10,000 new trees for Barclaycard Germany’s new Fame Forest

Every October, thousands of Barclays colleagues from around the world volunteer their skills and their time to make a positive impact in their local communities, as part of the ‘Make a Difference’ campaign.

There are many beautiful forests in Germany but they are under threat from the climate, fires and even beetle plagues. So when Barclaycard Germany were deciding on a new initiative to support the campaign in Hamburg, an ecological-social project in called ‘Fame Forest’ seemed like an obvious choice.

Fame Forest is co-sponsored with social initiative ‘Das Geld hängt an den Bäumen’ (the money hangs on the trees) and the Anschütz Entertainment Group (AEG), which own the Barclaycard Arena in Hamburg. The idea is to plant an apple tree for every artist who plays at the Barclaycard Arena, with the first saplings sown at the end of October 2019.

Artists receive a certificate of sponsorship and are invited to plant their own tree and, less than four months later, more than 100 trees with famous sponsors like Michael Bublé, Chris de Burgh and David Guetta have become part of the new forest. Local media response and feedback from the artists has been very positive. SMUDO, from the iconic German hip-hop band ‘Die Fantastischen Vier’ (The Fantastic Four) who was one of the first artist to plant his own tree and said: “This is much better than any sold out award I’ve received during my career.”

This month, however, the forest received its biggest boost, when German comedy legend Atze Schröder, who has been performing on stage and TV for 25 years, decided to do something extra special. Having accepted the invitation to plant his own tree, at the end of his arena show on Valentine’s Day, he surprised his 10,000 of his fans with a generous gift - to plant a tree for each of them.

Tobias Griess, CEO Barclaycard Germany says: “Fame Forest is a fantastic initiative and this is more than we could have hoped for. We always wanted to use the power of the artists to increase awareness for sustainability and Atze’s gesture goes way beyond this. We hope planting these trees will make a difference for our forests and future generations.”