General Terms and Conditions for Distance Learning Course

These General Terms and Conditions (hereinafter referred to as ‘GTC’) apply to all distance learning contracts between ecodemy GmbH, Fritz-Schäffer-Straße 1, 53113 Bonn, (hereinafter referred to as ‘ecodemy’ or ‘we/us’) and our students, who may be consumers (§ 13 German Civil Code) or traders (§ 14 German Civil Code) (hereinafter referred to as ‘students’ or ‘you/your’).

Consumer refers to any natural person who enters into a transaction for a purpose that is predominantly outside their trade, business or profession.

A trader, on the other hand, refers to a natural or legal person or a partnership with legal personality who or which, when entering into a contract, acts in exercise of their or its trade, business or profession.

Registration of minors is only possible with the written consent of their legal representative(s). The agreement on the place of jurisdiction in section 25 affects questions of application in the distance learning contract with reference to foreign countries.

The relevant provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure (for example § 12 German Code of Civil Procedure etc.) and substantive law apply for cases that occur within Germany.

You can choose between two plans of each distance learning course (Standard or Premium). The two plans differ with regard to the amount of unlocked study contents. The number of activated chapters per month of your chosen plan can be found in point two of the registration form.

To access the distance learning course you need to register on our online campus. To do this, you need an email address and a password and a user name of your choice, which you confirm by clicking on the ‘Submit Registration’ button.

After confirming your email address, you enter your data as a next step of the registration process. In particular, you enter your billing address and your payment details. As a last step, you can check all the details you inserted (for example your name, your address, payment method, selected plan) once again and correct any errors before finally confirming your data by clicking on the ‘Sign now‘ button.

You can download your registration form, you can print it out, sign it and send it to us or directly sign online. Click on the ‘Start’ button to begin the signing process. Once all the required fields have been filled or signed, you can complete the online signing process by clicking on the ‘Done’ button.

You complete your binding booking process by accepting the Xodo Sign terms and conditions by clicking on ‘I agree’. With the booking you bindingly declare your contract offer. We will immediataly confirm receipt of the contract offer. The confirmation of receipt does not constitute a binding acceptance of the offer. We are entitled to accept the contractual offer contained in the order within two days of receipt of the order by email, fax, telephone, post or by unlocking the account. With the acceptance, a contract is concluded between you and us (conclusion of contract).

Your distance learning course and the 14-day right of revocation (free trial period) begin on the day the contract is concluded.

During your free trial period you will receive access to the first chapter of your distance learning course and you will get a preview of further lessons in later chapters. Every 30 days (equivalent to one month of study), additional chapters will be activated according to the number of chapters we agreed upon in your registration form until you have received all chapters.

In the Standard plan you will receive one chapter every 30 days, that means after expiry of the free trial period you will receive the second chapter after 16 days.

In the Premium plan, you will receive the missing chapters of the first month of study after expiry of the free trial period and you will receive the chapters of the second study month after 16 days. You undertake not to sell, lend or pass on the study materials provided. Further, you undertake not to teach or arrange any lessons on the basis of this distance learning concept.

The statutory warranty law applies to the study materials.

We grant you the non-exclusive right, limited for the duration of the distance learning contract and unrestricted in terms of location, to use the content provided for private and business purposes, subject to full payment of the remuneration owed and due. Transferring the contents to third parties or making copies for third parties outside the scope of these GTC is not permitted unless we have consented to such actions.

You are only entitled to download content and to print out content if a download or print-out option is available (for example by means of a download button). You receive a non-exclusive right of use of the contents duly downloaded and printed out by you for an unlimited period of time for private and business purposes.

In all other respects, all rights to the content remain with us as the original rights holder. Any other use, in particular copying, distributing, translating, making available to the public, renting, leasing, exhibiting or lending content, both in printed and digital form, is prohibited. It is also prohibited to remove or alter copyright notices, logos and other marks or protective notices.

We make the nutrient database available to you exclusively online for research purposes on our platform. Neither complete nor partial downloads are permitted. All other content created by us and protected by copyright, such as blog articles, eBooks, study materials or our logo, may only be used after consultation with us and written consent from us.

We continuously update our study materials as is necessary to ensure that our quality and safety standards continue to improve. We provide information about updates to the study materials in the relevant subject forum or on the chapter overview page.

During your distance learning course, you can contact our support team for general and organizational questions at or via our Support Center. In addition, you can use the online-campus community with its forums and groups to ask your lecturers questions or to exchange information and network with other students.

