Green Globes vs. LEED

Hello world,
during these classes I have learned about the existence of certifications, such as LEED, that judge how "green" a building is. LEED operates mainly in the USA and has been the most popular in the United States. For the sake of comparing apple to apples, I'll be judging which certification is the better solution for the built environment in the United States. One of LEED's competitor is Green Globes. LEED's criteria is actually heavily based on GreenGlobes. However, I personally prefer LEED, even though they are not very flexible (They have kept the same standards for years) because I felt that even though Green Globes are measuring the rights criteria, they are pretty much just audits for firms to answer. Firms do not need to back up their claims with evidence. Most firms are honest, but they can easily lie about things on Green Globes. Firms thinking that there employees are not under stress, for example, is different from firms having a stress free working environment. This pretty much means that Green Globes demands less transparency from firms than LEED, and firms need to be as transparent as they can to become more sustainable.

The presenter at the lecture at John Lang LaSalle said that Green Globes help firms to be on the right tracks to strive for LEED certification, as LEED is a much stricter certification than Green Globes. In my opinion, a good certification requires a certain level of verification, which LEED has and Green Globes has not. As I said before, there are no verifications in Green Globes which means that LEED is more likely to contain legitimate information. On top of that, LEED takes into account something which I find to very important and that Green Globes ignores: innovation. Without having innovation, firms can just remain at the same level and still be certified, which sounds like the firm is simply complying with the criteria cited. If a firm is innovative, it shows that they are definitely committing, rather than just doing what Green Globes and LEED are asking them to do. Firms that innovate are taking things one step further, which is obviously better than just staying at the same level.

Again, I am not an expert in this field, this post is written from what I know and what I have been taught, mainly from attending a lecture at Jones Lang LaSalle at the Aon center, Chicago.
Cheers,
Sidney

In Yingli we trust 

Hello all,
I am far from being an expert at finance, but I am going to blog about it now. As more and more people are moving towards sustainability, the alternative "green" energy sector has been growing. Out of the many ways to produce using renewable sources, solar panels are by far the most affordable and the most accessible to the general public. Most firms producing solar panels saw a big drop in share price in 2009. It remained stable ever since though. Recently, share prices have started to rise again for most firms in this sector due to the growing demand for solar panels. There are many firms in this sector but I chose to invest in Yingli Solar. Yingli is currently the third largest firm in this industry in terms of market shares. Its current stock price is at 4.01 dollars, and I think it has the potential to rise back up at 20 dollars, where it used to be before the crisis. Yingli is a highly innovative firm and invests a lot in advertisement and sponsorships. currently, it is a sponsor of FC Bayern Munich and the US national football team. In the future, it will provide solar panels for the 2014 world cup in Rio and it already bought advertisement space in the stadiums. I have already discussed this with my professor (professor Aleen Bayard) and we both agree that there is no direct correlation between advertising and rising values of share. However, the football world cup is the most popular sporting event, having billions of people know about your existence will definitely increase its demand and likely its profits. Profit making firms are attractive for investors meaning that its share prices are likely to rise in the future. On top of that, the Chinese government heavily subsidises solar energy firms, meaning that the money spent from advertising is unlikely to chew up Yingli's future revenues.

Cheers,
Sidney

Making shirts out of bottles 

Hi all,

Here's a bit about me: I live in Europe and I have always loved watching and recently playing football (soccer for American readers). I am also a big fan of what Nike is currently doing to be more sustainable. Coincidently, Nike produces football kits for many big teams like Manchester United, FC Barcelona, Juventus (I do not support any of these teams btw, I'm actually a Chelsea FC fan, unfortunatly adidas produces their kits). They also produce kits for national teams such as USA, Brazil and Portugal. Recently, they partnered up with England's national team. England's new kit with Nike looks awesome in my opinion (I like simplicity). It just looks very majestic, a kit that champoions wear.

