we remind you. in future europe exports are 1000000000 tons of plastic waste. is there another way to control the environment isn't recyclable. to make up your own mind. w. made for mines. if you come for a drive cycle or wall crown parts of germany any time lately you may have come across huge advertising billboards asking the question if we can stop global warming or create

a fairer walt and how many of us think about the products we buy where they came from and inmate them is it our job the consumer all the responsibility of multi 1000000000 euro corporations shareholder pressure is starting to make boardrooms more accountable and t.v. commercials tugging shoppers a clear the trend here in europe at least is towards green and fair. i'm not here to politico heartstrings but any football mom or dad would sleep better at night if they knew their kid was kicking around a soccer ball that hadn't been stitched together by the tiny hands of a boy or girl around the same age on the other side of the world in pakistan where officials have failed after decades of if it's to fully eradicate child labor. soccer is a global sport whether it's children or adults playing for fun all the pros like in the german bundesliga it's a global business with billions but what if the soccer ball went to come from.

most of them come from c.l. kit in pakistan for decades the city has been the world's largest producer of soccer balls thousands of local people work in the industry. in the past all the balls was sewn by hand but times have changed at least at this company game if you do says 160000 cycles a year many automated production. the industry used to be in the tourists many workers took the balls home with them with family members including children stitched them by hand. in how to produce everything in-house only and we only allow people who work 18 or over to work in our factories. our focus is on producing high quality balls would you want to achieve that we have to provide more benefits and good wages to our workers benefit we just speak of me but being in

2015 but i gave i was certified as a fair trade company indicating that it meets international standards for working conditions. and that different rates have a fair israeli company has to have fixed labor contracts with all its employees with agreed working hours better working conditions rights to representation within the company all workers are entitled to sit and maternity leave. and these are all conditions that the whole company has to adhere to. at dell based on the supply for the german bundesliga all the soccer balls are made in pakistan. at peak times the headquarters in germany sends out nearly 100000 bulls and the management here is satisfied that its partner company of pakistan does not use child labor. check on that by ensuring that no soccer

balls are produced in private homes 20 years ago we opened our own sewing centers and we were able to monitor the process. but has the industry really changed even now only a fraction of the. trade conditions. the mayor of seattle assures us that working conditions have improved he says there was a lot of international pressure. we have a level of compliance with worker standards and action of workers rights can't be found anywhere else in pakistan. pay for social security and you will and should benefits for our employees. things didn't exist before. and as we have complied with employer protection standards the pricing is becoming more competitive. but the head of. with fair trade

certification still the exception and a 5 to 10 percent more expensive. isn't a fair trade product. fair trade balls is negligible. only make up about 45 percent of overall sales. it's partly because the fair trade seo is not as high profile in the industry or amongst the clubs as we would all like it to be. back to pakistan and. the company says it wants to become a role model for the entire industry. manages hearsay custom is ont always willing to play ball and shell out more for their products. other than european union or scandal more from the european union and the scandinavian countries buying was from

other regions don't value the fair trade seal because they don't like the higher price but you want you can be a role model for fair trade off not only to provide additional benefits for our workers but also so that our workers put more effort into the fair trade products because they know these provide them with extra benefits and premium sub. extra benefits. despite the lack of industry wide standards it's clear that working conditions insufferable production have improved here over the last decade but then if it's cost money and there's now a very real risk that parts of the production could be transferred to dover weights countries like china only on mom where working conditions may not be fair even monetary. and just because it's fair trade isn't 100 percent guarantee there inspectors can't be everywhere all the time now to something that is free it shines from time to time here in germany and the nations being ranked among the world's

top installers of solar panels for several years now the stats aren't all that impressive when you take a look at solar power as chunk of the overall energy makes the same goes for most other countries time to crunch the numbers with. mine. it's astonishing but clean energy from the some solar energy has become the cheapest way to generate electricity it's even cheaper than coal and yet it produces only 3 percent of the world's electricity. while be using way way more of it how did it get so cheap. and what does all this have to do with ducks. let's find out. first let's take a look at how much the price for solar has fallen. i started this job as

a list of solar 2005. i thought it was ridiculous it's baffling to me chase just ahead solar analyst at research from bloomberg and he pay about. 4 percent. $0.20 for that. and that is just the last 15 years if you look further pack the price drop is even more impressive how did this happen that's been a long story but it's unbelievable up gregory nematodes has written a book about this. no one country did it it was a change of one country building on another one the us created the technology the modern day solar cell made from silicon was invented in the us the 954 back then and many got used in the space industry and still super expensive but as the technology progressed prices started to fall into germany created a market in 2000 germany passed a lot supposed renewable energy developing this was me because it put

a fixed price on energy generated from sources like wind or solar back if people and companies a reason to set up solar panels and for them to do that someone needed to build the solar panels 3 china made it. once the german laws come into force china really started to pump up the solar. so basically able the whole industry for this scale that the rest really didn't keep up with. the non existent player 20 years ago in today and they're going to give us producer of solar panels about 70 percent of the world's production so this is how we ended up where we are now clean energy that also makes business sense but solar is so great why don't we rely on it much much more than just switch off all these 30 power plants well sold us always had this one big problem. it only really works when the sun is shining.

