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A global green revolution is gaining momentum and changing how people consume and how businesses operate. This generation of business leaders and companies will face new challenges but the green revolution also present exciting business opportunities.
At Green Business Times, we chronicle environmental news in Singapore, highlight new sustainable business practices and case studies, showcase innovative companies and business leaders, and explore the tools and strategies for navigating the green revolution.
Over the past few years, we came across several new green consumption trends. In particular, there are two new trends that we think would be emerging but important trends affecting businesses and consumers in the coming years. The two new green consumption trends are LOHAS and Collaborative Consumption.
LOHAS
LOHAS stands for ?Lifestyles Of Health And Sustainability? and is a marketing term that originated in 2000 in the United States to describe a group of consumers who are environmentally, socially and health conscious, and believes in a lifestyle that benefits both people and planet. The LOHAS concept quickly spread to Japan, and then to Taiwan and South Korea.
We believe that LOHAS is an important trend because it goes beyond ?green? consumers and looks at the converging market of consumers who are interested in the environment, health and fitness, personal development, sustainable living, and social justice.
In 2009, a Singapore-based social enterprise, Asia-Pacific LOHAS, was set up to promote LOHAS in Singapore and the region. Asia-Pacific LOHAS aims to educate millions of consumers in Asia that consumption can be done in a better way and to help facilitate the growth of the LOHAS business community to serve these consumers.
Asia-Pacific LOHAS also conducted the first LOHAS research study in 2009 with the Natural Marketing Institute based in the United States. The study surveyed more than 18,000 consumers across ten Asia-Pacific countries ? Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand. This research provides an in?depth survey of the LOHAS consumer, the general consumer, and marketplace. The results of the LOHAS study for the Singapore market show that 15% of the consumers in Singapore are LOHAS consumers.
Collaborative Consumption
Collaborative Consumption refers to the trend of sharing that is empowered by technology and social networks, and how it changes consumption and the way businesses operate. Sharing also refers to renting, swapping, lending, trading, exchanging, bartering, and gifting. The term Collaborative Consumption was first described in 2010 in the book What?s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers. Other resources with similar ideas on sharing include the book The Mesh: Why the Future of Business is Sharing by Lisa Gansky and the Shareable website.
We believe that Collaborative Consumption is an important trend because consumers are realising that they can share rather than buy more stuff. This is motivated by greater environmental awareness and cost consciousness, the proliferation of mobile peer-to-peer technologies and social networks, and the need to be part of a community.
Some local examples of companies involved in Collaborative Consumption include MyRideBuddy and Waste is not Waste. MyRideBuddy is a dynamic and real time carpooling solution in Singapore, which matches users near common start and end points so that they can share a car ride together according to their convenience and preferences. It allows individuals to benefit from the convenience of the car without owning one, while reducing costs and the problems of congestion and air pollution.
Waste is not Waste (WINW) is an online waste exchange for businesses and organisations in Singapore and Malaysia. WINW facilitates the exchange of waste materials and unwanted items from companies and organisations that no longer need them to businesses, non-profit organisations, designers and schools that can utilise those waste. This reduces waste and keeps valuable resources out of the incineration plants and landfills while helping companies save time, money and reduce their environmental impacts.
The emerging but important trends of LOHAS and Collaborative Consumption offer new ways of looking at consumers and consumption behavior. It is up to businesses to explore these 2 trends and potential business opportunities that may arise.
Eugene Tay, Editor of Green Business Times, will introduce these two new green consumption trends at a Fuji Xerox seminar on 13 Sep 2011. Find out more info and register here.
Tags: Asia-Pacific LOHAS, business opportunities, Collaborative Consumption, green consumption, Lifestyles Of Health And Sustainability, LOHAS, MyRideBuddy, Shareable, The Mesh, Waste is not Waste, What?s Mine Is Yours
Groupon, a ?daily deals? e-mail marketer on the verge of going public, has raised more than $1 billion in venture funding and owns about half the North American market for such services, not to mention a growing global presence. LivingSocial, the No. 2 player, owns another 25 percent of the domestic market.
