Month: October 2012

Social entrepreneurship is present everywhere. One example is Vancouver-based Climate Smart. The firm has a clear goal: to help small and medium firms (with fewer than 500 employees) limit their carbon footprint, and, eventually, become carbon-neutral.

The process is continuous: companies learn how to measure their emissions of CO2 (and  CO2 equivalents for other gas emissions); next step is reduction of emissions; finally, communication strategies for leveraging the benefits of the process are presented. Process is gradual and the companies can repeat it annually to further improve their results.   Climate Smart’s experience proves that the companies not only cut their emissions but also reduce costs. 1 ton reduction saved companies an average of $400.

One of Climate Smart’s success stories is collaboration with Van Houtte Coffee.

The City of Vancouver has set itself an ambitious goal of becoming the greenest city in the world by reducing carbon emission by 33% by 2020 and 80% by 2050 (compared with 2007 levels). Climate Smart collaborates with the local authorities to reach this goal by addressing small and medium businesses which account for a 45% of Canadian GDP.

Newsweek has been around for over 80 years. Nonetheless, last years have been especially difficult for the magazine, with annual losses reaching $40M, and subscriptions shrinking from over 3M in 2001 to only 1.6M in 2011. Acquisition of The Daily Beast to reach broader audience on-line didn’t bring expected results; nonetheless, the company recently decided to go even further and become all-digital in the US.

This is how Tina Brown, magazine’s CEO, explains thit step.

Newsweek assumes that the number of tablet user will keep growing as fast as in recent years when it mushroomed from 13 in 2010 to estimated 70 million by the end of this year in the US alone, and that advertising will keep fluctuating from printed media to the Internet. According to Ms. Brown going all online is inevitable.

It’s true that the early bird catches the worm, and certainly press is heading towards digital future. However, it’s difficult to tell if it is the right moment for the new, exclusively online business model for press as still less than 30% of Americans own tablets. One is sure: cutting printing and distribution costs will help to reduce the losses (if readers prove loyal), which will help company’s operational efficiency; this step is not enough though to be called a new business strategy.

Want to know more?

After 80 years in print, the newsmagazine adopts an all-digital format: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/18/a-turn-of-the-page-for-newsweek.html

Newsweek had unique troubles as industry recovers: http://www.cnbc.com/id/49472740

At Newsweek, Ending Print and a Blend of Two Styles: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/newsweek-will-cease-print-publication-at-end-of-year/#h[DhbDhb]

Strategy vs. Operational Efficiency

Recently, while reading Business Model Generation by Alexander Osterwalder, I’ve come across the concept of “Long Tail” Businesses: firms that make profit selling less quantity of greater variety of niche products. One example is the Danish toy producer, LEGO. Customers can design their own products and company produces and supplies them (of course, for premium price). Furthermore clients can publish their designs so that other customers can buy them. In this case designers and LEGO make profit.

This example attracted my attentions as it’s an interesting idea for creating value to customers. It may help improve customer relationship and loyalty as well as attract new customer segments. It boosts company’s innovation potential at a low cost. These advantages will likely offset higher costs of production and supply chain.

Have you ever heard of hydraulic fracturing? This technology let the US see its natural gas prices fall to the lowest level in years and become one of the leading producers of natural gas!

Presented as totally safe and benign to the environment, the technology is not received quite as well in Europe. Namely, France has vetoed use of hydraulic fracturing on its territory because of environmental concerns.

Nontheless, the american EPA presents the natural gas as “nation’s clean energy future“, but isn’t that clean’s energy past? It’s true that the emissions from burning natural gas are lower that these coming from coal; however, in 21st century, shouldn’t we invest in new technologies that will radically change our economy and help to combat the climate change?

There are many ethical issues concerning hydraulic fracturing. The most important is its impact on water reserves. To perform hydraulic fracturing more than million gallons of water, sand and chemicals are pumped underground; many times the drillings take place in zones that suffer from lack of water (Texas, New Mexico) and if a technology is transferred to other, less developed countries, it may limit the resources of drinking water for the local populations.

On the other hand, the industry states that there are little emissions from gas fields. Jeff Tollefson in a study published in Journal Nature proves that it may be false.

So who are the stakeholders of hydraulic fracturing apart from oil and gas industry (and, not surprisingly US government)? Is it really the change we are waiting for? And is it ethical for the US government to present it in such a “glorious” way while the consequences for the environment are still unknown?