t >> welcome to global 3000. more than a billion tons of food are thrown away worldwide every year. what's the solution? financially rewarding investment that is also environmentally sound. is there such a thing? but firs our plat is drowning iplastic wast how can we clean up our world? the plastic revolution began around 1950. over nearly 70 years, an estimated 9 billion tons have been produced. every year more than 350 million tons of plastic are

added to the mix. and just a fraction is recycled. around half of plastic products are used only once and are then thrown away. the majority of plastic waste goes in a landfill, is incinerated, or ends up in the natural environment. every year around 25 million tons of plastic ends up in our oceans. that's a truckload of it every minute. if our plastic consumption continues to rise, we'll be discarding two truckloads a minute within ten years and 4 per minute by 2050. then, there will be more plastic than fish in our oceans. plastic needs centuries to decompose, so the plastic we discard today will be a problem for many generations to come. >> an idyllic location on the ruhr river in western germany. but take a closer look and itâ™s -- and it is not as beautiful. kevin, noel and their classmates have come to do some

fishing, but not the usual kind. it's trash they're fishing for. and here, it doesn't take long. there's litter everywhere they look. and lots of different types of it. kevin and noel show us some discarded newspapers. and cigarette lighters. they're worried they could cause wildfires. and there's plenty of plastic , and quite a few glass bottles, too, quite a few. the students attend a local high school and are taking part in an initiative called plastic pirates. it's a research project where young students get to do the work of real scientists. they take water samples, and measure, count and record the pieces of trash they recover from the rivers and riverbanks. scientists in kiel use the data to generate a garbage map for german rivers and calculate how

much trash ends up in the se since 2016, more than 15,000 plastic pirates from 700 schools have collected samples from all over germany. the project is now being launched in other european countries too. >> the great advantage for science here is that a vast amount of data can be collected within a very short period of time. that's also what the plastic pirates do. we run the initiative for a period of two months, and within that time we normally receive hundreds of datasets. we could never achieve that with o small team. the great benefit ofitizen science is the amount of data that comes together. >> for the past two years, the school has included the topic of recycling on their curriculum. and the teachers are happy to do their part to inspire the budding scientists.

>> it's something i care about myself. it always bothers me when i see people leaving rubbish behind, especially when they have small children with them and are supposed to be setting an example. and it's part of my job to teach the students to care for their environment. >> a hands-on project is much more effective than sitting in a classroom with a piece of paper in front of them, especially now in the pandemic. >> the work of the plastic pirates shows that, on average, one piece of trash can be found for every two square meters of riverbank in germany. france also has a project aimed at tracking down therash. it's calleplastic origins and goes a step further, using artificial intelligence and an volunteers and citizens as weh n to go on the rivers so you can collect data through

kayaking or walking along the riverbanks. and using those data, using the video footage they are going to take of the riverbanks, we wil be able to analy those videos, detect litter ems andur plastic pollution. >> the aim of plastic origin is to get strict legislation introducedn plastic waste, and regulatory limits for the amount of plastic in european. their garbage map is intended to identify especially polluted areas. >> and it's super important, because it's going to help us to pollution is coming fromould act fierywhere.know, like the but we know that most of the pollution we find in the ocean transpoed by rirs. buright now,e don't kn which rivers are the most p.

>> but the app can't track microplastics. in germany alone, 4 kilos of microplastics per person per year end up in the environment. the main sources -- particles from vehicle tires, industrial waste and household garbage. it's difficult for wastewater treatment plants to filter out the tiny particles. but a munich startup called ecofario is showing how it can be done, using a simple but effective method. dr. sebastian porkert: we'd be the last stage in the purification process. we take the clean ter that would normally be pumped into the rivers, lakes or sea. but it still ctains a remnant oficroplasti. itmit be quite a lot.partict whatever's left, we're able to reve a large amount of it. >> their prototype icurrently being tested. this is how it works: the waste water is pumped in on the top -- pumped into the filter.

a powerful vortex is created in the pipe, pushing water containing a large amount of microplastics to the top. the company says 95% of microplastics from municipalities and industry could be filtered out in this way. but that's not enough for sebastian porkert. he's cling for a plastic relution. dr. porkert: just hing a few people doingthe enough to turn society on its head. at will only work with rlly rirous legistion conceing areas like sgle-use plastics, croplastics, waste wat treatment, regulatory limits, and so forth. legislion that scifies exactly wh technology must be used, and where whether it's ours or someone else's doesn't matter. >> the young plastic pirates agree that more needs to be done to combat plastic pollution. after just two hours in this idyllic location, they've found more trash than they can even carry.

>> shifting our world economy toward sustainability will require both a lot of cash, and a good deal of support from wealthy investors. there's no shortage of capital. in 2019, global wealth totalled nearly $400 trillion. and global stocks alone were worth around $95 trillion. but the overwhelming aim of investment is to make money. the impact on our planet and its people often takes a back seat. but there are other ways of doing things. >> on april 20, 2010, a drilling rig exploded in the gulf of mexico, leading to the largest oil spill in history. reports revealed that the attempts by oil company bp to t costs d maximizerofits d to the daster.

