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I recently calculated my carbon footprint score at http://www.go-beyond.ca/calculator-results. According to this website, I am quite a sustainability role model, with an overall score of 3.483 tonnes of CO2 per year, well below average.

My “Best” and my “Need Improvement” attributes in the pie graph are…

Living in Totem Park on campus, I walk from my dorm to my classes every school day, occasionally taking the community shuttle to various parts of the campus. I usually take the bus combined with sky-train to commute back home in White Rock during the weekends. Fortunately/ unfortunately, I do not own a car so as majority of my transportation is through public transit and walking, hence the low o.175 daily commute.

I was rather surprised to see that “food” takes up 63.1% of my carbon footprint. Recently I had started to eat more organic food products since so many are offered in UBC. But I am still passionate about my meat consumption. I can never imagine myself going on a vegetarian diet, even for just a week.

The Carbon Footprint Calculator is a fun tool and provided useful sustainability tips base on your tonnes of CO2 per year. I doubt the result is extremely accurate due to the basic set of questionnaires, but it brings sustainability awareness to my daily activities.

According to a business week‘s 50 Most Innovative Companies article:

In the past decade, as the U.S. was losing an estimated 2.4 million factory jobs to China. The factories of South Korea, Taiwan, and China were making their way up the global value chain, from the sneakers, toys, and T-shirts they had produced in earlier years to personal computers, consumer electronics gear, household appliances, and even cars.

The article argues that even though 15 of the top 50 companies are from Asia, “Asia’s high-tech products were still generally regarded as inferior knockoffs of items designed in the U.S.”This might be true to some extent, but the only innovative high-tech companies that stands out in the U.S. is Apple, Google, and Microsoft (which finished 1^st 2^nd 3^rd respectively in the ranking.) Asian companies such as Toyota, Sony, LG, Samsung, and even smart phone makers, HTC do not seem as inferior knockoffs to me. Even if this is the case, looking at the growth of Asian companies from dominating clothing/ sneaker production, to taking over the electronics and cars production, it is will not surprise me if Asian companies stand on top of the innovation category soon.

Read more on http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_17/b4175034779697_page_2.htm and http://bwnt.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/innovative_companies_2010/?chan=magazine+channel_special+report

From the 24H newspaper, it talked about how the “online landscape changes dramatically and quickly.” The article also states:

Old-school ways of marketing and structured guidelines don’t apply in the social media sphere. This is definitely a challenge in the corporate world, where senior marketing folks’ knowledge of social media typically doesn’t extend further than reading articles about it and seeing their kids use it.

The senior managers are uncomfortable with the lack of structure and planning with the use of social media. Blogs for example, don’t usually have a formal beginning and ending, and in twitter, only 140 words are allowed. The writing style is much more casual on social media and the baby boomers mostly just do not get it. This is when we, as the new generation business leaders have to step in and take control of the social media we grew up with. It is our job to help old “marketing execs who have authority to make decisions on social media strategy, resourcing, and direction” but still don’t quite get the online culture. We help them first, and then hopefully replace them later.

Read more on http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/Business/2010/04/06/13490106.html

“Bank highlights four key performance measures that drive executive pay, admits missing them, but gives CEO a raise anyway.” This quote was taken from the Globe and Mail article, “Rich pay doesn’t align with performance at BMO.” The more common problem is for companies to reward employees, base on quantity other than quality. The executives encourage workers to be creative and satisfy the customers, but workers are ironically rewarded for the number of output/ sales they make disregarded the quality of the output/sales. This is usually when the balanced scorecard comes in handy, but for BMO, it is another story. The “BMO board’s stubborn insistence on richly paying Mr. Downe (CEO of BMO) continued in 2009 despite the bank’s failure to meet its primary goals.” So Mr. Downe is not being productive or creative with:

Cash earnings per share fell 18 per cent, rather than growing 3.9 per cent. Return on equity was 9.9 per cent instead of 12.3 per cent. And its two-year total shareholder return was 3.8 percentage points below the average of its peer group.

With these kinds of numbers, he still gets a raise. It must be a good life being a CEO of BMO.

Read more on http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/rich-pay-doesnt-align-with-performance-at-bmo/article1522843/

If you are thinking of joining the Olympic celebration in downtown Vancouver and grabbing a couple of cold ones while you’re there, you might want to reconsider, at lease for the couple of beers part. Many bars and pubs, and most Olympic pavilions, are charging extra for beer during the Games. The price is not the only problem as line ups for beer might take hours too. The extra amount for beer is significant. Brandi’s Show Lounge, for example, is charging $10.25 for a pint of beer. Irish House is charging $9 for a plastic cup of Guinness. It is understandable that pubs are charging more due to all the thirsty foreign visitors and local party goers alike brought in by the Olympics driving up the demand for beer, and business owners grasping their opportunities. I would pay the premium for a cold beer in vacation or visiting a new city, but as a Vancouverite myself; I would rather find some other alternative for the booze than spending the extra. Apparently, price increase in beer only applies in bars located in the heart of downtown, so Main or Commercial, maybe even Broadway are all good alternatives to go.

Jan. 21, 2010 Burger King’s grand opening of its first restaurant in Russia marks a great milestone for the mega American fast food chain. The new restaurant will be located in the recently opened Metropolis shopping center of Moscow, additional Burger King Restaurants are expected to open in the market throughout 2010 and beyond. This move finally provides some competition for another pretty big fast food chain who has dominated Russia’s fast food scene for more than 20 years, McDonalds. As an unofficial response to Burger King’s recent expansion, McDonalds announced on Feb. 01, 2010, expansion plans to open 45 new restaurants this year as a “20 Years Celebration”. This move is obviously no coincidence for McDonalds as they are fully aware of and closely watching their biggest global competitor‘s every move. McDonalds has an unparallel edge in regards of economies of scales in Russia.  McDonalds has established 235 restaurants in Russia already since 1990, and adding on top of that the 45 new stores that is opening this year. Burger King seems to be too late to the party with mere numbers of restaurants and experience that just cannot stack up against the veteran-like McDonald’s franchise.