The Sustainable Video Project

Voice over: Freiburg im Breisgau is located in the South of Germany, in the Baden-Wittemberg region, near to France and Switzerland. It has about 200.000 people and it lays on a plan next to the Schwarzwald forest, the Black Forest. Freiburg was almost entirely razed during Second World War and, consequently, just a few examples of the medieval architecture remain visible today, giving us a broad idea of the importance of this trade and manufacturing centre during the medieval age, when Freiburg was a “free-town”, this is the meaning of the his name, ruled by bourgeois merchants. Only the beautiful Gothic cathedral escaped miraculously to the Allies bombing.
To the off-guard traveler Freiburg appears as a normal town as many others are, a town with lots of public green areas, a noiseless city, a rich town of centre Europe with a very efficient transport system. But Freiburg is not only this: since many years Freiburg has chosen to transform itself in a sustainable town. What does it means sustainability? The sustainability is the ability to provide for the needs of the world's current population without damaging the ability of future generations to provide for themselves. When a process is sustainable, it can be carried out over and over without negative environmental effects or impossibly high costs to anyone involved. What makes a town sustainable? Just the political, social and civil will to be so and a range of inventions and innovations applied to the entire urban territory, working together for the same purpose: environmental protection and preservation of the quality of life. So, let's discover Freiburg, the town between sun and forest.

Voice Off: What will be the energy of the future? Where could we find the energy to fulfill the needs of a steady growing human population? Are we going to be able to produce and use energy for our life without destroying the environment? Politicians and citizens in Freiburg realised that this was possible and decided to gamble on renewable energy and especially on that source of energy known since men appeared on the planet: solar energy. Solar energy has a lot of advantages: it does not produce emission polluting the environment, it can be produced next to the last consumer and it is very flexible for it can be used for different purposes. The technology necessary to use this energy exists already and it is effective, clean, relatively cheap: solar panels to warm water, photovoltaic panels to produce electricity. All this energy can be produced directly on the roof of the house that is going to use it.

Voice Off: To realize how important solar energy is in Freiburg, you just have to look up: solar panels are everywhere and not only on private houses. One of the most interesting experiment is the purchase of solar panels located on public buildings by citizens. Citizens, indeed, pay to install a panel somewhere and they earn money from the energy produced for the public building. This praxis was inaugurated years ago thanks to a collaboration between public sector and citizens. Pressed by the administration of the town to serve as a model, the most prominent residents in Freiburg started buying public panels, as did for example, the former trainer of the town football team, the first to buy part of the panels covering the Dreisam stadium. Thanks to these panels, the stadium produce now all the warm water it needs and it covers 60% of its electric need.
There are also a lot of examples of solar installations for small devices: parking meter, garden lamps, pumps to draw water from the wells, lighted street numbers. They can look just like small things, but it is free and clean energy, and altogether they contribute to reduce emissions and allow to save money.

Voice over: Solar energy in Freiburg is not only a matter of environmental preservation, but it is also a business that contributes to the economic growth of the city. An impressive 450 big, medium and small companies are involved in the solar sector, ranging from research to production and sale of panels.

Voice over: Founded in 1996 as a private investment, the Solar Fabrik is the biggest solar company in Freiburg. It produces solar panels, it has 60 employees and it's a master-work of sustainability architecture itself. The Solar Fabrik is indeed a zero emissions machine: it is completely powered by photovoltaic panels disposed on its roof and combustion of vegetable oils.

Voice over: solar tourism is another economic branch related to the research on renewable sources of energy: every years hundreds of experts and researchers visit the city to learn about the new achievements. Freiburg inhabitants are obviously very proud that their town is recognise word-wide as a model and this improve their care for the conservation of common achievements and spaces.

Voice over: the energy of the future already exist, we just have to invest on it, we just need politicians willing to make sustainable choices and not afraid to involve all the citizens in a new energetic plan: the target is not only our quality of life, but also the future of next generations and humanity ability to survive in harmony on this planet. This is a challenge we can't lose.

Voice over: every day thousands of people use cars to move towards city centres and work places. Everyday people face journeys amongst traffic, work in progress, diversions, looking desperately for parking spaces. This huge amount of cars creates pollution, ruins the urban landscape and creates enormous mobility problems.

Voice off: this is Freiburg during a working day, rush hour. (pause to focus on the images, original soundtrack)

Voice over: There are not universal solutions and all the options to solve traffic problems have to be analyzed and evaluated according to the context of each territory. Nevertheless, Freiburg can teach us something useful on this point too.

The medieval hearth of Freiburg is forbidden to cars, yet mobility in town is working smoothly. Two tram lines cross the centre, and they intersect in Kaiser Joseph Strasse, a few meters away from the cathedral: therefore from the centre it is possible to reach easily every part of the town. Parking a car near to the centre is quite expensive, but the trams system allow people to move easily. That's why the medieval centre is alive, full of shops, restaurants and pubs, while in other cities the central area has been abandoned by customers who prefer the big shopping centres in the suburbs with wide parking areas.

In the areas surrounding the medieval centre traffic is strictly organized and public transportation has replaced cars, because it is cheaper for the citizens. This example shows that cars mobility problems are originated by the massive use of car itself, while a public transportation system guarantees a lower number of cars and, consequently, improve mobility in town and cars mobility too.

Trams run often, a real-time updated electronic panel shows the exact waiting time for each tram and people can wait sitting on covered benches.

In Vauban, as well as in all the new areas of town, parking problems have been solved this way:

Voice over: This is a big multilevel parking space where residents can leave their cars for free and reach their houses by foot or by bicycle.

Voice over: Freiburg experience show clearly how easy and convenient is to build a system of bicycle paths: often all you need is to draw a white line on the pavement on the side of the road, while sometimes alternative solutions are necessary: bicycle paths along a river or through the most beautiful areas of a town, small streets and passageways where cars are not able to go and which are often left empty and neglected. The path system has to be continuous: only if citizens can easily reach every part of their town and even exit form the town to reach the suburbs, they will be willing to use bicycles. Freiburg has indeed 410 kilometers of bicycle path.

Once this system was set into place, citizens quickly discovered its benefits: energy and money saving, swift mobility, no parking problems and also the daily opportunity of a physical healthy training.

Voice Over: a ideal city doesn't exits, not even Freiburg can account as one, but, in Freiburg, politicians and citizens have chosen to try to transform the town in a sustainable city.
Sustainability is not only a matter of renewable sources of energy or a efficient transport system: the better the town is organized, taking care of every detail, the more citizens will be brought to take care of it. Even small water lines running along the roads of the town centre, apparently insignificant, can be useful for this purpose: the noise they produce adds pleasure to a walk through town, their presence is a funny attraction for children and they also work as white line between pedestrian paths and tram lines.

Freiburg is trying to overturn the typical relationship between town and the surrounding countryside: from a town which eats land up to a town that grows in harmony with the territory. From a town which destroys natural resources to a town which uses technology to safeguard them, from a town which wastes energy to a town which produces energy, respecting environment and improving efficiency. From the smog filled town to the town between sun and forest.