Your contribution to climate protection:
High quality CO2 certificates from our Canadian permanent forests
Economically attractive
- Sustainable return by investing in forests in Canada and Germany
- High-quality CO2 certificates from your own forests
Ecologically consistent
- Natural forest management instead of monocultures
- Resilient mixed forests through a ban on clear-cutting and consistent ecological management
- Eternity guarantee for the forests
Professionalism and expertise
- Transparency through technology – forest management with the help of state-of-the-art LIDAR satellite technology and on-site sampling
- Quality assurance by the former. Chief of the Saarland forestry authority and permanent forest expert Dipl.-Forester W. Bode
- International network of experts – the professionally managed alternative to owning your own forest
A small insight into our forest areas in Atlantic Canada
Our lead investors
Pilot projects depend on a number of investors making a special commitment. In the case of citizen forest investment, these are:
CONSULTACT, Berlin with Mechtild Erpenbeck
Prof. Dr. Rolf Hoffmann, dermatologist in Freiburg, Germany
KJH GmbH, Warstein with Markus Kirchhoff
VA Behrens Group Munster, with Maximilian and H.-Christian Behrens
We are looking for
a forest in Germany to the size of at least 75 ha (own hunting district) – the owner can remain involved,
a non-profit organization close to nature, which is involved with at least 200.000 and – together with the burger:sinn:stiftung – manages the blocking minority for the permanent protection of the ecological management principles,
committed experts, who may accompany the silvicultural concepts and measures of the Burger-Wald-Invest in the ecological expert supervision of the burger:sinn:stiftung in a critical and constructive way on a voluntary basis.
About the project
Where and how to invest
Economically attractive
Ecologically consistent
professionalism and expertise
Literature& Links
Contact
If you have any questions or feedback, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Warning and disclaimer
This is not an investment advisory or brokerage service. Legally binding for an entry are only the details in the issue prospectus including supplements, which are available at the u.g. The information can be requested from the issuer and should be read thoroughly before making an investment decision in order to understand the opportunities and risks of this entrepreneurial investment. The acquisition of this investment is associated with considerable risks and can lead to the complete loss of the capital invested.
50% – 60% of our Canadian mixed forest areas are permanently protected to give nature room to develop and to bind the climate killer CO2 in the long term. From these protected stocks we can offer you CO2 certificates with which you can compensate for those CO2 emissions that cannot yet be completely avoided.
The CO2 certificates from our permanent mixed forests are of particularly high quality because they are
- The forestry concept of the Burger-Wald-Invest guarantees the comprehensive protection of the ecosystem services of the forest in the long term
- attach particular importance to the protection and development opportunities of biodiversity
- are produced in a western economic area with high legal security
- in permanent forests are produced, for which a perpetuity warranty was anchored legally effectively.
The certificates are only issued to end users and are not intended for trading (declaration of commitment), although they meet the requirements for this purpose. The certificates are expected to be brought to the market by our Canadian subsidiary before the middle of the year. A subscription tranche at special conditions can already be subscribed now. We will gladly establish contact.
Owners of financial assets are desperately looking for compelling investment opportunities right now. How investors can counter negative interest rates and the vulnerability of financial systems?
A forest investment financed with equity is a contemporary answer to this question.
By investing parts of their assets in burger:wald:invest, which is predominantly financed with equity capital, investors escape both the negative interest trap as well as various default risks within the unstable financial sector.
The main economic advantages in highlights
- 100 % equity (interim financing and shareholder loans excluded)
- Sachwertinvestment – renewable valuable raw material (forest) together with landed property
- Geostrategically sensible diversification of capital into one of the world’s safest economic and currency areas – Canada
- Investment 60 – 80 % in Canada, 20 – 40 % in Germany
- Sensible way out of the creeping expropriation through negative interest rates and inflation
- Long-term capital preservation and moderate interest rates
- Relative independence from disruptions in unstable economic and financial systems due to tangible asset base
- Low correlation with the performance of other forms of investment, such as z.B. Shares and fixed-interest securities
- Comparatively favorable exchange rates and forest prices in Canada
- Long-term investment horizon – with exit options
Two central conceptual pillars for economic success
The concept of burger:wald:invest takes two central requirements for the economic success of forest investments into account to an extraordinary degree:
Sufficient liquidity reserve: On the one hand, the forest owner must have sufficient liquidity to avoid being forced to harvest timber at inopportune times due to economic hardship. These economic reserves are so abundantly planned that burger:wald:invest can make ends meet for four to five years even without any income from timber harvests.