Some distance learning courses have a component of compulsory (obligatory) online-seminars (webinars). The costs for these online-seminars are already included in the tuition fees. They serve to deepen or expand the study content. Not all distance learning courses include online-seminars. You can find out whether one or more online-seminars are included in your distance learning course on the registration form, in the information brochure and in the first course book of your study materials, which is already available to you during the free trial period.

You can pay the tuition fees by SEPA direct debit, PayPal or by bank transfer. If you do not exercise your right of revocation or termination, your tuition fees will be debited by SEPA direct debit or PayPal, unless otherwise agreed with us – (for example) payment by bank transfer. The debit will take place either on the first or 15th day of the calendar month. You will receive one or more invoices from us for your tuition fees. The payment will be debited within the following 6 weeks after the invoice date. If you choose to pay by bank transfer, the tuition fees must be paid within 7 days following the invoice date.

The digital certificate of completion will only be sent to you once the full amount of tuition fees has been paid. In accordance with the Distance Learning Protection Act, the tuition fees remain the same throughout the entire distance learning course or correspond to those agreed upon in your registration form. The tuition fee includes the study materials and the correction of the final exam as well as the preparation of your certificate. Books, learning aids etc. recommended by us are not included in the tuition fees.

Please find further information on the duration of your studies and the processing time on your registration form. The stated duration is a standard period of study which may or may not be exceeded. If you fall short of the stated duration of study, this will not lead to any fee reduction.

You need a PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone with internet access and audio playback. Audio recording and a webcam are only required if your distance learning course includes one or more webinars. To access the online-campus, you also need a browser, such as Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari or Microsoft Edge in a current version. To read the course books in PDF format, you will need a PDF reader such as Adobe Acrobat Reader.

You can take the final exam within 24 months of study (720 days) after your course has been unlocked - the earliest date is the day after receipt of the last chapter. Furthermore, you will be able to access the study materials during this period of time.

At the end of the 24 months of study, you can optionally get a multiple twelve-month extension (360 days each) of your membership in order to gain further access to the online-campus with regularly updated study materials. The renewal request must be made in written form or by using a button in the online-campus no later than six months after the access expires, otherwise the user account including all associated data will be deleted irrevocably.

Within the course materials you will find self-assessment tasks. In addition, each chapter ends with a multiple-choice test. You will receive a certificate from us if you have passed the internal final exam with at least 50 % of the required performance. The performance in the multiple-choice tests is included in the final grade. A failed final exam can be repeated free of charge once and if you repeat it for a second time you will be charged an additional fee. In the event of a failure, a confirmation of participation can be issued on request.

As a consumer, you have a legal right of revocation of 14 days, during which you can test our services at your leisure. If you continue your distance learning course, this period is part of the regular duration of study and will be calculated according to the information on your registration. As a trader, we grant you a voluntary right of termination (see section 23).

The ecodemy^® Seals are available to you during or after the successful completion of your distance learning course for promotional (commercial) use both online for your website and in the (digital) print area for eBooks, business cards or flyers. Legal notes and further information can be found in the corresponding article in our Help Center.

If you have completed our distance learning course to become a vegan nutritionist and/or you can prove that you are working as a vegan nutritionist, you can be entered in our International Directory for Vegan Nutritionists in compliance with our ethics policy. Upon successful completion of an ecodemy additional training, this will automatically be added to your directory profile under ‘Foundational and Additional Trainings at ecodemy^®’.

The distance learning course contract can be concluded with a minimum contract period of three (3) months of study and can be terminated with a notice period of two (2) months of study. This means that in the event of a termination, two further months of study will follow the month of study that has already begun. Deviating from this, individual agreements can be made in the contract. To be effective, the termination must be made in text form by post, email or directly through our website at ecodemy.com/termination. The right of each party to issue an extraordinary termination remains unaffected by this. In the event of premature termination, access to the online-campus will be blocked immediately and the user account will be deleted after three (3) months. This does not affect the possibility of extending your membership in accordance with clause twelve.

Like any science, medicine and related disciplines are subject to constant development. Research and clinical experience expand our knowledge, especially with regard to treatment and therapy. Insofar as a recommendation, dosage, application, etc. is mentioned in the information provided, you may trust that we have taken great care to ensure that this information corresponds to the state of knowledge at the time of completion of the work. However, no guarantee or liability can be assumed for such information. You are required to check them carefully yourself and act on your own responsibility. Furthermore, our recommendations and advice are in no way intended to replace medical advice, diagnosis or treatment in the case of an existing illness - it is not a therapy. You should therefore never use the information we provide as your sole source for making health-related decisions. In case of complaints, medical advice should be sought in any case.