when it's cloudy or even worse dark even the best solar cells are pretty useless and that's a real shame because that's when we need them the most. let's take a look at how we use energy in the morning when most people get up and get ready we need energy. the so-called daca of charts our demand for power from nonrenewable sources like coal and gas throughout the day 1st in places without much sought after the morning spike it stays pretty level. when people come home in the evening it goes up again and then drops at night at this point you might get an idea why they call it the back of because it kind of looks like a duck. anyway in places with lots of solar like california this curve changes the mornings are pretty much the same vendor sun rises and solar energy production kicks in this lets demand for nonrenewable energy drop. until the sun sets then. that is when conventional demand shoots up again way steeper than in the

1st curve to problems with this one traditional power plants suck and ramping up this quickly that means you have to keep them running at a certain output all day even though there's lots of solar and that means that you could end up with actually more power produced in a day that he. and that leads to the 2nd problem the limits to how much energy you can put into the grid too much solar could overpower so it needs to be thrown away this is always made it super difficult to add lots of solar to power systems but guess what there is now a solution to this chances are you have part of it in front of you right now a lithium ion battery. or just a human same construction stringing together many many of those cells and making battery packs that we can use for cars and then we can also scale that up to use for stationary power to go next to women or solar farms.

projects built with. storage in the battery. in the u.s. for example the state of new mexico just decided to shut down a coal plant that's build new solar farms that store large amounts of the energy they produce and batteries. lithium ion batteries have become a lot better and a lot cheaper than expected in the last few years they're now a viable option for storing and shifting at least a few hours worth of solar energy as needed so the storage problem that's always sad is actually not that much of a problem anymore. sometimes though we might want a longer term storage places without much sunshine for example and that's why companies are offering other solutions let's just run through.

another type of battery called a flow battery separates the charge. that has 2 advantages it can store more energy and. the problem is still relatively expensive. hydro storage which is already used quite a bit you need. one of the needs to be on a hill during the day you use solar energy to pump water from the lower leg to the higher when you need energy. to find legs and hill. the solution gravity comes from. building blocks with solar energy and then releases the energy by lowering them. to space also the option of using solar to produce hydrogen and with that hydrogen number of things like fuel costs or even make steel but the whole process is pretty costly i think that. there

are alternatives it's just. batteries are becoming. expensive it'll be hard to compete but they do have other attributes like the charge longer which. has become cheap and has pretty much fixed the problem so what's next. i would not be surprised if by 2030 we're talking about doing a large part of the world's. solar is called a long way but now that the technologies in place it really looks like it's time to shop. just like if you like this piece. similar topics and make sure you visit our planet

a. but when it comes to investing your money how much of it supports green initiatives especially if you leave it up to a hedge fund or exchange traded fund a reporter at the frankfurt stock exchange chelsea delaney took a look at how easy or hard it is being green. list stretches of cream. the frozen tundra of the our tech. lush south american jungles this is what climate activists want to say from destruction but can fighting against climate change also make you rich. my friend lizzy's started investing last year through trading out mostly buying popular tech stocks but she also cares about the environment and she once turned vestments to reflect that. and it's not just her. millions of people have taken to the streets in recent years to protest climate

change and that movement has also found its way into financial markets many no longer just want investments to make money they also want them to make the world a better place. in the past 3 years investments into sustainable assets have searched by almost 400 percent here in europe. but what does it really mean to enjoy a screen and is this promise that you can make money while also saving the planet too good to be true. to answer that question i'm on my way to see one of germany's green investing heavyweights. called book fitz manages sustainable stock portfolios for the german asset manager of the u.s. he's been very busy lately thanks in large part to my generation. we have the 1000000 units they are now we present 50 percent of the global workforce and for them sustainability is very important so they will invest their

money in a different way compare through their parents for example there was green investing a profitable couple of years ago it was always like oh if you want to. invest in a sustainable manner or green then. you might survive performance for that but now it's the merits. it's turning into if you want to make performance you better invest in a sustainable manner or you invest green because especially last year we have seen that most of the sustainability funds passive and active outperformed the broader market so i'm looking here at one of the top european sustainability stock funds it includes about $400.00 different companies that all are labeled as maybe you are the no this acronym stands for and mental social and governance and basically these are companies that are committed not just to environmental sustainability but also to taking care of their workers and to being governed and an ethical way. some of

