Leila is a thirty-four year old phone operator at a call centre in Cape Town's central business district. Leila and her fifteen year old daughter live with her mother and sister in the same house 3 bedroom house she grew up in the close knit religious community of Bo-Kaap. She generally stays within the community and walks most places, including work. The family doesn't have much but enjoy a new TV and Leila stays connected with her daughter and friends through the use of her mobile phone. Leila's daughter will soon graduate from high school and the pending change and new found freedoms will be an exciting stage in both their lives.

Thanks to her promotion to call centre manager, Leila is now able to live a more comfortable life, still living with her mother and daughter (now working in the tourism industry). With her greater disposable income she socialises and goes out more, and now has a boyfriend whom she dreams of marrying and moving into her own home with. Although she still has no car, Leila has noticed the shift toward electric power as she makes extensive use of the more efficient public transport system, and feels that the world is now more focussed on sustainable growth on Planet Earth.

Restricted by high property prices, Leila still lives in her mother's old house in Bo Kaap, although her mother has now died and her daughter has moved away. Due to high living costs, however, larger family households are more common. Strong regulations now control the products she buys and how she runs her house; for example she must recycle rainwater, due to significant worries that water supplies may fail. Her increased salary has been undermined by the economic costs of mitigating and adapting to climate change, imposed by the concerned state. Leila accepts the environmental argument for the widespread economic changes, but generally acts to satisfy her needs, not motivated by altruism in her lifestyle choices.

Leila's South Africa of 2040 is a mixed bag. There are signs of hope, with some attempts to address existing and anticipated challenges, but also concerns about issues such as migration that are more difficult to address; Cape Town, in particular, faces the threat of sea level rise. Carbon is a significant currency, used directly by citizens who are able to buy, sell and trade a portion of their personal allocation of carbon credits. Leila will soon retire and feels relatively secure, having managed to stay in a career for decades and having saved for the future. Her daughter and other less wealthy members of her community, however, will face greater uncertainty over their future.

Carbon, waste and water are the three defining elements of life in 2050. They are integral to economics, and are carefully monitored, budgeted and graded for use and reuse. This has had a profound effect on the way cities are built and run, right down to building design. Previous voluntary building rating systems like LEED, Green Star and BREEAM have been replaced with a globally recognised standard system that in many countries is now mandatory so that energy, water and waste are used and produced to minimum standards. Having a global standard is an indispensable part of carbon and resource accounting systems that allow internationally targets to be monitored and adjusted. This system applies not only to buildings, but to all production processes.