Their dominance hasn?t stopped an astonishing number of other companies from trying their hand at the same game ? more than 600, by one count ? despite mounting questions about whether the flood of discounts is good for anyone other than shoppers.
In case you?re not one of Groupon?s 40 million subscribers in North America, here?s how it works: You sign up by giving Groupon your e-mail address, your city of residence and a few other personal details, such as your age and gender. At least once a day, you get an e-mail with an offer ? pay $10 for $20 worth of happy-hour drinks at the new pub in your neighborhood, or $50 for a coupon worth $100 on auto detailing services.
Groupon and the businesses advertising their wares each get a cut of the sale; ideally, the offers draw in new customers who will become loyal repeat shoppers, or at least spend more than the face value of their Groupon.
The barriers to entry for wanna-be-Groupons are very low. There are numerous companies selling the technology and support required to get a site up and running, and entrepreneurs on even the tiniest budgets can put something together with an inexpensive blog template. Find a few local businesses willing to offer a deal, write some snappy copy and you?re officially a group-buying site.
Yipit, which aggregates offers from many sources and analyzes the daily deals market, says more than 300 Groupon-esque companies have come online just this year, with names like? Heartsy, Waggy Swag and MarketSharing, while 130 have closed their virtual doors.
The explosion of deals is good for shoppers with a high tolerance for a full inbox. In New York last week, for example, an ambitious bargain hunter could have chosen from among more than 180 offers, according to Yipit.
But it?s unclear whether the advertisers will continue to feed the increasingly wide stream of daily deals. Yipit?s data product manager, David Sinsky, says 70 percent of businesses follow up a first group-buying offer with at least one more, indicating satisfaction with the model.
But Sucharita Mulpuru, a Forrester Research analyst, says few merchants are getting coveted new customers via Groupon-style deals. The glut of offers instead has become a discount-finding service for people who otherwise would have paid full price for something they planned to buy anyway.
Mulpuru says Groupon?s advantage boils down to how much it can afford to spend on marketing and public relations ? $263 million last year alone, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission. Half the company's more than 9,000 employees make up the sales force that sources its deals.
Story: 6 reasons not to buy Groupon stock
Of course Groupon also lost more than $450 million in 2010. Only about 40 percent of Groupon e-mails are opened by the recipient, down from 66 percent last year, said Peter Krasilovsky, an analyst at local media and advertising research group BIA/Kelsey.
Add to that the arrival of MasterCard, AT&T and other companies with massive customer bases already established, and the outlook seems grim for the hundreds of small Groupon clones. Some, Krasilovsky says, might survive as the No. 3 or No. 4 player in a given location or by capturing a certain niche; some are making money by providing daily-deal technology to local newspapers and television stations so they can offer deals under their own brands.
But the industry is only a few years old, and there?s room for an upstart to out-Groupon Groupon. One area that hasn?t been fully nailed down is the model for delivering advertising and coupons on smart phones and other mobile devices. LivingSocial and Groupon are working on mobile deals services that show people nearby offers that can be used immediately.
Another piece of the puzzle still up for grabs is the transaction itself, as companies look for alternatives to paying credit card companies to process payments, says Krasilovsky, who expects this to be the next major theme in the daily deals story.
?Mobile phones have the capability of being the next transaction agent. Plastic has moved over to mobile, or will in a matter of time,? he said. But, he added, ?We don?t know that Groupon will be the company to execute.?
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) ? Nearly one of every 10 midsized or big employers expects to stop offering health coverage to workers once federal insurance exchanges start in 2014, according to a new survey from a large benefits consultant.
Towers Watson also found in a survey completed last month that an additional 20 percent of the companies are unsure about what they will do.
Another big benefits consultant, Mercer, found in a June survey of large and smaller employers that 8 percent are either "likely" or "very likely" to end health benefits once the exchanges start.
