Your visit helps a forest grow

spoga+gafa has chosen "Responsible Gardens" as its key theme for the 2024 trade fair, which aims to encourage and inspire people to focus on a responsible approach. As the biggest garden and BBQ trade fair in the world, spoga+gafa serves as a role model here: Namely through its involvement with and a donation to a local reforestation project, which contributes towards improving the air quality, offers animals new living space and strengthens the natural cycle – supported by the garden industry. Because the final amount of the donation depends on the number of visitors to this year's spoga+gafa. In this way, every visitor to the trade fair has the opportunity to make a contribution to this green legacy and together with the trade fair help the "forest of the garden industry" grow.

In cooperation with the protection organisation, Deutscher Wald Köln e.V., after the trade fair spoga+gafa will donate 100 m² of forest per 5,000 visitors to the reforestation project "A forest for Cologne". Here a new, vital forest comprising of domestic plants such as oak, Norway maple, lime and hornbeam trees will be planted on a piece of farmland. This commitment is above all so important to spoga+gafa because it not only contributes towards local surface greening, but also makes a long-term statement for sustainability and biodiversity.

As newly created green space, the tree-planting campaign will have positive effects on the ecosystem and the climate in future, among others through:

• Carbon sequestration: The new forest area actively helps absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, improves the air quality and supports the production of oxygen by photosynthesis.
• Preservation of biodiversity: The new forest offers domestic animals living space - from birds to mammals - and promotes a rich diversity of species.
• Microclimate regulation: Particularly in urban areas like Cologne forests contribute towards temperature regulation and ease the effects of extreme weather conditions.

spoga+gafa's commitment is planned long-term. spoga+gafa already collected many votes for a tree-planting campaign last year already in the course of an anniversary campaign for IVG. A further project is now being realised in the form of this ticket campaign that will enable a resistant, durable forest to be grown in Cologne.