Agency: In-House• Role: Associate/Collaborator for Communication & Head of Graphics
“Exactly ten years ago (2008), a nine-year-old boy from Germany decided that more action had to be taken to counteract climate change. Thus, he initiated the children’s initiative ‘Plant-for-the-Planet’. What started off as a simple school project, turned into a global movement that is on course to plant its one billionth tree.” (discovergermany.com)
In August 2008 I joined the Global Marshall Plan Foundation (NGO) and the ‘Plant-for-the-Planet’ initiative in their co-ordination office in Hamburg in order to serve my civilian service as a volunteer. But instead of getting my hands dirty and planting trees, I established the graphics department and focussed on communicating the initiative ‘Plant-for-the-Planet’ with the campaign ‘Stop talking, start planting’.
After this, I became an associate/collaborator for Communication and head of graphics; designing, directing and producing the foundation’s annual reports.
“Adults simply have done way too little. The data is shocking. Since the Kyoto Protocol was passed, worldwide CO2 emissions have increased by 62 per cent. Back then I had the impression that adults merely talked about the climate crisis but that they didn’t undertake anything. Whether the sea level will rise by four or seven metres is a scientific question for adults. When this will actually happen, most of them won’t live anymore. But us children and adolescents, we will actually experience the climate crisis’ dramatic effects.”
— Timothy Oppermann-Klofski