Employer-sponsored health insurance has long been the backbone of the nation's health insurance system. But the studies suggest that some employers, especially retailers or those offering low wages, feel they will be better off paying fines and taxes than continuing to provide benefits that eat up a growing portion of their budget every year.
The exchanges, which were devised under the health care overhaul, may offer an alternative for their workers. These exchanges aim to provide a marketplace for people to buy insurance that can be subsidized by the government based on income levels.
A large majority of employers in both studies said they expect to continue offering benefits once the exchanges start. But former insurance executive Bob Laszewski said he was surprised that as many as 8 or 9 percent of companies already expect to drop coverage a couple of years before the exchanges start.
Such a move comes with potential payroll-tax headaches and could subject firms to fines. It also would give their employees a steep compensation cut if companies don't raise pay in exchange for ending coverage.
"Dropping coverage is going to be very difficult for these (companies) to do," said Laszewski, a consultant who was not involved with the studies.
Towers Watson's Randall Abbott said the survey results should be seen as a snapshot of how companies are thinking now. They can't be viewed as a final decision because there are still many unresolved variables. No one knows what the exchanges will be like or whether consumers will accept them, and companies may change their thinking once they learn more about the overhaul.
The health care overhaul also faces court challenges, and President Obama is up for re-election next year, two more variables that could shape what happens in 2014.
Lionheart Assurance Solutions has been listed with the BBB since November 3, 2009. This indicates Lionheart Assurance Solutions fulfills the BBB Certification requirements and supports the assistance of the Better Business Bureau. BBB Ratings vary from A to F, with the highest ranking being an A .? Lionheart Assurance Solutions enjoys an A+? rating. ? A rating from the BBB reflects numerous things, including their own opinion about the business.. Experience with the enterprise, as well as information contained in the BBB files, also come into play anytime ratings are being awarded. While a BBB score is not a promise of reliability and efficiency, it should be taken into account together with other details about the business.? It is a widely accepted standard known in the marketplace for consumers and ought to be seen as a indication that the organization is responsible to a 3rd party entity. ? Lionheart Assurance Solutions has received the BBB?s A? score by providing outstanding service with outstanding quality worker benefits options. The firm has presented worker benefits plans to numerous people from across North American businesses since the late nineties. Lionheart Assurance Solutions is headed by a carefully-chosen team of people who have more than a hundred years of blended experience in company acumen. ? Lionheart Assurance Solutions offers legal plans, identity theft coverage, as well as data security training to the employees of companies both big and small. These plans are presented at no direct cost to employers. ? ?The price of the peace of mind these policies offer is about the cost of a cup of coffee per day. The accessibility of these plans to the employee ?levels the stage? in benefit options, especially for smaller businesses.? Lionheart Assurance Solutions offers their distinctive benefits programs to firms of all sizes, but small companies with lesser personnel are the real winners in that Lionheart Assurance Solutions places special emphasis and pride in offering their benefit programs to small companies. ? ?No matter how hard an staff works, personal complications are bound to surface at almost any time, causing compromised output of top quality work, as well as overall performance.. This can potentially have an effect on the bottom line earnings of a company. ? Lionheart Assurance Solutions , while not a law firm, offers legal plan benefits to staff which will gain those employees use of qualified lawyers, if the need arises. . Lionheart Assurance Solutions knows that employees and employers need to understand how to protect private company information, as well as the related dangers of identity theft.? Therefore, the provider offers training for both companies and staff in these areas.. ? Lionheart Assurance Solutions training solutions are designed to have an? effect on the overall thinking process of employees. The positives of the training include better communication between the employees and employers, as well as heightened productivity.. Through feeling more comfortable about the safety of their identities, employees can become far more concerned on seeing the company improve its standing in the market.. This helps to reduce employee turnover, provides a much better work environment and attracts top quality employees
Posted: 8:00 am Thu, August 25, 2011 By Frank?Jossi Tags: Grandstand, Jerry Hammer, Minnesota State Fair, Steve Granger
How much is the State Fair worth? Just how big is it? What do leases run?
