Step by step, I am claiming my responsibility for environmental and climate care.
I find my mind playing tricks at times — telling me “what I can do is too little to be worthwhile, it needs to happen at government and corporate level,” or, one of my favourites, “I don’t have the time right now.”
Naming publicly what I actually do helps me stay committed to updating and expanding it. So, here we go:
Through the Waldaktion of the Stiftung Wald für Sachsen: the planting and five years of care for 501 trees in a reforestation project in the national park region of Saxon Switzerland, Germany.
The goal is a stable, diverse, climate-resilient mixed forest, mainly broadleaf. Native German species were chosen that will cope with drought as the climate changes: mainly sessile oak, hornbeam, small-leaved lime, European white elm, silver fir, and yew. What stood there before was a single-species spruce plantation, killed off by bark beetle after the drought summers from 2018 onwards.
Spain is the worst-hit EU country in Europe’s record 2026 wildfire season, with the highest share of burned land relative to its size. (Euronews)
My donation goes to Plant-for-the-Planet, specifically the project in Alcalá de los Gazules, Cádiz. Together with the town council, it plants and restores cork oak (Quercus suber) to tackle “la seca” and bring back local biodiversity and climate resilience. Plant-for-the-Planet also runs FireAlert, a tool for rapid wildfire response. My partial donation so far.
Old, intact forests hold large amounts of carbon and moisture. That makes them less vulnerable to drought, and through evaporation they cool the landscape around them. They are home to countless animals and plants. Forests are indispensable.
For every 160 participant-hours I teach online, I donate one tree.
Where the number comes from:
I derived this ratio from the sources listed below, using roughly 50 g CO₂e per participant-hour and about 8 kg absorbed by one established tree per year. I name the sources because they disagree: published estimates for one hour of video conferencing differ by a factor of fifty, and a newly planted tree does not undo emissions already released, the figure is therefore my chosen benchmark, rather than climate neutrality.
Since 2026, both my private and my business accounts are with the GLS Bank — a cooperative founded in Bochum in 1974 and the first social-ecological bank in Germany.
It lends only to social and ecological projects — for businesses and private customers alike: renewable energy, organic agriculture, affordable housing, independent schools, care institutions, culture. Arms, nuclear power, coal, tobacco and child labour are excluded. It is the only bank in Germany that publishes every loan it makes to business customers, quarterly. Customers can see what their money is financing, and can choose which sector their deposits flow into.
If you would like your payment to support this too: within Europe, please transfer by bank; internationally, please use Wise. Credit card payments are possible and will go to this bank soon as well. PayPal payments stay within PayPal.
Since 2023, I have held a Pangaea Life Basis-Rente with die Bayerische, invested in the Pangaea Life Blue Energy fund.
Unlike most fund-linked pensions, this one does not buy shares. It buys real physical assets: photovoltaic parks, wind farms, hydropower plants and energy storage, currently with a focus on Europe. So the money is doing work in the energy transition for the whole time it sits there, until I reach retirement age.
My commitment needs to grow.
I want every part of my life to be accounted for: travel, private and business; time spent online, especially AI; utilities; the materials I buy; the food I eat.
The honest position is this. I choose consciously — where I shop, what I eat, how I travel and get around, how much energy I use, how much waste I produce — and I am still contributing to gradual environmental destruction. Using less comes first. Funding repair comes second, and cannot stand in for the first. Both need to move faster than they are moving, and this includes my own efforts.
I donate regularly to Mein Grundeinkommen e.V., which campaigns for an Unconditional Basic Income.
As AI and robotics take over more and more human work, and as paid working hours could be radically reduced as a result, the question of how we meet our basic needs will only grow more pressing. My bold vision is a system in which basic living costs are covered for everyone, and each person can decide freely what to put their energy and their heart into. Detailed financing models exist — the best known in Germany came from dm founder Götz Werner. Economists still debate whether it could actually work.
What interests me are the questions underneath it:
What are we easing our workload for — and paying a high price for it — if the economic system stays as it is, and we simply have to keep inventing new kinds of work to secure our survival?
What would people do with their lives if the fear of not covering the basics were taken away?
Such a shift would certainly bring a challenging learning curve. Still, I believe it is human nature to want to be creative and to care for others — once people feel safe enough, have the time and energy, and feel deeply connected.
Acting on today’s challenges brings a breath of fresh air, and of hope.
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