Felix Finkbeiner


Felix Finkbeiner is a German environmentalist and the founder of the international tree-planting and environmental advocacy organization Plant-for-the-Planet.

Life and Education

Finkbeiner is son of Frithjof Finkbeiner and Karolin Finkbeiner, with two sisters. He grew up in the Bavarian towns of Pähl and Uffing am Staffelsee. Starting in fourth grade, he attended Munich International School from which he graduated in 2015. After living in London for three years, he graduated with a BA in International Relations from SOAS, University of London in 2018. Since September 2018 he is a PhD student of environmental sciences at the Crowther Lab of ETH Zürich, where he studies the most effective approaches to forest restoration under Prof. Tom Crowther.

Plant-for-the-Planet

In January 2007, when Finkbeiner was nine years old and in fourth grade, he gave a class presentation on global warming in which he suggested to classmates that children should plant one million trees in each country of the world. Together with many of his classmates, Felix planted a tree on 28 March 2007 and launched Plant-for-the-Planet. After three years, the initiative planted its millionth tree. At age 10 he spoke in the European Parliament and at age 13 at the UN General Assembly.
A decade later, he leads an organisation with 130 employees internationally and 70,000 members in 67 countries. Plant-for-the-Planet has hosted over 1,200 Academies during which participants between 10 and 14 learn about global warming and the importance of trees, practice public speaking and make plans on how they want to contribute to tackling global warming.
The organisation currently restores 22,500 hectares of forest on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico by planting on average one tree every 15 seconds. Furthermore, Plant-for-the-Planet leads the UN Billion Tree Campaign, as part of which 14 billion trees have been planted so far by contributing companies, organisations and governments.
Plant-for-the-Planet's The Change Chocolate is sold in 20,000 stores throughout Germany and Austria. The chocolate is Fair Trade and carbon neutral. The profits are used to fund the tree-planting efforts in Yucatán. Thus, with every five bars sold, one tree is planted.

Honours and Awards