Financial Plan & RoadmapSection 05
| Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| New countries established per year | 11 |
| Establishing a country — regular | EUR 18,000,000.00 (€18 Million) |
| Establishing a country — December flagship | EUR 20,000,000.00 (€20 Million) |
| Berlin January flagship, recurring each year | EUR 20,000,000.00 (€20 Million) |
| Annual Green Me Festivals & Local cost | EUR 220,000,000.00 (€220 Million) |
| Countries established over ten years | 103 distinct countries |
| Festivals staged during the ten years | 120 |
| Ten-year Green Me Festivals & Local budget | EUR 2,200,000,000.00 (€2.2 Billion) |
In furtherance of the goal of hosting the Green Me Global Festival for Sustainability in every country of the world, the program establishes eleven new countries every year for ten years, alongside the Berlin January flagship which runs each year as the home festival. Establishment is permanent by design: a country is entered once and remains part of the network, anchored by regional headquarters in seven territories and run by local people.
Berlin January flagship, recurring each year
Running total 20 M €December flagship
Running total 40 M €Ten regular countries × 18 M €, one-off each
Running total 220 M €12 editions · 11 new countries plus Berlin
Reading this figure: Twelve festivals a year: Berlin every January as the home festival, a December flagship, and ten new countries established. The Berlin flagship recurs annually; the other eleven are one-off establishment costs in eleven new countries. Over ten years this is 120 editions across 110 cities in 103 countries.
| Step | Item | M € | Running total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Berlin January flagship, recurring each year | 20 | 20 |
| 2 | December flagship | 20 | 40 |
| 3 | Ten regular countries × 18 M €, one-off each | 180 | 220 |
| = | Annual Green Me Festivals & Local programme | 220 | 220 |
The full year-by-year city schedule for 2027–2036 is in Appendix B.
The EUR 18,000,000.00 is a one-off, not an annual figure. It establishes a Green Me operation in a country. Once established, that operation carries itself: local and international sponsorship, joint ventures, licensing, and income from its own premises. It does not return to this budget.
That is why the figure is what it is. The staged festival week costs between EUR 350,000.00 and EUR 1,500,000.00, and it continues to cost that once the country is running — met locally, from local revenue. What the EUR 18,000,000.00 buys is everything that has to exist before a country can produce that week on its own, year after year, without Berlin.
Establishment begins with the festival, which is how a country is opened and how the partners are assembled. A permanent base is built around it.
Establishing the country
Once, never repeated · This requestA festival edition
Every edition, two a year once established · Local revenue — sponsorship, licensing, joint ventures, premises incomeEach panel uses its own printed scale. 18 M € one-off is approximately 12 to 51 festival editions.
Reading this figure: The 18,000,000 € is spent once, to build everything that has to exist before a country can produce a festival on its own. The festival week itself costs 350,000 € to 1,500,000 €, it goes on costing that, and from year three it is paid for locally. The establishment figure does not return to this budget.
| Panel | Item | EUR | Frequency | Funded by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Left | Establishing the country | 18,000,000.00 | Once, never repeated | This request |
| Right | A festival edition | 350,000.00 – 1,500,000.00 | Every edition, two a year once established | Local revenue — sponsorship, licensing, joint ventures, premises income |
| Component | What it funds |
|---|---|
| Premises | Acquired outright where the market and the law allow, on a long lease where foreign ownership is restricted. An owned building cannot be displaced or priced out, retains a residual asset, and contributes to the operation's income |
| Local team | Hired, trained and made permanent. A trained standing team delivers a festival in six months; an untrained one requires eighteen to twenty-four |
| The opening festival editions | EUR 350,000.00 – EUR 1,500,000.00 per edition. Established countries move to two editions a year, as Dallas already has |
| Sponsor and partner base | Sponsors rarely follow across borders. Each country's sponsorship, marketing and management function is built from zero, and it is this that carries the operation once establishment is complete |
| Schools and screening licences | A standard licence covers fifty viewers; a school screening to three hundred triggers a further fee. Licences are sponsor-funded per jurisdiction so that neither school nor parent pays. Berlin ran 220 participating schools |
| Universities and film schools | Working relationships across the year — teaching, equipment and the film workshop — rather than a prize awarded once |
| Legal and fiduciary structure | A locally incorporated, fiscally sound entity, audited by PwC under its cross-review model: the local audit is reported to Berlin at three months and inspected in person at six to nine |
| Working reserve | Operating capital covering the three years to self-funding |
The path to self-funding is three years. Year one establishes the base and stages the opening festival. Year two runs the second edition with the sponsor base part-built. From year three the country runs two editions annually on local revenue — sponsorship, licensing, joint ventures, premises income — and the working reserve is sized to carry operating cost across those three years. A country that has not reached self-funding by year three is supported from the regional headquarters budget, not by a further call on this one.