Consider the Minnesota State Fair as a real estate and business venture for a moment. Although the Fair technically is in Falcon Heights, it?sone of the largest private or commercial campuses in the St. Paul area. It has miles of streets, hundredsof buildings and more livestock square footage than a dozen farms.
So, how much is all this real estate worth? Who owns it and who leases? State Fair general manager Jerry Hammer put on his green eye shades and analyzed the Fair as a real estate enterprise for Finance & Commerce.
The Fair consists of 320 acres ? not as big as the 480 acres of its closest neighbor, the Como Park, Zoo and Conservatory. A Minnesota Historical Society ?walking tour? of the Fair, available for the first time this year, pegs the Fair?s circumference at 2.2 miles and the total mileage on streets at eight to 10 miles.
For insurance purposes, the Fair?s 350,000 square feet of space are valued at around $200 million, although Hammer says that amount might not be enough to replace all the buildings. That figure includes fixtures and the like inside buildings, many of which remain empty much of the year except for occasional events.
The Fair primarily owns the larger buildings but not the concessions, union booths, and so on.
?I?d say there are scores of buildings we don?t own,? Hammer said. Technically, the Fair owns the land those structures sit on, but not the buildings themselves. Each tenant leases the land and pays an annual license fee to the Fair.
Food and beverage concessionaires pay 15 percent of gross revenue, after applicable taxes; non-food concessions are charged a rate of $105 per front foot. A 10-foot-wide space, for example, pays $1,050 during the 12-day run. Non-food concessions, such as amusements, pay from 15 percent to 40 percent of gross revenue. Exhibits displaying equipment, products and services for future sales ? not on-site ? pay $90 per front foot. Non-food institutions deemed ?educational? by the Fair pay $70 per front foot.
Tenants also pay personal property taxes to Ramsey County, said Hammer, adding he did not have any idea how much money was collected.
Despite the age and historical significance of many of the buildings, none is on the National Register of Historic Places, said Steve Granger, the Fair?s archivist. He is not sure why that?s the case ? if it?s merely a matter that no one has filed the paperwork or that there?s no danger of a developer coming around and knocking buildings down for something grander.
The Fine Arts Center and the Progress Center, the two oldest buildings (vintage 1907), are also among the most beautiful, Granger said. Several buildings have served different functions over the decades, and the Progress Center is no exception, having once housed poultry.
If the Fair had a great architectural era, said Granger, it would have been the years before and during World War II, when the Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed some of the most beloved Art Deco-influenced buildings, among them the Horse Barn, 4-H, Sheep & Poultry, Swine and Commissary.
The event once even had an ?official Fair architect? but those days are long gone, Granger said. The last significant chief architect, Kindy C. Wright, worked through the 1960s and 1970s.
Most of the largest buildings at the Fair have been around for decades, although smaller structures have been added. The new building this year is a $1.2 million restroom facility in Machinery Hill, Hammer said. Recent improvements include new windows in the Cattle Barn and the addition of a Wi-Fi network.
The largest recent improvement was the $18 million renovation of the Grandstand begun in 2002 and finished two years later. As much as $6 million are spent annually on capital improvement projects, he said, with money coming from the state Legislature, the Fair and other sources.
This Saturday, AgStar Financial Services Inc. plans a groundbreaking on a 27,000-square-foot equine and livestock arena that will replace the 1960s-era Judging and Stall Annex. Actual construction begins after the Fair, according to a company press release.
The annual budget for the Fair this year is $38.5 million, said Hammer, and gross revenue should match that amount. Despite attracting more than 1.8 million people most years, the Fair hardly looks like a great business proposition, earning from $1 million to $1.5 million a year.
?If we had shareholders, they would not be happy,? Hammer said. ?But all we need to do is create enough revenue to take care of the financials this year and have enough to produce next year?s Fair.?
