Since 2002, the eldest child of Teresa Solari and part of the third generation of the founding family of the Falabella Group, stepped away from retail to dedicate herself 100% to philanthropy. This has led her to grasp the weight of what she represents in the business world, but also in the environment.
Francisca Cortés Solari is part of the third generation of the business group that leads retail in Chile and Latin America. However, Teresa Solari’s eldest daughter stepped away some time ago from the business founded by her grandparents Alberto Solari and Eliana Falabella, which started as a family tailoring shop, to dedicate herself entirely to philanthropy.
She studied fashion design and for many years dedicated herself to fashion and retail. She was in charge of stores, created clothing collections, and led teams. “It was a great school of management because I learned how to lead, work with budgets, and build projects from scratch,” she says in an interview with Forbes Chile.
Then came a second stage of training in which she delved into her studies of the ontology of language, transpersonal psychology, and various disciplines linked to human development. “Over time, I became a very studious person, and that training ended up being the basis of the educational model we later developed,” she shares.
Since 2002, she has dedicated herself professionally to philanthropy, first in education and then in biodiversity conservation. And although under the family office Inversiones Corso—owned jointly with her mother and brother—she retains 11% of Falabella, today she leads Filantropía Cortés Solari, which coordinates Fundación Caserta, Fundación MERI, and three Elemental Reserves in strategic ecosystems in Chile: in San Pedro de Atacama, the Cajón del Maipo, and Patagonia. In these more than two decades, she has worked with over 30,000 students and 10,000 teachers.
THE LOVE FOR NATURE
Cortés Solari splits her time between the United States—because two of her three children live there—Madrid, Uruguay, and of course, Chile, which is her “favorite place,” as she herself states. There, she learned to love nature from a very young age.
“As a child, I was very restless. I needed to observe, move, and experience to learn,” she says. “Over the years I understood that this wasn’t just a quirk of mine, as many people need to experience in order to learn.”
Cortés Solari recounts that there was a moment in her life that led her to ask herself a question: “What is my purpose in the world and how can I contribute?” Thus, in 2002, the Color Esperanza (Color Hope) program emerged, focused on the comprehensive development of adolescents.
Color Esperanza was the seed of Fundación Caserta and everything that came after. “From then on, I progressively left retail to dedicate myself professionally to education and, later, to science and conservation. Nature, the territories, become living classrooms,” she highlights.
“Outdoor education programs led us to naturally develop conservation programs. Because it makes little sense to educate for the future if, at the same time, we are degrading the ecosystems on which that future depends,” she adds.
Then Filantropía Cortés Solari was born, which first focused on education, to later encompass science and conservation programs. “Today we have three Elemental Reserves that function as natural laboratories for effective conservation: Melimoyu, with over 16,000 hectares of native forest and seven kilometers of coastline; Likandes, in the Cajón del Maipo, which protects sclerophyllous forest; and Puribeter, in San Pedro de Atacama, in one of the driest ecosystems on the planet,” she details.
Among the foundation’s successful projects, the research on cetaceans in Northern Patagonia for over 12 years stands out, which made it possible to promote, together with the Ministry of the Environment, The Blue BOAT Initiative, using technology and acoustic monitoring to detect whales and reduce the risk of collisions with vessels.
CONSERVING NATURE IS BUSINESS
For Cortés Solari, sustainability and profitability are perfectly possible. “The problem is that to date we have not valued the ecosystem services that nature provides us. For example, together with Ralph Chami, an IMF economist, we developed a study that estimates the value of the ecosystem services of blue whales in Chile at more than US$3 billion, around US$4 million per individual. If we begin to incorporate the value of the ecosystem services provided by cetaceans—carbon capture, biodiversity, water, climate regulation—the equation changes completely and it becomes essential to avoid collisions between whales and vessels,” she specifies.
“The question is not how much it costs to conserve nature, but how much it will cost us not to conserve it,” she states. “For too long we thought of nature as something that surrounded the economy. Nature is the infrastructure that sustains the economy. Water, soils, biodiversity, pollination, and climate regulation have an economic value, even if for decades we haven’t accounted for it correctly.”
For this reason, she emphasizes, sustainability cannot be seen as a department within a company or a chapter in its annual report. “It has to be part of the heart of decision-making: what we produce, how we produce, what impacts we generate, and what we leave established in the territories.” She prioritizes collaboration between the State, the business sector, and civil society to achieve this.
On this point, she recognizes that new generations especially are becoming increasingly conscious and have a great interest in the traceability of products, how they were made, and what company is behind them.
But at the same time as consumers are more informed, responsible companies, public policies, science, financing, and education are also needed.
“And the gap is real. Latin America harbors one of the most important ecosystems in the world, while receiving the lowest amount of investment in climate change mitigation or adaptation. That’s why I insist so much on education. It is very difficult to care for what we do not know,” she adds.
When asked if she feels an extra burden as a human being on this planet just because of her last name and what it represents in the business world, she answers: “Of course. I am aware of my origin and the opportunities I’ve had. But the important thing is what you do with what you received. I have built my path by working. I have spent nearly 25 years dedicated to education, science, and conservation, alongside extraordinary teams. My last name is part of my history, naturally, but what I try to build with it is my responsibility,” she concludes.
*This interview will be part of a report that will be published in the next edition of our magazine.
Source: Forbes