these names might surprise you and finance sustainable doesn't just mean for example a wind turbine maker it can also need a company like nestle which has been increasing its use of renewable energy and introducing more recyclable packaging like for the smarties candies. but we total as an oil journal or rio tinto as a metals miner b.p. was behind one of the biggest oil spills in history how can any of these companies possibly be considered sustainable 1st of all i recommend every investor before investing understand your investment and i ask you it wise and especially about those 2 that you find in those or why is this oil company for example in the fund. but the the space is very diverse and there are many strategies so there is no one solution for all those no shortcuts you have you make up your own mind so how do you decide what is considered green so what we're doing is when we want to evaluate investments we are using to support 3rd party data provider every data provider

saying all right this is really a green company and that is quite high that is really the truth. here's an example of how that might work for you companies dependent on coal or other fossil fuels do your employees work and dangerous conditions. are all of your executives middle aged white men and if so you might end up with a failing sustainability grade. the problem though is that these readings aren't always scientific they can be based on a company's pledge to someday become more sustainable it's based on a promise and promises are easily broken. up or as a critic of green investing she says the end history is overrun with green washing or labeling non-green assets as green to make money and my question will be who defines green it cannot be that we believe that there is of the greening finance agenda through private finance because it's in the same way to me if you lived. i

don't know their health agenda to tobacco companies what is being said it's the same for the private finance. to continue with practices that generate profits and community wise regulatory reach of this thing that's not to say that there aren't environmentalists sustainable assets out there it's just investors responsibility to find them and luckily it is getting easier. as that managers like paul focus and companies are being forced to disclose more data about the climate impacts their businesses and that is a step in the right direction. but it's green investing a really powerful enough to turn the tide of climate change. after this i'm skeptical and so it's daniela. over the last 5 years what we thought was a lot of good ground that we had again it looks like it's a lot of ground that we are losing but we need to realize beyond thinking that with

wind of huge oil financing decisions or with my individual savings decision i will make a difference i don't think that will get us. lizzie is more optimistic she hasn't given up on green investing but she's going to do a lot of research maybe it's not a silver bullet but as we wait for politicians to get serious about climate change even the smallest and official action is better than sitting on the sidelines. watching the devastation of our environment. an important part of sustainability is how we deal with trash since the start of the coronavirus pandemic mosques have generated a lot of waste and even large supply and have a quick turnover last year germany imported 6000000000 euros worth of masks mostly from china and from march through december of last year china exported a whopping 224000000000 masks all over the world that's equivalent to 43000000000

euros so it's big business but what's the impact on the environment and can mosques really be recycled. the soco islands at the far south west of the territory comprising hong kong the waters here have long been polluted but with the pandemic a new form of ways to stern down masks and now we have this to contend with. we have the corona virus and all these masks and now we're still building. these images make me start to wonder how much of a hazard are these masks for our planet it's an item that many of us now where every day. and why do so many of them end up in the ocean instead of being disposed of through the normal channels and what's the right way to dispose of a mask any way. it must whether it's the higher grade

respirator masks or the more basic surgical ones or rubber gloves that people are also using now they all belong in the trash but it's even aren't suitable for recycling because they're medical waste i believe. so they need to be incinerated and bought for. ok but clearly not all masks end up in incinerators as our oceans are littered with them how dangerous is that for marine life and what material are the masks made of to find out i bought an f n f p 2 respirator mask from a pharmacy. and another one from a supermarket in berlin. i then went online and ordered 2 more mask types. finally i packed up all my purchases and sent them off to a textile laboratory for analysis. be able to tell me what exactly the masts are

made of and how hazardous they are for the environment. 2 weeks later i hear back from the lab the good news is wearing a mask isn't harmful for us humans having a mask on for 8 hours a day is fine but for the environment it's a different story. even through a mask away in the countryside somewhere it's not initially harmful for the environment the disadvantage is that some substances in the masks like polypropylene take a long time to decompose that's the big downside and the reason why masks should always be disposed of properly. it is everyone just throws their mask way in some forest that waste will be around for a long time to come. at some stage you end up with micro plastic that's what makes

the masks bad for the environment along the coast of hong kong scientists are finding a growing number of them they estimate that around 1500000 masks entered the scene last year. we need to reduce the single use number one but then also it comes down to governments and you know how they handle the waste management facilities like here the garbage bins the rubbish bins in the street they have very wide openings on let's fall and people just put their mosques and think you know doing the right thing and they get blown out rather easily anniston is out there on the street they go down the drains they go down the drains know the drains leave the oceans. and see it's a joint effort needs to be on the government level as well as individuals. it looks like the masks won't be disappearing from our lines any time soon there are already far too many on the scene but if we all do our part we can at least prevent

a further escalation of the problem. exactly sustainable solutions may cost more at 1st but once everyone joins in the price for stock think about the kind of what you're creating for generations to come. thanks for joining us by.

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