Higher attendance does not automatically equate to higher revenue, he explained. ?The more successful the Fair, the greater the expenses,? he said. Those expenses might include hiring more buses to transport people, more security, ticket-takers and part-time staff.
That?s not all the revenue the Fair collects, however. Different groups lease buildings in the Fair throughout the year, holding more than 100 events and bringing in another $2.5 million to $3 million annually, said Hammer.
Another source of revenue is the Minnesota State Fair Foundation, which provides money for improvements. In 2009 it paid for the redesign of the Moo Booth and for the preservation of the Historic Grandstand Marquee.
The Fair itself pays no taxes and is considered a ?quasi state agency? operated by the Minnesota State Agricultural Society. The society has run the Fair since 1859 but even managed a few events called territorial fairs before that year, Hammer said.
One operational detail of the Fair, which Hammer says contributes to its success, is that politics plays no role. Hammer said other states have seen campaign contributors operating state fairs. ?We?re outside the political sphere, and thank goodness for that,? he said.
Click to learn more about a walking tour and historic buildings at the State Fair.
View a map of the fair site here.
More: Fun facts about the 2011 Minnesota State Fair
Collapse incident leads to safety features for Minnesota State Fair Grandstand
This entry was posted on Thursday, August 25th, 2011 at 8:00 am and is filed under Real Estate, Top Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Real estate is indeed one of the safest investments and a lot of people use real estate as an investment avenue. Real estate law is not the forte of real estate attorneys and real estate agents only. Every real estate investor should understand at least the basics of real estate law. In fact, a short course or a concise book on real estate law can sometimes be of great help (and is generally sufficient for understanding the basics of real estate law).
What you need to understand is the real estate law with respect to the legal procedures that you need to follow for ensuring a smooth transfer of title to the property you acquire/sell and other related procedures. You need to understand the fee structure (e.g. stamp duty, etc) that you need to take care of as per real estate law. You can also understand the classification of properties and how the basic real estate law applies to them. How the commercial and residential properties are treated differently by the real estate law. The tax laws with respect to real estate are one of the things that would be of most interest to you. So, your study on real estate law should also cover all the aspects related to taxes. How mortgages are treated in the perspective of real estate law is another thing that you should know about. Then again, the real estate law with respect to tenancy should also be well understood by people who wish to rent out their property.
However, you should not overdo that i.e. you should not start becoming hysterical about learning real estate law (lest you end up wasting a lot of time in trying to learn everything about real estate law and be left with no time to evaluate your real estate investment). Leave the intricacies of real estate law with the real estate attorneys (and to some extent real estate brokers who too are taught real estate law as part of their course for obtaining broker license).
Understanding the various legal terms referred to in real estate laws can help you in not only enhancing your understanding of real estate but also help in making your conversations with real estate attorneys/agents really fruitful. You should also note that though some of the basics remain the same, the real estate laws vary across various states. Also, real estate laws (especially the tax related real estate laws) can undergo a change over a period of time, so you need to keep a tab on such changes. Any big changes will anyhow appear prominently in news and you will get to know of them anyhow. So knowing a little bit of real estate law can really be helpful (and is, in fact, essential).
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LOHAS stands for ?Lifestyles Of Health And Sustainability? and is a marketing term that originated in 2000 in the United States to describe a group of consumers who are environmentally, socially and health conscious, and believes in a lifestyle that benefits both people and planet. The LOHAS concept quickly spread to Japan, and then to Taiwan and South Korea.
Collaborative Consumption refers to the trend of sharing that is empowered by technology and social networks, and how it changes consumption and the way businesses operate. Sharing also refers to renting, swapping, lending, trading, exchanging, bartering, and gifting. The term Collaborative Consumption was first described in 2010 in the book What?s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers. Other resources with similar ideas on sharing include the book The Mesh: Why the Future of Business is Sharing by Lisa Gansky and the Shareable website.
How much is the State Fair worth? Just how big is it? What do leases run?