>> today on "earth focus," a look into the future. hamburg, germany. newrth focus -- europe's green capital . white topany shows include is good business. is goodoing good business. the future. what will it look like? no one knows for sure. we do know one thing. cutting carbon emissions is key in shaping tomorrows world and innovators are paving the way.

hamburg was voted europe's green capital in 2011. this industrial giants is setting the standard for green cities. correspondent reports. >> germany -- europe's first industrial powerhouse is coming to terms with the environment. the country decided to phase out nuclear plants by 2022, and a drastic reversal that followed the disaster at japan's nuclear plant fukushima. perhaps the best example of the country's new attitude lies here in the northern city up hamburg. hamburg was named the european green capital of 2011 for its impressive transformation of its industry and the daily lives of its 4 million inhabitants.

what are the forces driving this journey to sustainability? >> if you look around, all these buildings, the offer the latest energy standards and requirements. many of them also do additional things like solar power, things like that. >> for the lucky and have arets -- inhabitants, jobs in working distance or a short boat ride away. it is europe fell largest in their urban venture. but the time these children are adults, hamburg will have reclaimed 40% on the city's historic port side. >> we have 5 kilometers of water, and that creates something special. we have the chance of in hamburg really to be very close

to the water, but also to give the people a chance to walk very close to the water and actually to feel they are in an old harbor, which, by the way, it is very close to the old historic city of hamburg. >> the environmental protection is our priority. >> could you mentioned some examples? >> mm-hmm. we do not have cars. garage, we have public transport, public boats. we have puget distances that can be connected by bicycle or you can walk. and you can use intelligent energy is like solar, biogas. it is pouring 14 developers.

behind the fancy architectural designs is an extremely small carbon footprints and a huge increase in the use of renewable energy sources. its ld hamburg and industrial center are making way for industrial and city. who is going to foot the bill? the hamburg taxpayer and the developers, of course. also the people who choose to live in this setting. >> definitely had has advantages. we are close to 150,000 jobs. children touche school -- to school. we have this dance inner-city mixed with the urban area. it is also a very big benefit to the household, so that

compensates for the higher cost and terms of the buildings. is all these people friendly residences and commercial sites. in construction, the unilever haus, an example of design and sustainability. ofre is virtually no loss energy at the european headquarters upper unilever. the big building is not only about respecting the environment. it is a wise investments. >> this is a benchmark for sustainable architecture. this is very expensive. it is a savings project. really, the sustainability does it pay off. first of all, the way they use materials, and learning,

really, in the end, the usage cost, the annual cost of using the building. it is 70% lower. it is beautiful, and at the same a savings project. the electricity we use here in the building with the led lighting, for example the lighting above me, it is all from so-called dark green energy. dark green energy means it comes from small water power plants in the south of germany. this is where the electricity is produced. we are saving the 67 tons of co2 every year now. it is not only here, but in our factories all over germany where we are using this dark green energy. >> the unilever building in hamburg provides workspaces for

almost 1200 employees. hamburg boasts some of the best local transport systems in europe. that includes a bicycle rental system. when the day is over, this lady grabs a bike next to were office and heads home. there are about 1500 of these rental bikes available throughout town. in 2010, over 70,000 people used them. with these and a few other climate protection measures, hamburg promises to reduce 40% byco2 emissions by 2020. an ambitious goal for the city on the river elbe. but hamburg is first and foremost a port, with then quickly to up the baltic and the north seas. on nonstop flow of goods ships your day and night.

deport has supplied a remarkable automated work for -- the port has supplied a remarkable automated workflow. >> we really want to become co2 neutral. we have very much advanced already. because we use the energy from renewable sources here, we are already at the forefront. >> will cities of the future really be self-sufficient? that may be coming true already in hamburg. the main idea according to the chief urban planner is that vestergaad frandsen -- it will get most of its local energy supplies from local renewable sources. >> we will supply 4000 households. 20% of the households with this

power. be a noble idea to reach the target of 0% co2 emissions. one developer says it is the world's first commercially-run passenger ship where fuel is converted into electrical energy by means of oxygen. the fuel cells power the electric motor that glides at a speed of 14 kilometers per hour with up to 100 passengers on board. hydrogen shipping works. but to use this solution, we need to fix the problem of how to store this energy. >> if we want to go to renewable resources, then we have to have -- renewable resources here in germany, we are talking about

wind especially. that is not necessarily the same as when people have the demand for energy. from our point of view, hydrogen, produced from wind for renewable wind sources is the first -- is the perfect medium of storage. >> the hydrogen ship will help relieve the environmental burden on the city center, because it serves as an ecologically the late in the center of the metropolitan area. will the technology save us from an environmental disaster? could it be that hydrogen ships , self-sufficient houses, ports will pave the way for a new cleaner way of producing and consuming? only time will tell, but it seems that hamburg is helping to eliminate a smart path to

sustainability, helping us to see for the first time that using natural energy to power the future is not just a dream. innovation is no stranger to industrialized nations. swiss-based vestergaad frandsen else make products that help the developing world. in 2001 under their business model, proper purpose, the launched the first carbon- financed water program. husband and wife filmmakers traveled to make a film about it called "carbon for water." >> [speaking foreign language]

