About AgoraNatura
AgoraNatura is Germany's first online marketplace for certified nature conservation projects. Since October 2020, AgoraNatura enables anyone who manages land and wants to implement a conservation project to finance it through crowdfunding or partnerships with companies. Private investors and companies can specifically promote biodiversity and ecosystem services by investing in nature conservation certificates. To ensure the projects' ecological impact, each project is externally certified according to the Natureplus-Standard.
Our concept
AgoraNatura is an independent mediation platform. Here you can find projects from various environmental organisations and stakeholders from all over Germany. They state their nature conservation goals, necessary measures and describe the resulting positive outcomes for biological diversity and ecosystem services. These expectations are visualised in the blossom. Project suppliers themselves decide what price is reasonable so that their project can be successfully implemented. Each project is evaluated using the Natureplus-Standardwhich assesses the viability of the described measures and makes sure that the quality of the project aligns with science-based criteria.
Investors support the certified projects through their purchase of nature conservation certificates. One certificate represents an investment of 100 m2 for one year of the project's duration. A project can only take place if all nature conservation certificates are sold. Should this not be the case, investors who have already made a payment will automatically receive a full refund. The funding period of a project is defined by the project suppliers themselves (max. 6 months).
Video about AgoraNatura [German]
Team
Scientists from various disciplines at the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) and the University of Greifswald, as well as active nature conservationists from Environmental Action Germany (Deutsche Umwelthilfe, DUH) and the German Association for Landscape Conservation (DVL), co-developed the online marketplace, assisted by other external experts. Part of the team were:
Carolin Biedermann
Marlen Krause
Prof. Dr Bettina Matzdorf
Holger Pepper
Michaela Reutter
Achim Schäfer
Steffen Holzmann
Sabrina Schulz
Anne Siegert
Ulrich Stöcker
Bernd Blümlein
Marlene Bock
Jan Noack
AgoraNatura grew from a publicly funded project proposal (2015-2021). Through the funding many of the costs, such as project certification, are covered and do not yet have to be paid by users of the platform (more details on this can be found in our FAQs). Since web features and page contents are continuously being developed, your feedback would be much appreciated.
The project was financed by BMBF and BMU/BfN.
Since June 2021 AgoraNatura is run by the ZALF team, which currently consists of Martin Borchert, Prof. Dr Bettina Matzdorf, Margarethe Schneider, Tanja Kollersberger and Holger Pfeffer. The aim is to establish AgoraNatura as an independent organisation in 2022.