So, why am I talking about Nike manufacturing football kits? It's because ever since last year, they have manufactured their kits using 96% recycled material. 1 kit uses the polyester fibres of 13 bottles, which I find to be astonishing! Nike collects recycled bottles, shreds them, turns them into thin strings which are used to taylor these fine kits. The polyester obtained from these plastic bottles are not only recycled, but they are also 23% lighter than previous materials. Last year, this practice enabled Nike to re-use 280 million bottles, which is absolutely phenomenal... Nike's method to produce these kits reflect upon the "cradle to cradle" concept we learned in class, except for the fact that bottles are re-used to make sportswear, a product that is so different, which is why this idea of producing shirts out of recycled bottles.  These new kits are not only Nike's greenest kits ever, but also the one's that are the most effective for keeping sweat away from athletes' skin. On top of that Nike joined Fair Factory Clearinghouse to ensure that factories producing these kits are not abusing  their workers. Nike is certified by ISO 14001, reflecting Nike's efforts towards sustainability. In my opinion, these kits truly reflect on Nike's commitment as a company to become a better corporate citizen.

 Sidney

Nikebetterworld on twitter... to make the world better

Hello people,
I recently checked out Nikebetterworld on twitter and I think Nike are doing on twitter is brilliant. First of all, Nike is now one of the most sustainable companies in the world. 20 years ago, they were criticised for various unsustainable practices, such as using child labour. However, the protests against Nike made them realise that they need to take action. By being more transparent, they realised what they need to improve, and through years of investment, Nike are at the level they are at today. Anyways, back to twitter. Nikebetterworld provides its followers with information about new products and how sustainable they are. If Nike consumers wish to know more about how eco-friendly some of their products are, they are also able to obtain information on Nikebetterworld. Sometimes, they even include processes and questions they asked themselves to produce more sustainable products. Nikebetterworld also states some of Nike's future goals, and they also allow followers to keep in track of their goals, which I think is great because this allows followers to critically judge Nike. They often tweet about what makes their products sustainable, for example the material, the manufacturing methods or the carbon footprint. Nikebetterworld enables more transparency for its customers. Twitter is a great a way customers can learn more about suppliers and Nike is using twitter as an opportunity to inform its customers about their sustainable initiatives.

If you appreciate Nike in general, I recommend you to check out https://twitter.com/nikebetterworld. There are some very interesting tweets that show how sustainable Nike is.

Sidney

Joint Effort

Greetings people of this world,

I had the chance to attend a few classes at uChicago about achieving sustainability in the business world in the summer of 2013. My classes are slowly coming to an end and I found what I have learnt to be so important that I want to share it to the world! I actually never blogged before because I honestly thought that it was pointlessNow, I know that some people believe that they are 1 in 7 billion and that their actions are insignificant to make a noticeable difference. This is sadly true. What if EVERYONE had this mentality? The answer: Nothing will be accomplished. Nothing, Nada, Rien. This is what I learned from Dr. Ted Steck: Imagine that impact, negative or positive, is determined by this equation: Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology (IPAT), If one factor out of P, A or T= 0, then Impact will be 0. My message to you all: By all means, no matter how small the action, do something. It can be anything, for example the effortless action of turning off the lights by flicking one light switch. To maximise impact, we need more people to make an effort. The government can easily make it mandatory to do things such as switching lights off, but I'd prefer that the government stays out of this. I believe that the media has sufficient resource to start making people take action. But right now, the media are putting very little effort to encourage this world to take action. I find it unbelievable and sad that the media covers the Kardashian family 692 times more than the environment. Isn't that unbelievable? Honestly, who the hell cares about the freaking Kardashians? In what way would what they do in their lives impact our lives? The media needs to change, but unfortunately, the media only responds to the people's demands, meaning that to change the media, we need to change the people's demands, which means that we have a problem. This problem can easily be solved if a few major news agencies have the will to do something. If CNN or BBC has the will to do something, millions of people will take action, meaning that demands for news will change, launching a snowball effect on the media and people's action.

I do not care wether you believe in things like global warming or climate change  or not, but don't you think that we all have the right to breathe clean and harmless air, drink fresh and non-polluted water, and hear about people not being degraded and abused by firms?

Cheers, 

Sidney