Public Private Partnership

Recently I heard a podcast from Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management. It had an interesting topic "Industrialization in Emerging Markets"। It was a 90 minute discussion but I am putting some interesting points which one of the presenters pointed to. With the theme as to how important is Industrialization in Emerging markets, emphasis was put in to how Public Private Partnership is must for this to happen. It was more of how one leads to the other. By the way Public here stands for local government, local non-profit organizations and Private means Multinational organizations like Microsoft, Coca Cola etc. From here onwards I am trying to put down the words of the presenter.

Why public private partnership is important for industrialization in emerging markets?
The issue which many multinational companies face right now is consistently finding new customer base in their current market and also finding resources/labor as cheap as possible since the competition is growing. Getting into emerging markets will help them to solve both the issues. Firstly they will have new customer base and also they will get access to cheaper labor and other resources and also improve their global image. The emerging markets also benefit since people get employment and Industrialization brings whole lot of other developments in the country.
But the companies are facing many business challenges in these emerging markets since they are going into countries like Chad, Somalia, Rwanda where they never thought they would be going. The challenges they face range from Human rights challenges to enterprise development , social challenges etc. and this is where the local government and organizations come into picture. The presenter gives two very good examples which pretty much explains everything about Public Private Partnership and why it works and make sense.

Coca Cola
Coca Cola sells products in 200 countries. It takes 3 liters of clean water to produce 1 liter of Coca Cola. By 2050 25% = 50 countries will not have clean water to produce coca cola. So one of the biggest challenges it has is how to conserve clean water so that after 2050 it can produce and sell there and around the world. The solution they have come with is to partner with the local governments to revise the policies on water usage, improve the efficiency of water usage, dig more wells in remote villages. They also have partnered with municipalities to build water cleaning plants at more places.

Star Bucks
Currently Starbucks faces a challenge to add variety in its coffee offerings. The solution they worked on is start growing coffee in Rwanda and import from there. Rwanda did not grow coffee before 5 years but with Starbucks and Rwanda government partnership now they grow and export coffee. This adds variety to Starbucks' coffee offerings and people in Rwanda get employment.

The reason I personally was impressed with the talk is that it seems now onwards big companies will have to consider emerging markets for cheaper labor and new customer base. Such symbiotic relationship will definitely help both entities here. I hope such efforts continue and I think they will until there are incentives for the companies to go into untapped markets.

Note: All credit about the information goes to the presenter of the talk.

41pounds.org

Did you know that the energy used to produce, deliver and dispose of junk mail produces more greenhouse gas emissions than 2.8 million cars? Well thats a big number folks. You can dramatically reduce your junk mail and offset CO2 emissions through the service of the nonprofit organization 41pounds. 41pounds will contact dozens of direct mail companies to remove your name from their lists – credit card offers, coupon mailers, etc. plus the catalogs you specify. The service costs $41 for everyone in your household for 5 years, thats $8.2 a year and only 2 cents a day, and 41pounds will donate $15 to Carbonfund.org . Using this $15 Carbonfund.org will offset 1 metric ton of CO2 (2204 pounds) — which offsets the burning of 114 gallons of gasoline. We can achieve following at just 2 cents/day. I have already done it and hope that you also think about it.

Time — No credit card offers to shred or unwanted catalogs.
Trees — Keep 100+ million trees in forests, cooling the planet.
Water — Protect 28 billion gallons of clean water.
Climate — Junk mail produces more C02 than 2.8 million cars.
Planet — They donate to your favorite charity when you sign up.

Above information is obtained from 41pounds and Carbonfund.org

Scan Gauge

Couple of months back I got a new toy, Scan Gauge. Basically this device connects to you car computer and provides you real time data about the mileage, rpm etc. It also does and little book keeping which would store data about the current day and yesterday (a day before). It will give you a Trip summary such as total mileage of the current trip, total time traveled, max speed etc and same for the previous day. It also gives you information about the error codes when you see some new lights turned around the odometer. If you see such lights often, this device will help to diagnose about the issues and might save you a trip to the mechanic. Its form factor make is very easy to fit even in a very small space. Connecting it and setup is very easy, just connect it with the car computer and you are good to go. It (car computer connection) is the same place at which the technician connects when you go for State inspection. Then start the car and set the size of the engine (e.g. 2L ,1.8L etc.) and the gas tank size. It might take up to a couple of tank fill-ups for the device to give near to accurate information. I have been using since couple of months and I see mileage data very close to the actual mileage I get. In near future I will try to post some data which I get from the scan gauge. To get more correct information about the device and its uses visit ScanGauge website.

WHY USE RECYCLED PAPERS?

All the time we have heard and read that using recycled paper helps to save trees and conserve energy, all in all is good for environment. This information which I got from a cover of printer paper ream by Aspen , which shows actually how much it helps the environment. Choosing recycled papers over non-recycled paper has following environmental impact*.