Forest management with a protective and steady hand: Secondly, it is necessary to avoid as far as possible unscheduled timber harvests due to calamities such as drought and storms. Because then many forest owners have to bring their wood to market and the supply surplus puts prices under strong pressure. Therefore burger:wald:invest has a long-term investment horizon.
The time is ripe
Global demand for wood is in a long-term growth trend: growing global population and increasing urbanization are constantly increasing demand for this raw material. And the stricter climate targets of many nations are also leading to a substitution of other materials by the climate-friendly raw material wood in numerous branches of industry. This applies in particular to the construction industry, but z.B. also for the furniture industry and some other trades.
By the way, a similar picture can be seen in the price determinants of CO2 certificates whose extraction in the Canadian forests will be another important business segment of burger:wald:invest.
The capital invested in forests has also survived severe economic crises and sovereign bankruptcies on several occasions, while the owners of financial assets and receivables lost large parts of their capital.
Forest – the green gold
In economically turbulent times, a tangible asset investment in forests can serve the function of an iron reserve or a reserve fund. of a "life insurance" for the assets particularly well fulfilled. The burger:wald:invest is a tangible asset investment backed entirely by equity and amply supplied with liquidity. This eliminates two major risks of capital investments: First, there is no lender who could subject the forests to forced liquidation in the event of default in the payment of interest and principal. On the other hand, the value of the investment is not dependent on the stability of a currency system or on the creditworthiness of private or public debtors, even in the long term.
More security and opportunity: asset diversification
Since a considerable part of the capital is invested in Canadian forests, this investment also serves the systematic diversification of the capital investment into other economic and currency areas in the sense of a meaningful risk spreading. Canada’s commodity-based economic system is considered one of the most secure in the world. And it has limited correlation with developments in the European financial systems, which may be a cause for concern. The IMF (International Monetary Fund) has repeatedly singled out Canada’s banking system as the world’s most stable in recent years.
More security and opportunity: CO2 certificates are
Parts of the forest areas are not used at all or only marginally for timber production and are instead completely or partially used for forestry. protected for the most part. The growth of living wood binds additional CO2 on a large scale, and this compensation can be securitized in CO2 certificates and sold (mostly) to companies that want to compensate their CO2 emissions.
The production of CO2 certificates harmonizes particularly well with the management of forests according to the permanent forest method, since the long-term growth of the living wood stock in the forests and the complete protection of partial areas are characteristics of this silvicultural method anyway. Accordingly, the two uses complement and overlap rather than compete with each other.
Both in Canada and in Europe, many experts consider a multiplication of the current price for CO2 certificates to be necessary if the politically set climate targets are to be achieved. The price development of CO2 certificates in recent years also supports the optimistic assumptions.
Forest in the fight with and against the climate crisis
An effective measure against climate change consists in the protection and near-natural further development of forest areas. Forests bind CO2 on a large scale and thus counteract global warming, as confirmed by a large number of scientific studies (see for example ETH Zurich study: Bastin JF, Finegold Y, Garcia C, Mollicone D, Rezende M, Routh D, Zohner CM, Crowther TW: The global tree restoration potential, Science, 5 July 2019).
The current state of many forests in Central Europe shows that, due to storms, drought and bark beetle infestations, they are increasingly not so much a bulwark against climate change as a victim of it. It is clear that age class forests are much more vulnerable to storm damage. Because as an ensemble of trees of the same height, they provide a homogeneous "green wall" for storms to attack, which they can easily knock down. The resulting large clear-cut areas then exacerbate the problem. It now lacks wind protection.
At the same time, however, well-structured mixed forests that have been under nature conservation for a long time or are managed in a near-natural way according to the permanent forest method show that they are much better able to cope with these stress factors, i.e. they are more resilient.
A resilient, multi-storied mixed forest
criteria of a convincing forest investment
An ecologically sustainable and economically convincing forest investment – in whatever form – should at least meet the following criteria:
- The silvicultural methods must meet the requirements of all subsystems of the forest ecosystem and be consistently oriented towards nature (ban on clear-cutting, mixed forest principle, age class differentiation, harvesting methods that are gentle on the soil, protected areas to protect biodiversity, etc.).).
- the ecological management principles for the forests have to be legally established on a permanent basis, because forest systems need generations to develop their full capacity.
- Yield targets are only aimed at in the long term, and not through forest-industrial exploitation of nature, but through respectful use of natural processes for economic goals.
- Investing only within systems that are stable in terms of the rule of law and politics.
