Erick Brenes has a B.A. in Finance from the International University of the Americas, a Master in International Management from the University of Otaru in Japan and doctoral studies in Italy and Mexico. In the last decade he had advised international organizations such as JICA, IDB, UNHCR, STRO, FuturaLab and Konfinanzas from around the world.

He had researched, implemented and evaluated projects on local sustainable development, with or without alternative means of exchange. With organizations of indigenous peoples in Guatemala, Ecuador and Colombia, he has researched and implemented alternative development projects (non-economic/non- market-centered) that consider and promote their epistemological perspectives and livelihoods.

His doctoral thesis has a decolonized/systemic and complex theoretical framework that criticizes western-centric “universal science” and proposes the search for sustainability in the subjectivities of our local knowledge (epistemic varieties). In practice, his criticism was demonstrated thanks to a peasant method in Honduras (known as Quesungual) and an indigenous method in Guatemala (known as Ron Kuxur), as food production not only increased, but also prevented further degradation and improved its adaptability to climate change!

He is founder of the Mesoamerican Knowledge Laboratory and an associated researcher at CIRPS in Rome, scientific advisor to the Konfinanzas Foundation in the Netherlands and FuturaLab in Bolivia, among others. He currently advises universities, local governments and all kinds of organizations/companies on issues of sustainability (ESG) and alternative development as an instrument for peace and post-conflict.

As a member of the Corporate Governance Institute of Costa Rica, he advises all kinds of collegiate bodies: corporations such as the fintech Simply LISA, Hevea CR S.A. in sustainable agroforestry and Ecosolutions in the formulation of Costa Rica’s first green bond

cooperatives of various kinds (savings and credit , rural, community and sustainable tourism) and non-profit organizations like International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and it LandScale pilot project, Cuencas Sagradas en Ecuador/Perú and RedBioCol in Colombia among others and will soon publish an open essay on “Decolonization of political economy.”