	30% Recycled Paper	50% Recycled Paper	100% Recycled Paper
% fewer trees used	30%	50%	100%
% less energy used	13%	22%	43%
% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions	11%	19%	37%
% less water	14%	23%	46%
% reduction in solid waste	15%	25%	49%

*Source: Environmental Defense's Paper Calculator, www.environmentaldefense.org/papercalculator

HOW MUCH CAN YOU SAVE - II

This post is in continuation with my previous post. I want to prove my point that with little consideration we can save electricity and contribute in the fight against the global warming. So let's take one more example. In my rest room I have 6 normal light bulbs to enlighten it, each bulb 60W. Let's say that I spend 1.5 hr every day in the restroom, so that would be 6*60=360Wh=.36kWh everyday. So for one month that would be 0.36*30 *1.5=16.2kWh every month => 16.2 * 0.22= $3.56 approx. I surely didn't needed all the six bulbs so I removed 3 of them and replaced the other 3 with 13W fluorescent bulb. 13W fluorescent is equivalent to 60W normal bulbs, so after these changes the saving would be= 3*13W=39W *1.5 hrs* 30 days = 1.755 kWh *.22= $0.39 approx So I save about $3.15 every month. So now justs adding the savings from previous post $4( by switching off the wireless router and cable modem) + $3.15 =$7.15 savings / month. Now the above scheme of bulbs there is a catch, you have to buy the fluorescent bulbs, but hey thats one time investment for at least 3-5 years. And also you are helping to avoid global warming. I will be posting some more examples, as I they come in my mind but surly currently we are abusing environment by relying more and more on non renewable sources of energy!! I hope after reading these posts a small thread would have spawn in your minds! Feel free to post your views or the changes which you made after reading my blog, sometimes feedback give motivation as well!!

HOW MUCH CAN YOU SAVE-I

I don't know how to start this but am trying to bring out one of the threads that has been running in my mind since long. Call me "Global warming" fanatic or "kanjoos" (you will know in a short while why am saying this), I am going to put down the thoughts and the research I did after that. Also this is not only just about me or my thoughts, the suggestions I have would help you to mitigate your rising electric bills to some extent. The use of electric/electronic devices in our life is so common that sometimes we even don't realize that we are using them. We need to burn fuel in order to generate electricity, and combustion of fuel leads to more green house gases in the atmosphere which leads to global warming. See its that simple!!
I have always been thinking as how much electricity would a given device consume in a given time? Lets say my TV is on but am not watching it, so what impact would this have on the environment? There are two parts to above questions a) how much electricity my TV consumes? b) what impact would this have on the environment?
First I will try to answer the first question.
I know that there is a very basic formula to calculate electic consumption of a given device, but me being a dumbo in Electrical stuff (e.g. it was tough for me to remember ohm's law) had to search it online and I came across this nice website by Michael which gives me all the necessary information.
Thanks to this website and its author, now I understand HOW MUCH ! electricity a given device consumes in a given time.I am putting down some interesting information but I encourage you to go through the site for more information if you are still reading this blog.
Usage of electricity is measured in kWh => kilo watt hour and we are billed according to that number. The formula to calculate kWh = (# watts usage per hour * # hours )/1000.
We are charged according to amount of electricity we use and the unit is kWh=>kilo watt hour. Nearly everything you can plug into the wall has a label that says how much electricity it uses i.e # of watts. (It may be printed directly into the plastic or metal.) You will have to make some efforts to find it.
If the label only gives the number of amps and not the number of watts, then just multiply the amps by 120 (for USA) to get the number of watts.
e.g. it the label says 65W, it means the device consumes 65Wh every hour.
if it says 5 amps, then it means the device uses 5*120 W hour every hour. (120 for USA and I think for India and European countries it is 240).
Now if you know how much you are charged per kWh then you can exactly calculate how much a the usage of a give device can cost you. Lets take an example so that I can help you take off some $s from you electric bill -;)
I have cable internet at my home, and I also use wireless router so that I can get internet in any room without need a physical connection between the computer/laptop and cable modem. For the sake of the study we will exclude the electricity consumption by the computer/laptop. Both the cable modem and the wireless router use electricity when they are turned on. My modem uses 18W and router uses 16W, so when I use them both, the total usage is 34W every hour. Lets say I don't switch them off during night (when we are not using it). Lets say we don't use internet from 11pm to 5 pm other day as we sleep at night and work till 5 pm. So in total 18hrs of non usage time. So the total kWh = 34*18 = 612/1000=0.612 kWh . In my last electric bill I saw that I am charged $0.22/kWh, so that totals 0.135 $ per day => $4 /month. So see now I am saving $4 every month just by switching off the modem and wireless router and you can too!.
Thats enough for now, will be adding more information soon as this post seems to have grown a bit big!!!!

Why do we still keep using Pennies and Nickel?

Soaring copper prices are pinching the penny makers. It now costs 1.3cents to make a penny and 7.7cents to make a nickel. But there's an environmental cost, too, to minting new coins- namely, copper mining and refining that involves huge amounts of power and water. Coinstar estimates there are some 150 billion coins going unused in US. => $10billion or $90 per household, stashed in mason jars and under couch cushions. Cashing in just 10% of this amount would translate into sizable environmental savings as show in the table below.

Savings Of	Equivalent to
Water	82 million showers*
Energy	4.1 million 60-watts bulbs**
CO2	12619 cars removed annually from roads***

* 40 gallons each
** Over average life span of 1000 hours
*** Assuming average mileage
Source: Business week May 2008