- External controlling by qualified and independent experts ensures that the codified ecological concept is consistently adhered to.
The ecological management methods of a permanent forest – two examples
Protecting the forest with class instead of mass
Typically, forest areas are developed by building approx. four-meter-wide "back lanes" are cut, into which heavy harvesters then drive, which also limb and trim the trees to fit at the same time. However, the dense network of logging roads means that about 20 % of the forest area is lost to trees. And the soil, together with all life on and under the ground, is destroyed for many decades.
Burger:wald:invest instead harvests high-quality, individual trees that have grown over many decades. The felling is carried out with power saws, and the trees are moved in a minimally invasive way with mechanical caterpillars, cable winches or so-called "back horses", so that the forest floor is protected in the best possible way.
Many people committed to climate protection would like to plant trees. Permanent forest experts counter that they would be better off leaving this to the forests, because they could do it better. This refers to the fact that young trees that grow from the seed of the parent tree in its original location are genetically optimally adapted to their environment and are therefore more resistant than cultivated plants that are first grown elsewhere and then transplanted together with their deformed roots.
A forest is more than the sum of individual trees.
It is a very complex ecosystem, including animals, fungi and microorganisms, which under favorable conditions are in balance with each other. This means that one cannot "simply plant trees" and reforest a site, but must also act with a great deal of circumspection in this regard. What is needed are reforestation strategies that are close to nature, such as those used in some forestry operations in Germany with the permanent forest method.
Therefore, burger:wald:invest relies on the natural regeneration of the forests wherever possible, thus giving them the space to develop back to their original strength.
After the storm Kyrill in 2007, an area of almost 4ha near Schanze in Hochsauerland was left to its own devices. Without any human intervention, nature has created a well-structured mixed forest after 14 years.
Experienced management – alignment of interests with investors
The management of the VA Behrens Group can look back on more than 36 years of successful activity as a financial services provider. For 18 years she has been responsible for the conception, development and executive management of a real estate fund in Germany. For the past 7 years, she has successfully managed two German-Canadian private equity projects, with full responsibility for their conceptualization, development and executive management.
An innovative feature is that, depending on the economic success of burger:wald:invest, a bonus as well as a malus regulation is contractually fixed for the management. In this way, the interests of the investors and the management are permanently synchronized. This principle is supported by the fact that the VA Behrens Group itself holds a limited partnership interest in burger:wald:invest.
Proven forestry expertise
The forestry quality of the project is ensured by three proven experts.
The Lt. Minister a.D., Dipl. Forester Wilhelm Bode, former head of a state forestry agency and long-time spokesperson for NABU, uses his many years of experience in theory and practice to ensure that the permanent forest concept combines the ecological as well as the economic interests of the project in the best possible way. In the past decades, Bode has further developed the concept of permanent forest in a large number of scientific studies and practical forestry support and, as a consultant, he is committed to the development of burger:wald:invest as a consistent implementation of the permanent forest concept.
In addition, an experienced rentmaster a.D. with management responsibility for more than 1.000 hectares of German forest will contribute his experience to the project.
In Canada, the project is managed by a forest manager with 27 years of professional experience. He combines expertise from industrial forest planning and operational management at Weyerhaeuser in western Canada and the southern U.S., where he managed the harvest of 500.000 – 1.000.000 m³ p.a. from leading a project to land use planning for a First Nations forestry company in the world-famous Clayoquot Sound coastal area. He then founded a company for the development of carbon projects in North America (u.a. the "Darkwoods" project in British Columbia with around 55.000 hectares).
Control by renowned foundations
Compliance with ecological requirements is ensured by the burger:sinn:stiftung’s Ecology Committee. The foundation was established in 2004 and has since unfolded its foundation goals in a variety of ambitious projects. She and, if necessary, other foundations committed to nature should be directly involved in the project as shareholders. They are to hold a blocking minority to ensure that the ecological principles underlying the project remain unchanged in the future. The Foundation’s Ecology Committee, which is staffed with experts, will monitor that the permanent forest concept is also adequately implemented in day-to-day operations.
The burger:wald:invest GmbH& Co. KG offers a 100% equity-financed real asset investment in German and Canadian forests that are sustainably managed and used in perpetuity according to designated ecological criteria.
In this way, a meaningful and effective contribution is made to climate protection, and at the same time the capital invested is soundly invested and earns an appropriate rate of interest. The ecological investment and management criteria for its forests were developed by the Ecology Committee of the independent burger:sinn:stiftung – advised by renowned forestry experts. And they are firmly anchored in the investment company’s bylaws, so they will be permanent.
