Sustainability has been a hot topic in the business world and is starting to contribute to companies’ decisions on manufacturing their product. In John Izzo’s blog he posted that the consumers nowadays, no matter in developed countries or undeveloped countries, prefer to consume without feeling guilty. To be precise, he mentioned that a large percentage of consumers actually values how the making of the products affects people, society and nature, and the planet. Thus it would be wise for firms to now focus on guilt-free consuming.

It is great that consumers are concerned about the impacts of the products they buy, and as a result many firms are starting to to shift towards a sustainable business model. However, in many cases, firms market in a way such that consumers believe the products are not harmful to human and the society while they are. The consumers’ guilt-free shopping psychology is taken care of but the planet still takes the hit. In a market as competitive as today’s firms are still price driven and will have to do whatever they can to stay in business and maximize their profit. Reaching the goal of sustainability may be a wise choice in the long run but it sure will burden the firm with debt in the short run. That being said, it is still difficult to balance between cost minimization and not harming the society, the planet, and its people.

In her post “the Demise of the Mall“, Dawn discussed the miserable future of mall caused by the rising e-commerce industry. Companies such as eBay and Amazon are slowly taking the retailing business out of business. Now that more and more people enjoy the convenience of shopping from home there is no doubt the future of malls is at risk. This new way of shopping disrupted the retailing industry and retailers and mall owners have to cope with this imminent problem to avoid shut down. House supplies, clothing, and electronics can be purchased and delivered directly to the hands of consumers, however, the experience of having food in a restaurant cannot.

The restaurant industry is very likely to be the savior of malls since it receives little disturbance from the e-commerce industry. Whichever mall you go the food court or restaurants is always crowded regardless of holidays or sales days. It is in people’s nature that the combination of dining at home and away from home is necessary. Thus it is possible that malls will introduce popular restaurants and reduce the amount of retailing stores in the near future.

Private corporations are known for their aggressive way of avoiding tax, out of it billions of dollars can be saved. But how about Crown Corporations? The Canadian Federal pension board is recently exposed of its offshore “scheme” to avoid foreign tax. The federal agency that invests civil pensions exploited loopholes in Berlin Germany by buying apartments through a complex web of shell companies. By law in Germany transfer tax has to be paid if oneself owns 95% of the property, and the federal agency invested through several shell companies and successfully avoided tax. When this matter was revealed German officials characterized Canadian Crown Corporations as to the private corporations who avoid tax super aggressively. This news drawn negative comments from all across Canada.

But think about it. Canada was able so save millions of dollars without breaking any laws and therefore can provide more pension to the citizens of Canada! Every year, brilliant accountants are trying millions of ways to save their firms millions of dollars, and as a result the firm has more to offer to its shareholders. In this case, it is the every retiree that Canada have and will have in the near future who benefit the most. This federal agency should not be under so much heat as it is just merely doing its job, maximizing the pension fund.

It is not difficult to  predict that Germany will soon amend this tax law, but corporations will just jump to next loophole or the next country that will save them even more tax money.

The fast decrease in the price of oil was caused by the cut in price of the largest oil export country, Saudi, as a strategy to compete with the increasing U.S. production. While car owners are glad, which is the obvious, let us take a look at the winner and the losers of this event. The list of the winners of this drop in price starts with airline companies. Airline stocks responded to this market action with almost instant rise in prices; Delta Air Lines stock price raised 4.2 percent as a result.  Also as mentioned, car owners are now more gladly to do an extra Sunday drive. Among the stakeholders many have a lot to lose. For instance, other energy was disrupted by this turmoil, reflected in their substantial fall in stock prices. However, one stakeholder in particular, is more troubled than the other, Russia. As the world’s second largest oil export nation this news would devastate the nation’s income and therefore affect the Russian government’s budget. Although the bad seems to outweigh the good at the moment, it is optimistic to assume that the economic benefit in the future this event will bring. The drop in oil price would ultimately make the consumers’ pockets deeper and therefore increase their buying power.

Let’s take a step back and have a look  at the very long run. As we all know the change in price in oil has massive impact on almost everything in the world; from a country’s budget to the cost of shipping goods, all industries and corporations are concerned parties. However, will its power diminish in the future? As technologies develop and more and more new energy companies mature, will the world one day snap out of oil’s control? Well, clean energy is a hot topic and with the emergence of oil-independent utilities such as electric vehicles, maybe in the near future the world will be rid of this environmental unfriendly raw resource.

Link to Steven Gao’s Post

In his post Steven Gao discussed the disabling of NFC (wirelessly share information, eg. payments), and the possibility of promoting another type of phone wireless payment method. As we know form the iPhone 6 rush not long ago one of its new marketing ideas was to pay using Apple Pay. It is essentially tapping you iPhone make a simple payment. The tap-payment was widely promoted over the past year by Interac Flash and is now a generally accepted payment method in stored such as Starbucks and Futureshop.

Paying your morning cup of coffee with a tap of your debit card, convenient and simple. Paying your morning cup of coffee with an iPhone 6, really? That flashy? Paying with our phones raises many issues. Phones can malfunction, break, or get stolen. I mean come on, paying with your phone is great? Speaking as if we never lose our phones. For the above reasons maybe most people would think twice before letting their phones take the role of their wallets.

Issues between the aboriginal groups and the Canadian government had never ended, and most of them are regarding government civil projects that are thought to violate and exploit First Nations’ resources and beliefs. The recent issue that rose to people’s attention in B.C was the hydroelectric megaproject. While this project may propel the use of clean energy and  providing jobs, the B.C aboriginal groups displayed concerns. The First Nations worry that with this project in place their sacred land, which as allegedly to be for their religious gatherings, will be destroyed. Also the dam the project plans to build may disrupt their hunting game and fishing lifestyle. As a result, leaders of the First Nation groups have threatened to take the government on court if the hydroelectric motion is passed.

For centuries the government of Canada has been trying to balance the aboriginals’ interest with the country’s. For the wrongs done by ancestors Canada has tried to redeem by compensating the descendants of those wronged. However, First Nations’ beliefs are contradicting to the majority society as the world progresses. The hydroelectric megaproject, for instance, is a project that would increase Canada’s energy capacity and ultimately, bring economic profit to Canada. Therefore, this project will eventually take place; it is only a matter of time that the government of Canada persuade the aboriginals.