Base established; opening festival staged; sponsor base at zero
Second edition runs with the sponsor base part-built
Two editions a year on local revenue — sponsorship, licensing, joint ventures, premises income
Reading this figure: Year one establishes the base and stages the opening festival. Year two runs the second edition with the sponsor base part-built. From year three the country runs two editions annually on local revenue, and the working reserve is sized to carry operating cost across those three years. The diagram shows which source pays, not modelled amounts.
| Year | Funded by establishment capital | Funded by local revenue | What happens |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Predominant | Beginning | Base established; opening festival staged; sponsor base at zero |
| 2 | Reducing | Growing | Second edition runs with the sponsor base part-built |
| 3 | Exhausted by design | Full | Two editions a year on local revenue — sponsorship, licensing, joint ventures, premises income |
Indicative allocation of a regular EUR 18,000,000.00 establishment. This is management's current working basis, not a contracted budget, and it will vary by jurisdiction — land and construction cost, labour cost, and whether premises can be owned outright all move the split materially.
| Line | Indicative |
|---|---|
| Premises acquisition and fit-out | EUR 7,000,000.00 (€7 Million) |
| Local team — recruitment, training, three years of payroll | EUR 3,000,000.00 (€3 Million) |
| Opening festival editions, three years | EUR 3,000,000.00 (€3 Million) |
| Sponsor, partner and schools program, three years | EUR 2,500,000.00 (€2.5 Million) |
| Universities and film schools, three years | EUR 1,000,000.00 (€1 Million) |
| Incorporation, legal and audit, three years | EUR 500,000.00 |
| Working reserve | EUR 1,000,000.00 (€1 Million) |
| Total | EUR 18,000,000.00 (€18 Million) |
Around 39% of each establishment is capital laid into an owned asset. The rest is a three-year build to the point where the country pays for itself. The EUR 20,000,000.00 flagship figure carries the same structure with a larger premises and program provision.
Management’s current working basis, not a contracted budget. The split will vary by jurisdiction.
Reading this figure: A regular establishment is 18,000,000 € once. Roughly two-fifths buys premises that cannot be displaced or priced out and that retain a residual asset. The remaining three-fifths funds the three-year build — team, sponsor base, schools and universities, and the reserve that carries operating cost until local revenue covers it.
| Line | EUR | Share | Colour | Nature |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Premises acquisition and fit-out | 7,000,000.00 | 38.9% | gm-brown | Capital, owned asset |
| Local team — recruitment, training, three years of payroll | 3,000,000.00 | 16.7% | gm-green-dark | Operating build |
| Opening festival editions, three years | 3,000,000.00 | 16.7% | gm-green | Programme |
| Sponsor, partner and schools programme, three years | 2,500,000.00 | 13.9% | gm-blue | Revenue build |
| Universities and film schools, three years | 1,000,000.00 | 5.6% | gm-blue-pale | Programme |
| Working reserve | 1,000,000.00 | 5.6% | gm-sage | Reserve |
| Incorporation, legal and audit, three years | 500,000.00 | 2.8% | gm-green-deep | Structure |
| Total | 18,000,000.00 | 100% |
The EUR 2,200,000,000.00 therefore does not buy 120 festival weeks. It buys a permanent Green Me operation in 103 countries, each built once, each holding an asset, and each funding its own program thereafter.
The think tank is the mechanism. Each festival opens with one — introduced at Cannes in 2016 as the Villa Think Tank and now a fixed part of the format. Its purpose is to seat people together who do not otherwise meet: an automotive lobby meeting does not include Greenpeace, and an environmental forum does not include the carmaker. Green Me puts both in the room, with university students present as storytellers, and starts from what the parties actually want rather than from the positions they arrive with. Large companies come because the festival is where their sustainability claims are tested in public by the people affected by them.
Practical transfer follows. The heavy-metal filtration system developed for the poisoned Anacostia River in Washington, D.C. reached Cannes through the festival and was adapted there for rainwater run-off into the sea; the NGO that refined it took the improved system back to Anacostia, and its head was subsequently elected deputy mayor of Cannes. Festo, hesitant about sponsoring the festival, was asked instead to place its water-cleansing equipment in a Lagos settlement; it did so, and continued to supply it afterwards. Neither outcome was on anybody's agenda before the room was assembled.
That is the case for the permanent base. The festival triggers the exchange; the standing local operation is what turns it into something that continues after the week ends. A visiting festival can start a conversation and then leave the country. An installed one is still there when the work begins.
Reach beyond the host city. The host city is the point of entry to the country, not the extent of it. In Nigeria — some 230 million people — Lagos opens Kano, Benin City, Port Harcourt and Onitsha, each of which has asked to participate.