>> the incident illustrates the planet and shareholder profits. but what if it didn't have to be this way? martin kremenstein: we were very expressly concerned over the outsourced maintainance of offshore wells. >> before this scandal, some investors had sold their bp shares, concerned about the company's record on environmental, social, and governance issues. sthese metrics are now calledsh that three esg, and they are defing a new way of investing that promises to reconcile planet and profit. but can they deliver? as cynical as the financial world might seem, ethical nsideratns have always played a role in investment decisions.

the origins of responsible investing trace back to 1758, enome relious grou prohited membersrom profiting from the slave trade. but the modern era of responble inveing really evolved in the 1960s, together with the boycott movement. martin kremenstein: it started with the boycotts of companies that did business with apartheid south africa, that was really the genesis of this and en it kindf grew up along with the green movement tthrough the 1970s and it kind then gr to corporat removaof tobaccotocks, removal of firearmmanufacturersf nuclear weapon manufacturers. it wasll about excluding companies. >> this exclusion strategy is called divesting, and despite the initial excitement, it led to mixed results. hauke hillebrandt: it is, however, according to modelittle b.lio theory, you have to sacrifice some financial returns. >> divestments removed entire sectors like energand tobacco

investors' portfolios. when a portfolio is less diversied, its risk goes up. the first of such funds, for example, has historically underperformed the market. but big money is now betting thathis willhange. inis 2020 leer to ceosrically larry nk, the chairman of. blackrock, the world's largest fund manager, came right out and said climate risk is investment risk. main: i don't think there is a choice between plan and profit. when you look at some of the esg wasti resourc part oft ethe -- it d the boom line.re y? well, th brings stight back i. >> screeng compaes for e critia has pven an fective y to antipate an avoid andals cable of

wipi out sha prices.artin:so foe critia has pven an nuveen esg mutual fund hadn't hold volkswagen for a long time becae there questions around the gornanccompany.ure of the >> this allowed those esg funds to avoid the stock crash that followed vw's emissions cheating scandal. >> green companiesre also better prepared to face the growing threat of climate change. these factors are reviving the. sustainable funds are attracting new assets at a record pace so the real question, then, is not whether green investments can make profits. the question is whher th can be called green in the first place? marn: there certainly is a definition problem in regard to esg. the lack of a central standard is an issue. hauke so a company could, in theory, score very well on these esg rankings, but on the other

hand, have very large negative externalities on the environment. >> and even if a company is genuinely green, buying its ares may n translate into creating an impact. the theory of chge behind sustat straight forward. the more funds green companies receive, the more they can pursue their sustainable goals. but divestments are unlikely to financially starve the fossil fuel industry. for this strategy to be effective, it must permanently reduce a company's ability to access capital. but when capital is divested, this also creates an opportunity for other investors touy shares at a lower price. when this happens, the stock ice can quickly bounce back to its previous level, without impacting the company's valuation. hauke: it's not enough, it simply isn't because the effect , is so tiny.

>> esg invtments are not a magic formula. very often, what is advertised as sustainable is just greenwashing. in other cases, impact can be achieved only by sacrificing some profit. ten, invting in hily profitable non-green companies and then diverting the profit to environmental causes would be more effective. but simia mo importa point. rtin: is tougto measu an impact other than, your conscience is clear you don't profit from that aivity. >> many people simply no longer want to invest money at the expensof the envonment. and that ane is an iortant step forward. >> investing in our future, leading a self-determined life .

this should be a giv for everne includi women. >>on our febook chnel, dwwomen,s leading a self-determined life . abt those king a snd, andinspi. this should be a giv for everne includi women. dw womenives a voi to the women of o world. this week in global ideas we also turn our attention to waste. much of what is discarded in landfills is still perfectly usable. including food. around 1.3 billion tons of food is thrown away every year. at the same time, according to the un, 690 million people worldwide suffer from hunger. even though there would be enough to feed everyone. most viewers will only see a carpet of trash here. daniel bucher sees a scandal. in thailand's landfills, nearly two thirds of the waste is organic mostly food waste. daniel bucher: on the surface this all looks like plastic waste. but when you look inside, as

well as at this soft gooey stuff down there, it's all food, organic, it's bio-mass. these still look quite ok, they're well packed. you could probably wash them and make something with them. >> originally from germany, daniel bucher is head chef in a bangkok hotel. food, and reducing food waste, is important to him. daniel: i personally hate throwing food away. not only because when i've cooked something i've put a lot of care and attention into it. but also because it just seems utterly idiotic to throw something away that is clearly edible. it has always bothered me and it , drives me nuts. >> bucher can normally be found in his hotel.

