under 15,000 to 50,000 votes.

Also in these years he founded the Centre of Cultures of the Mediterranean in Palermo, Sicily (1995).

Today, Giorgio is Vice-President of the non-profit association, Humanists of the World, and President of the association Meninos do Porto and of the corresponding national and international projects, whose "ethic and material" value has been recognised by foundations and organisations such as the Cariplo Foundation and the Rotary Club.

With the association Umanisti nel Mondo-ONLUS (www.umanistinelmondo.org), from 2004 he has promoted and developed, at first hand, social projects (feeding centre for 1000 families with the recovery of food from supermarkets) based on reciprocity and self-organisation in the "Vila Sao José" favela in Atibaia, in the suburbs of Sao Paolo, Brazil, and in the "Villa Miseria Soldati" in Buenos Aires, Argentina. From 2007, with the association Meninos do Porto (www.meninosdoporto.org),he has maintained a school and a permanent mulit-ethnic and multicultural centre "Ubuntu" in Palermo, with the involvement of over 10 teachers, 20 volunteers, 120 children and promoting, in concrete terms, real integration between foreign communities and original inhabitants. In recent years such projects have seen the involvement of primary and high-schools throughout Italy (Milan, Brescia and Bari) with the initiation of courses of "Solidarity Entrepreneurs" and courses of Education in diversity and Nonviolence.

For this hands-on involvement and for the significance of the experiences promoted he has received the recognition of important foundations such as the Cariplo Foundation and in June 2007 he was decorated with the prestigious "Paul Harris Fellow" award, by the Parchi Alto Milanese Rotary Club in Milan.

Besides this, Giorgio is the strong>European Spokesperson for New Humanism (www.giorgioschultze.eu). In this function he has participated in and is promoting meetings in capitals across Europe about the 5 basic points of his platform:

• Disarmament of nuclear warheads in Europe and the application of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty around the world.
• Dialogue between cultures and the defence of the rights of immigrants.
• Defence of new generations and in particular against the use of drugs and amphetamines by medical institutions to inhibit the motor activity of children (hyperactive children).
• Promotion of the application in Europe of the Charter of Human Rights (United Nations Declaration from December 1948) and the Charter for a Nonviolent World (written and signed by 19 Nobel Peace Prize winners, in Rome in December 2007.
• Development of renewable energy sources and defence of water as "for the common good" of humanity.

From this position he has participated actively, with nonviolent demonstrations, hunger strikes and international petitions of Europe for Peace (www.europeforpeace.org) for the dismantling of nuclear weapons in Italy and in Europe and preventing the building of the US "Defence Shield" in the Czech Republic and Poland, promoting meetings and special audiences in the European Parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg.

He has also presided over the European Humanist Forum "The Strength of Nonviolence" (Milan, 17-19 October 2008) (www.humanistforum.eu)

In November 2008 he was named as European Spokesperson for the World March for Peace and Nonviolence (www.marciamondiale.org).

This extraordinary initiative, of historical proportions, promoted by the Humanist Movement, through the International association World without Wars, will cross 6 continents, over 100 nations, 500 cities, and will travel 150,000 km and involves the whole planet.

Giorgio, as a member of the International Delegation, will depart from Wellington, New Zealand on the 2nd of October and will arrive in Punta de Vacas, in the foothills of Mount Aconcagua, in Argentina on the 2nd of January. He will meet with governments, presidents, students, professors, Nobel Prize winners, religious leaders, citizens, and peace organisations, in order to say very simply that "the moment has arrived to leave behind human prehistory and to start to build a finally human history; that it is urgent and a priority to stop wars and the new crazy arms race, to dismantle nuclear weapons, to withdraw occupying troops, prevent the military use of space, to transform the obscene statistic of 1,300 trillion dollars spent every year in weapons and instead invest in health, education and new sources of employment" (see the proposal).

For many years now, Giorgio has lived in Milan in "Isla-Garibaldi", with Barbara and her son Corrado. He loves sport and good books.