Promotional vouchers and discount codes are voucher codes (hereinafter referred to as ‘voucher codes’) which cannot be purchased from us, but which we issue as part of promotional campaigns or as a gesture of goodwill with a specific period of validity. The amount of the voucher code or the percentage discount granted, the period of validity, and the distance learning course to which you can apply a voucher code are shown in the respective promotional or advertising campaign. The voucher code can only be redeemed before the registration process is completed. The discount will be deducted from your tuition fees each month. Subsequent settlement is not possible. Only one voucher code can be redeemed per registration. The voucher code cannot be exchanged for a monetary amount and cannot be combined with other promotions or government subsidies. Publication and commercial distribution of the voucher code are not permitted. Separate promotion conditions, which differ from these regulations, may apply to voucher codes. We will draw attention to separate promotional conditions in the respective promotional campaign or advertising campaign.

We shall be liable without limitation for intent and gross negligence and in accordance with the provisions of the Product Liability Act. In the event of slight negligence, we shall be liable for injury to life, limb and health of persons.

In other cases, we shall only be liable for slight negligence in the event of a breach of material contractual obligations. Material contractual obligations are those whose fulfilment is essential for the proper performance of the contract and on whose compliance the contractual partner relies on. Liability in the event of a breach of such a material contractual obligation shall be limited to the damage typical for the contract, the occurrence of which we had to expect at the time of conclusion of the contract on the basis of the circumstances known at that time. This limitation of liability shall also apply in favor of our vicarious agents.

The quality of this distance learning course has been checked and approved by the State Central Office for Distance Learning in Cologne, Germany.

Consumers have a fourteen-day long right of revocation.

Statement of Revocation Right

Right of revocation: You have the right to revoke from this contract within fourteen days without giving any reason. The revocation period is fourteen days from the day of the conclusion of the contract. To exercise your right of revocation, you must inform us, ecodemy GmbH, Fritz-Schäffer-Straße 1, 53113 Bonn, Germany, of your decision to revoke from this contrac by an unequivocal statement (for example by post, email, letter, or by using a button in the online-campus). You may use the model revocation form (ecodemy.com/revocation), but this is not mandatory. To comply with the revocation period, it is sufficient that you send the notification of the exercise of the right of revocation before the revocation period has expired.

Consequences of revocation: If you revoke from this contract, we will refund all payments that we have received from you, including delivery costs (with the exception of any additional costs incurred by your optional choice of another mode of delivery other than the least expensive standard delivery offered by us) without undue delay, and at the latest fourteen days from the date on which your notice of revocation of this agreement has been received by us. We will issue the refund using the same method of payment that you selected for the original transaction, unless expressly agreed with you otherwise; under no circumstances will you be charged a fee for this refund. We bear the costs of returning the study materials. You only have to pay for any loss of value of the study material if this loss of value is due to handling the study material in a way that is not necessary for checking the condition, the properties and functioning of the study material.

Exceptions to the right of revocation: Your right of revocation expires according to § 356 (5) no. 2 German Civil Code if we have started the execution of the contract after you have expressly agreed that we start the execution of the contract before the expiry of the revocation period and you have confirmed your knowing that you lose your right of revocation by agreeing with the start of the execution of the contract and we have provided you with a confirmation according to § 312f German Civil Code. This also marks the end of the free trial period.

We grant our students who are not consumers an equivalent right of termination to clause 22. You have the right to terminate or waive this contract/free trial period within fourteen days without giving any reason from the date of conclusion of the contract in accordance with the conditions set out in clause 22.

We are entitled to make changes to these GTC and will only make such changes for good cause if unforeseeable changes have occurred after the conclusion of the contract or loopholes are revealed which significantly disrupt the relationship between performance and consideration. You will be notified of any changes to the GTC by email at least six (6) weeks before they come into force. The changes require your consent. If you do not agree to the notification of changes within six (6) weeks after receipt, we may terminate the contract in writing within a period of two (2) weeks (after expiry of the approval period) with a notice period of one (1) month (entry into force of the new GTC).

In the event of a dispute, the competent court in your place of residence shall have jurisdiction. This contract and the entire legal relationship between the parties shall be governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany to the exclusion of the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). Any amendment to the contract must be given in writing. This also applies to the cancellation of the written form. Should one paragraph become invalid, all other paragraphs shall nevertheless remain valid.