with over a thousand rooms, it's one of the biggest in thailand. heâ™s planted a vegetable garden on the roof of the hotel for his 200 staff. its yield is negligible compared to the hotel's needs. but the project has raised his staff's awareness of the life of food. daniel: the way we carelessly throw things away is a result of our seeing food merely as a product. we're not aware of how difficult it is to actually plant something, and how long the path is from the seed in the soil to the edible produce. >> bucher says storing food correctly is key, something he always thought was obvious. but he has found many people ignore even some of the most basic principles. things like drying washed vegetables to help them keep longer. every day, hygiene teams check the food in the hotel's pantries to make sure it's fresh. daniel: if you have a bell pepper which is going soft in a box like

this, a whole part of the box can turn very quickly, and then it has to be thrown away. >> bucher says hotels waste food in part because the chefs have to work at a fast pace. so he's set up a central kitchen in his hotel where many of the leftovers can be put to good use. daniel: we collect all the leftovers from preparation, the unused ends of vegetables or meat. at the various carveries in the hotel there are always the bones left over. we collect them to make stock with. normally, you wouldn't bother if you only used one onion. but when you've sliced hundreds of onions, there is enough for a stock. >> this hotel boasts 6 different specialty restaurants. there's also a buffet area with a variety of different stations for preparing various dishes. with a bit of supervision and

planning, he's able to keep waste to a minimum. daniel: the boiled eggs left over from breakfast all land in there. it's a midday favourite, people really like eating it, and we don't have to boil the eggs in it. the problem is that breakfast eggs are cooked in the western kitchen, but this is chinese cuisine. >> ideas like this have helped bucher and his team cut the hotel's food waste in half over just two years. it wasn't easy there was a learning curve and a lot of workflows had to be changed. daniel: once you've got things working, it's easy and runs , automatically. >> once a month, bucher and his team take stock. they take a look at what food has gone unused that day, and how it could be transformed into gourmet cuisine. daniel: everyone let's go, let's go!

>> you can take this salmon for instance. we take the head, it was baked in a salt crust, and make soups out of it. it goes into the japanese breakfast soup. this you can break up. and in the evening, we are doing pasta, so we can do that with salmon and spinach. >> food that is still good to eat that the hotel can't use is donated to an ngo. its staff collect the leftovers each day and distribute them to people in need across the city. only perishables containing things like fish or cream end up in the bin. though even then not till they've been weighed and registered. daniel: that helps us to better understand what we are throwing away and how much. we always compile our monthly report. then we can see exactly how much it is; and maybe manage to reduce it a little. and if i want to know where we are focusing on next, or what

is next to be tackled then we use , that data to say, ok, these are the areas we have to save in, where we have a problem. >> data collection can be a good way to discover new solutions to old problems like the problem of food waste. the german agency for international cooperation, giz, is funding a a study to examine the waste produced by 400 representative households across thailand. this kind of information hasn't been collected before because , in part the costs for garbage disposal here are levied at a flat rate, and not according to volume or weight. werner kossmann: we want to know how much garbage gets sorted and separated, where it goes to, and what happens to it? >> it's hoped that this data will help discover ways to reduce food waste. food that ends up in landfills isn't just wasteful it's also terrible for the climate. when organic matter rots it releases methane gas a powerful , greenhouse gas that's estimated to be 25 times more

potent than co2. so organic waste is a real climate killer especially in developing economies, which rarely have modern recycling or composting technology. for daniel bucher, the solution is clear. daniel: we often talk about what to do with all the waste and they're important debates. but we should really be talking about how we can prevent these trash piles from building up in the first place. >> daniel bucher wants to lead by example. he knows that every step foward will make a difference. ♪ >> red square -- in the heart of moscow. and home to the renowned gum department store.

amidst its regal arcades, a soviet style canteen offering a huge helping of nostalgia. canteen stolovaya 57 sells traditional russian dishes. including schuba or herring under a fur coat. elena melnikova shows us how its prepared. its a must-have on every new year's eve table, and a very popular lunch and dinner dish. elena: today we're making herring under a fur coat, a traditional russian salad. for most of us, a favorite dish that we prepare for every holiday meal. let's get started. we make it in a ring form. on the bottom layer, we'll put herring.

to make it moist, we smear each layer with mayonaisse. the next layer is boiled potato. >> legend has it that during the 1917 revolution, a merchant wanted to create a dish that people could identify with. herring, cooked vegetables and beetroot are symbols of the proletariat. the french mayo that dresses the salad is a reminder of the enemies of the soviets. >> before serving, we remove the ring. we decorate it with some fresh parsley and it's ready! >> we always had it when i was a kid, especially on new years eve. it's our family's favorite food.

>> really tasty. it was our childhood dish on new years eve. my mother was a very good cook. she knew how to remove the bones and prepare the herring. she taught me to do it! it's nice here, they put in the right amount of herring. some places put too little herring and too many potatoes. here's it's good! >> this is my first time in moscow, and i've chosen a dish i know well. and it tastes really, really good here. >> stolowaja 57 sells between 3 and 9 large trays every day. a portion costs 120 rubles, or some 1-euro 29 cents. 'schuba' can be found in many cafes, bistros and supermarkets. ♪ >> that's all from us all at global 3000 this week.

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from new york, this is democracy now! would orwell have believed it possible that the same overfed voices which had haunted him in the 1930s, the same cripplingncompetenc addiction to foreign wars and assumptions of entitlement, were happily in place in 2009? today we spend the hour remembering the world-renowned british novelist john le carré. he recently died at the age of 89. we'll talk about his assic books, including the spy