Venture & Nature Fund
Risk capital for environmental projects: entrepreneurial thinking and a willingness to try bold new approaches create this unique success story.
Our Co-Founder and President along with his family established the Venture and Nature Fund (VNF) in 2017 as an internal fund at Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH). Opening doors that would normally remain closed – that was our clear intention. VNF particularly supports innovative projects and political campaigns of DUH with scalable impact for the environment and nature and with international and global reach. Since 2017, VNF has funded projects in many areas such as nature conservation, transportation, circular economy, and municipal environmental protection.
With VNF we consciously try bold new proposals and consider novel projects and campaigns. We are conscious of the risk we are taking with this approach in return for huge scale and impact. The track record and success thus far have confirmed our strategy.
Projects Overview
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From Fast to Slow Fashion - Strengthening Circular Economy in the Textile Sector
10/2025-10/2026
The textile industry causes high resource consumption and CO2 emissions, while consumption and throwaway behavior continue to rise. True circular economy is lacking: only minimal quantities are recycled at high quality, the majority is burned or exported – with serious consequences in the Global South. Germany must therefore introduce an effective system that holds companies responsible for the entire lifecycle of their products and strengthens ReUse models. The DUH campaign targets exactly this: it demands durable, repairable and recyclable textiles and raises awareness around Black Friday under the motto 'Reclaim Responsibility' about overconsumption and global problems. Core elements include political participation in developing an ambitious extended producer responsibility (EPR) regulation, intensive social media and influencer actions, as well as a press trip to Ghana to document the global textile waste consequences and facilitate the return of used textiles.