This is how burger:wald:invest shows how ecology and economy can be sustainably reconciled in a new way.
To deny the forest a future is to deny it to ourselves.
Forests are the main source of the oxygen we need to breathe. They are – besides oceans and moors – one of the largest CO2 sinks on the planet and are therefore indispensable for climate protection. But the forests are sick – the German ones especially. Given this finding, is it even possible to invest in forests anymore? Not only can you, you have to, and you have to do it in a way that this investment contributes to the resilience of our forests.
In fact, there are beautiful and, at the same time, highly profitable forests in Germany that are looking splendid today, as if there had been no dry years. The burger:wald:invest is based on their silvicultural principles.
burger:wald:invest offers responsible investors the opportunity to invest in forests that are selected on the basis of carefully justified ecological principles and converted into so-called permanent forests using sustainable silvicultural methods.
These forests make the best possible contribution against climate change, because permanent forests bind far more CO2 than the so widespread forest-industrial monocultures. In addition, important functions of the forest are strengthened, z.B. the protection of species, the function of the forest as a water reservoir and filter, its function as an air filter and its recreational value for humans and animals.
Investors can simultaneously participate in the returns from ecologically sustainable forestry and the production of particularly high-quality CO2 certificates, which they can also purchase themselves at preferential conditions.
"The wood must be harvested as the fruit of the forest, but the forest must remain"
Comparison of monoculture versus a permanent mixed forest
Taking responsibility – acting with reason – creating meaning
Guiding principle of the burger:sinn:stiftung, entrusted with the ecological supervision of burger:wald:invest
Until December 2020, at very favorable conditions, 41 forest areas with a total area of almost 2.000 hectares (20 km²) around Doaktown in New Brunswick, a province in southeastern Canada (Atlantic Canada) acquired.
The areas are located on the Miramichi River and its tributaries, which are among the most famous salmon waters in the world. The forest land acquired has more than 5 km of riparian land along these river courses.
60 – 80% of the capital is invested in Atlantic Canada because the Acadian mixed forests there, which are unique in the world, are particularly well suited for conversion to near-natural managed forests. In addition, the Canadian forests cost only 10 – 15 % of the German areas, which is why their economic profitability is significantly better. Nevertheless, 20 – 40 % of the capital is to be invested in German forests, because burger:wald:invest is intended to enable people to experience the many benefits of near-natural forest management on their own doorstep and to contribute to saving Germany’s forests, which is so important.
Since the prices for German forests are currently very high and could tend to fall in the medium term, the purchase of German forests is considered very desirable, but not urgent.
The permanent forest method according to Prof. Alfred Moller considers the forest as an object of management. However, it differs significantly from the principles of classical forestry. Because the permanent forest does not try to achieve the yield target against the natural principles of forest development, but precisely by working in harmony with them. Thus, diversified mixed forests are preferred in terms of age structure, as they have been native to Central Europe for thousands of years, and emphasis is placed on natural regeneration through mother trees, gentle harvesting techniques, sufficient deadwood in the forest, and the establishment of protected zones for plants and animals. The selective use of wood (ban on clear-cutting) and the protection of the water balance in the forest are further central features of the permanent forest method.
An important consequence of this near-natural management is the high resilience of the permanent forests against any kind of calamities, be it drought and bark beetles, storm damage or fire. And last but not least, it creates incomparably beautiful mixed forests that always form a multigenerational house, which grows the next trees in the natural protection of the parent trees.
The ecological and economic success is currently achieved in ca. 200 private forest farms in a wide variety of locations occupied. These are almost without exception in the hands of mostly larger, often aristocratic forest owners, who prefer the management method primarily not because of its ecological advantages, but because of its economic superiority (and its obvious stability of assets).
The latter results from the fact that permanent forests, in comparison to age class forests which are repeatedly shaken by crises, know significantly less calamities and produce a higher proportion of high quality timber. The older of these farms (20 to 100 years after conversion) achieve top results of 300-600 Euro pre-tax forest yield per hectare per year and are probably the most profitable in Europe.
The implementation of the concept in Germany and Canada by our forestry experts on site is monitored using the latest satellite technology based on so-called LIDAR data. Regular inspections during site visits complement the controlling process.
The map shows an example of the development concept of one of our plots in Canada based on satellite data. Due to the comparatively large distance of the development paths (50 m instead of 20 m), significantly more forest area is permanently spared compared to conventional forest management. Other features of the soil-conserving layout of the trail network are shown in the site plan below.