>> some many people all around. water, you can not boil water with it. >> young girls and women of the ones responsible for gathering water in the communities of the western province of kenya and most of africa. they are also responsible for gathering firewood, whether it force -- whether it is for cooking or boiling. it can be an open river, stream. it is based on over one month of travel throughout the region, the mountainous regions, the low land regions. the water is brown. it is heavily contaminated with bacteria. -- they tell you you are supposed to used boiling

water. you are not supposed to drink water that was diluted from this cave. enoughrder to cut firewood for me, so i came to realize i was the one demolishing the forest, by the way. endlessly.wn to end up without any trees. i am sure. what i know. there is going to be a further complication. >> if we do not do something now, we are going to see greater conflict over natural resources.

rwanda was ain conflict that manifested itself as an ethnic war. but it was over water. >> how do you link financing to the water projects so that you have lasting impact in the community? >> carmen finance was one that looked very interesting to us. we debated how we could make the connection between environment and safe drinking water. the first ever broader to get carbon credits for safe drinking water. it is the single largest water

treatment program done with this financing in the developing world environment. >> they had a very good solution to developing problems. i said it was fantastic to have the private sector to step up and be more conscious and use their innovation and there are research and development to do something that would bring good to people. >> the idea behind carbon for water is simple. water collected is passed through the water purifier. one unit provides a family of five with enough safe drinking water for three years, replacing traditional boiling techniques produces carbon emissions. a carbon credit is earned. for the first six years, they can visit 4.4 million voluntary carbon emission credits. these are then sold on the

global market to companies or individuals who want to offset their carbon impact. from water is a campaign -- >> so, carbon from water is a campaign where 4000 health workers and another 4000 divers go door-to-door and visit ,00,000 homes, and those homes they install the water filter. thus, the need for boiling water is no longer there.

>> the scale of this campaign is enormous, covering 4.5 million people, 25 working days. it is not just ambitious. it is a tremendous amount of work and requires teamwork and partnership. we have the ministry of health partners from the ground up working nights and weekends with us. >> so, we had 4000 community health workers with us in the field, and they were using the smartphone application to send in their data. we get to see this be back real time. we also have a map. and that ties back to our accountability and ultimately the stream to the car and finance.

>> as we are going door-to-door, it takes five weeks to reach all 900,000 homes. bringing car and finance to the sort of project is really a revolutionary -- carbon finance to the certification project is really revolutionary. that, we simply would never have seen it on the scale that we have done. iswhat i really, really like the creativity and innovation of business to think about, ok, need to make money. that is ultimately what companies need to survive. how can we do that and also help? >> this is remarkably different from the way that energy normally works. we are freeing up cash internationally because we generate emission reduction.

there is very rigorous monitoring and auditing involved. we are not paid a sense until we have documented very clearly how by how manyanted people how often. a very rigorous performance model is something, to the best of my knowledge, never been introduced to global development. >> traditionally carbon finance has been used to reduce emissions for large, what we call single sources such as power stations in one place. or a factory. but here, you could of thousands, in fact hundreds of thousands of small interventions, and each small intervention makes a very, very significant emission reduction. byis project will reduce co2 2 million tons per year.

that in itself makes it one of the most significant carbon production projects in the world. >> i have been working on this for a couple years, and learning some much about the crisis going on right now in the planet as we face such changes and challenges, to see a company like vestergaad frandsen doing help people on the ground to reduce carbon emissions and do something as simple as to give water to a population that never had it, clean, was something i wanted to be behind. >> the people here benefit obviously. to improve health, through improved economy, through improved climate. my company benefits because we can hopefully maintain the two goals that we have for this campaign -- do good and do good. carbon credit is being

generated here are sold to international trade destinations. everybody wins. fishing aid. a people look at it and say, oh. and even before people are adopting the use of the filter, number one in their heads, it is ringing. i'd drink only clean water. >> we are saving lives. it is our problem, too. we are part of the issue that contributed to the problems here. we can also be part of the solution. >> sustainability, hunger, poverty. that is a responsibility that lies with businesses. the need to think about their role in the community. they may not be a direct customer, but they are certainly affected by the decisions made in that courtroom. >> of like to see more

companies and governments to start updating their models and do things differently. hopefully this is going to lead the way. it is attracting a lot of attention. people are going to do this and possibly improve on it. >> there were people who knew that cutting a line of fire was not good for their communities. at the same time, we were very aware that that was one of the only courses they had to survival. it was sort of a paradox between the knowledge that was not good and the awareness that there is really no alternative. the project comes in and offers people that alternative, which i thought was very poignant. >> companies to do not figure out and do not understand that they have this role will not be around 10 or 20 years from now. a growing base of consumers

understand this increasing connectedness and will push companies into reacting. to bedoes not matter where the carbon emissions are saved or reduced. co2 mixes in the atmosphere. if we continue to use fossil fuels and release carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at the same rate, we will, in fact we already have, upset the natural energy balance of the atmosphere. carbondoing more science, doing what it is really meant to do, which is helping more people have a higher quality of life at the grass- roots level. >> we want to inspire our audience to see that there is creativity to find solutions and also make a project sustainable economically. is to i listed to think that all the legwork will

be done by the engineers -- by the ngo's and governments. it has become quite clear that if something is not profitable, it will not be sustainable in the long run. it will not be able to of the impact that it should. we hope to encourage the private sector to look toward the is unique funding opportunities. perhaps not even just the car and credits, but anything that comes down the line. -- the carbon credits, but anything that comes down . finding a way to make money doing that, and finding a way to preserve what is left of our ecosystems around the world and encourage people to have greater responsibility for the earth. that is really the main driving force behind making the film. [indiscernible] not see me using

fire what -- firewood for boiling water again. >> if only. ♪ [captions made possible