Harry Assenmacher

Harry Assenmacher (born June 7, 1955 in St. Hülfe ) is a German entrepreneur, journalist and environmentalist . From 1990 to 2001 Assenmacher published eleven environmental, cookery and nutrition books. He is the managing partner of the ForestFinance Group, a provider of sustainable forest investments with headquarters in Bonn and branches in Latin America and Asia . Assenmacher is a member of the Senate of the German Environmental Foundation and the Senate of German Economy (German section of the Global Economic Network of Nobel Prize winner Mohammad Yunus).

Life

Already during his high school days and from 1975 during his law studies in Munich , Assenmacher was politically active, u. a. in the anti-Akw movement. During his studies published articles on (environmental) political and scientific topics until he switched completely to journalism in 1981 . As a journalist and author , Assenmacher worked from 1979 to the present day for various city magazines such as “The Skull Cleaver” in Hanover , Die Tageszeitung (taz), Hamburger Morgenpost, Stern, Schrot & Korn and the Ökotest magazine. In addition, he published eleven books from 1990 to 2001, including a. "The great environmental handbook".

From 1987 to 1993 Assenmacher was editor-in-chief of "fairkehr", the member magazine of the alternative "Verkehrsclub Deutschland" (VCD) and also managing director of the alternative transport club VCD. During this time he developed, among other things, the "Auto Environment List" that still exists today. The VCD is a non-profit association with around 65,000 members, which advocates an environmentally and socially compatible transport policy. Assenmacher then continued his professional environmental commitment as managing director of the publishing company Natur & Umwelt GmbH of the environmental association BUND ( Federation for Environment and Nature Conservation Germany ). There he was u. a. responsible for the conception and development of environmentally friendly services in the insurance sector for BUND members. From 2000 Harry Assenmacher was marketing director for two years at the ecologically oriented Securvita Group in Hamburg and later a board member of Securvita Holding AG, a group of companies that offers alternative insurance and financial models (including GreenEffects funds). In addition, he founded Assenmacher Consulting Unternehmensberatung in Bonn. Already in 1996 he founded "CO2OL - Association for the reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eV" an organization that CO ₂ emissions calculated, CO ₂ offers -Einsparungsberatung and unavoidable CO ₂ emissions through tropical reforestation CO ₂ creates sinks ( CO ₂ Compensation ).

Forest Finance

In 2005, Assenmacher founded Forest Finance Service GmbH in Germany , into which he brought the previous forest investment activities. From this company, today's Forest Finance Group developed, and he has been its managing partner ever since. The “CO2OL” brand is part of the Forest Finance Group as a developer of climate protection reforestation projects. Forest Finance has been offering FSC-certified reforestation investments under various product names such as "BaumSparVvertrag", "WaldSparBuch" or "WoodStockInvest" since 1995 . The closed forest fund PureForest I has also been offered since 2012 .

Forest Finance reforests fallow and pasture areas with tropical precious woods in mixed forests in Panama , Colombia , Peru and Vietnam in order to later sell wood , CO ₂ certificates , seeds and saplings - but ultimately to create a sustainable biodiverse forest system. In 2013 ForestFinance managed around 16,000 hectares of agroforestry and forest areas.

The company has received several awards for its environmental commitment, including a. with the “FSC Global Partner Award” in “Financial Services” and the future award from natur + kosmos . Research by the time from the year 2014 to the "Woodstock Invest" fund indicated out that there had been difficult explainable high cost increases for new investors since of 2005. Some experts saw the redemption expectations as many times too high. D.

In a test of forest investments in 2018, Stiftung Warentest counted Forest Finance among the serious providers of the segment, but rated the four tested offers "BaumSparVvertrag", "WaldSparBuch", "GreenAcacia" and "Kakaowald" as inadequate, like all the others. Forest Finance was also unable to present the project in a comprehensible manner; the risks for all the products tested were significantly higher than the potential returns. In a product review in 2009, the Ökotest magazine saw a lack of transparency and lack of transparency at Forest Finance. a. for securities or costs. For the investor, the opportunities and risks from the business are hardly calculable.

Literature (selection)

• Harry Assenmacher: The great environmental book. Practical guide for an environmentally friendly life . Weka-Verlag, Augsburg ISBN 978-3824598205 .
• Harry Assenmacher: Natural food for children . Schaafheim Bio-Verlag, Augsburg ISBN 3980642925 .
• Harry Assenmacher: Pasta & Pesto: Pasta menus, homemade pasta, tips and tricks . Bio Verlag GmbH ISBN 978-3980642972 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ "The great environmental handbook"
2. ↑ Car Environment List
3. ↑ Natural Carbon Collection
4. ^ Forest Finance
5. ↑ FSC Global Partner Award ( Memento of the original from December 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ^ Heinz-Roger Dohms: Forest investments: Business with Woodstock. In: Zeit-Online. March 14, 2014, accessed January 18, 2018 . 
7. ↑ Forest investments: All offers in the test fail . In: Stiftung Warentest (Ed.): Test . January 2018.
8. ↑ Forest investments: On the wrong track. Ökotest, November 27, 2009, accessed June 20, 2018 .