Heinrich Strößenreuther

Serial NGO-Founder | Germany

Heinrich Strößenreuther builds and scales nationwide movements that are effective in bringing about political change on the ground. Why? Because he understands our democracies as an invitation to work on the ground, where the big lobbies are small and the distance to elected politicians shrinks to neighbourhood distance. One of the many NGOs he has founded is BaumEntscheid, the Berlin Tree and Adaptation Referendum, Germany’s first concrete climate adaptation law for municipal implementation. Looking at his career, referendums have always accompanied him: ChangingCities has triggered a Germany-wide movement of local referendums on Cycling Bills; GermanZero was inspired by UF19 in Oslo and has started over 70 city referendums for climate neutrality by 2035. Heinrich is passionate about developing, testing, and disseminating effective political communication for the necessary climate adaptation activities that engage broad masses. He aims to bring about new offers, narratives, and changes and hopes to inspire others to break out of their own ruts and venture down new paths, to be motivated by positive developments than paralysed by others, and to try out for new actions instead of just ideas.