Car sharing business expands to target commercial sector
Collaborate Corporation’s peer-to-peer car rental business has recently expanded into leasing vehicles to the business sector. The DriveMyCar business venture is being rolled out in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, and has already attracted corporate clients including BCS Airport Systems, Propac and Pharmacor. The fleet includes light commercial vehicles, economy hatchbacks, electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles. Unlocking the value of Australia’s under-utilised vehicles and making them available to businesses is the next phase of growth for the sharing economy, according to Mr Noone. “Small businesses and big corporate companies have realised the benefits of the sharing economy, recognising that making better use of existing assets is smart business,” he said. In the 2014-15 financial year, the firm’s private car rentals turnover was over $1 million, Mr Noone said, with the value of consumer rental transactions in July 2015 increasing by 26 per cent month-on-month. (Eco-Business)
Diversity
Gender diversity in large companies gets a boost in Japan
Gender diversity in the workplace took a step forward last week. The upper house of the Japanese parliament passed legislation requiring companies with more than 300 employees to set targets for female hires and managerial positions. The initiative was pushed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to help deal with an aging work force, a shrinking population, and a stagnating economy. A Goldman Sachs report projects that closing the gender-employment gap could lift Japan’s GDP by 13 percent. Interestingly, there are no penalties for failure to comply—peer pressure involving embarrassment at failing to participate is the compliance tool of choice. Companies that do comply will receive favourable consideration when applying for government contracts. (Just Means)
Environment
Indonesia looks to increase emissions cut pledge ahead of Paris meet
Indonesia is looking to increase its current pledges on cutting emissions growth, a senior government adviser said on Monday, with a final decision likely by mid-September. Home to the world’s third-largest tropical forests, and the biggest palm oil producer, Indonesia will have a key role at the United Nation’s Paris climate conference late this year, which is designed to reach a plan to reduce global warming. “We intend to increase the contribution and we will do so,” said Rachmat Witoelar, President Joko Widodo’s special envoy for climate change. “But we have to figure out the timeline.” Indonesia is among the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters because of deforestation, peatland degradation and forest fires. “We are convinced that if we don’t increase the world emissions cuts, the planet will be destroyed,” said Witoelar. (Reuters)
Citibank: Slowing global warming would save the economy tens of trillions of dollars
Citi Global Perspectives & Solutions (GPS), a division within Citibank, recently published a report looking at the economic costs and benefits of a low-carbon future. The report considered two scenarios: “Inaction,” which involves continuing on a business-as-usual path, and Action scenario which involves transitioning to a low-carbon energy mix. One of the most interesting findings in the report is that the investment costs for the two scenarios are almost identical. In fact, because of savings due to reduced fuel costs and increased energy efficiency, the Action scenario is actually a bit cheaper than the Inaction scenario. It reports the breakdown of the investment costs in the Action ($190.2 trillion) and Inaction ($192 trillion) scenarios. This conclusion soundly refutes the main argument against climate action – that it’s too expensive, with some contrarians even having gone so far as to claim that cutting carbon pollution will create an economic catastrophe. To the contrary, the Citi report finds that these investments will save money, before even accounting for the tremendous savings from avoiding climate damage costs. (The Guardian)
Health
Google, Sanofi join forces on diabetes monitoring and treatment
Google Inc. said Monday its health-care research unit, Google Life Sciences, agreed to work with European pharmaceutical company Sanofi SA on new ways to monitor and treat diabetes. Sanofi is a leading maker of diabetes medication, as well as many other drugs. Google’s Life Sciences division is working on small, connected medical devices to continuously collect diabetes-related data, as well as software that learns from the information to find new treatments. Diabetes is expected to affect 592 million people world-wide by 2035, according to the International Diabetes Federation. “With Sanofi, we can complete the picture of how diabetes unfolds and try to interrupt that development through a proactive and preventive approach,” said leader of Google Life sciences, Andrew Conrad. He said the Sanofi partnership is the latest of several collaborations that combine expertise in medication, medical devices, software and computing infrastructure. (WSJ)
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