A network rather than a set of events. Standing operations under seven regional headquarters share partners, programming and staff, and absorb a withdrawn sponsor, a currency movement or a change of government in one territory without the program ending there.
The year-round model is a response to demand rather than a projection of it. The German Federal Foreign Office asked for it specifically, on the strength of the program's integration into national school and university systems; the German federal development ministry proposed bringing Green Me into its Duales System apprenticeship framework; the Goethe-Institut, present in 108 countries, and Deutsche Welle offer standing infrastructure to build on; and host countries have consistently asked for annual return rather than a single visit.
What is firm and what is not. The festival-week costings of EUR 350,000.00 – EUR 1,500,000.00 are firm, taken from delivered festivals. The EUR 18,000,000.00 and EUR 20,000,000.00 establishment figures are the program's planning basis. The line-by-line allocation above is indicative and will be replaced by country-specific budgets at the point each country is scheduled.
The Festival is a unique blend of film show, environmental and social activities. It offers a top-class platform for green films, green NGOs and green businesses. Parallel to film screenings are panel discussions, forums and workshops, during which lectures are delivered on diverse environmental topics. Every year the festival presents filmmakers in various categories with the Green Me Award, endowed with prize money. Each year a new special topic from the area of environment and sustainability is selected, aimed at enforcing environmental awareness.
Initiated in 2008 by Nicolai Niemann, the festival has transformed from a lounge into a full-blown film festival with three major segments:
Film — The festival offers a platform for green films, green publicity and green economy. Informative documentaries and educative feature films dealing with environmental awareness and sustainability from all over the world are evaluated and screened. Awards are given in three categories, ranging from documentaries and feature films to youth workshop and special topics.
Congress — The segment opens with the think tank, a closed session that deliberately juxtaposes parties who do not meet in their ordinary settings — industry, NGOs, public bodies and university students in one room. It is followed by open panel discussions on diverse environmental and social topics. Personalities from politics and business discuss sustainable living models and technical green innovations with the audience, offering viewers the opportunity to exchange views on the problems and topics presented in the films in the form of an open discussion.
Marketplace — Companies and NGOs represent themselves and exhibit their products and services. On this real sustainability marketplace, brands with green claims from different areas are presented: the latest food and technology trends as well as tips for urban living environments.
Award Gala Night — Finalising the Green Me events each year is the award night, during which the best films from different categories receive an award from the Green Me juries. The awards are presented by prominent jury members, across seven categories.
Film Workshop — Initiated in 2016, offering students from invited film schools the opportunity to be inspired by the festival theme and participate creatively in a 48-hour film competition. The workshop has become a crucial part of the festival.
Kids & Youth — Children and young people are entertained with films selected for them and engaged at interactive participation stands in the foyer.
International — Showcases beyond the home festival, supported in Los Angeles by the German Consulate and the Goethe-Institut.
Every festival is built on 10 NGOs · 10 Corporations · 10 universities.
Reading this figure: Every festival is built on ten NGOs, ten corporations and ten universities. The think tank seats parties together who do not meet in their ordinary settings — an automotive lobby meeting does not include Greenpeace, and an environmental forum does not include the carmaker. The festival triggers the exchange; the standing local operation is what turns it into something that continues after the week ends.
Pre-festival Monday: Press conference · Tuesday: Social media day
Festival Wednesday: Opening gala with meet and greet Thursday: Grand opening with screening of opening film Friday: Film workshop / Film screening & panel discussions / Marketplace Saturday – Friday: Film screening & panel discussions / Product exhibition at marketplace Saturday: Award Gala Night with dinner and award presentation
Press conference
Social media day
Opening gala with meet and greet
Grand opening, screening of the opening film
Film workshop · screenings and panel discussions · marketplace
Screenings and panel discussions · product exhibition at the marketplace
Award Gala Night with dinner and award presentation
| Day | Phase | Programme |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Pre-festival | Press conference |
| Tuesday | Pre-festival | Social media day |
| Wednesday | Festival | Opening gala with meet and greet |
| Thursday | Festival | Grand opening, screening of the opening film |
| Friday | Festival | Film workshop · screenings and panel discussions · marketplace |
| Saturday – Friday | Festival | Screenings and panel discussions · product exhibition at the marketplace |
| Saturday | Festival | Award Gala Night with dinner and award presentation |
Each year the festival focuses on three main themes forming a triad — Soil | Soul | Food; Ocean | Life | Water; Climate | Joy | Air; Action | Passion | Fire. The 2017 edition ran Climate | Joy | Air, with topic strands on global warming and extreme weather, sustainability and urban life, mobility of the future, and access to clean air.