How invest money to make money

Over Labor Day weekend, real estate mogul Rob Speyer got a call from an old friend: Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, the union that represents New York City’s 75,000-plus educators. Mulgrew had a favor to ask. Could Speyer, through his role as president and CEO of Tishman Speyer, help monitor and improve ventilation in some of the city’s public schools, as he had done across his own commercial real estate portfolio? Good ventilation could reduce the spread of COVID-19 in enclosed spaces like classrooms—and lay the foundation for reopening the schools that serve New York City’s 1.1 million students. … [Read more...] about Why “flexibility” may be the least helpful thing companies can offer working parents right now

Inevitably, these efforts come with costs that some businesses are loathe to take on. “The one that I’ve heard the most frequently is, ‘We just don’t know enough about the change in the climate, therefore we certainly wouldn’t want to spend money if we don’t have to on these things,'” Gritzo says. But this is outdated thinking, he argues. “We do know most of what we need to know about the big factors that are changing climate risk. It’s flood, rising sea level, increased rainfall rates. It’s increasing wildfire risks because of warming temperatures and extended droughts. We know enough about those trends.” … [Read more...] about Climate change is threatening your company’s building. Insurance won’t be enough to protect it

A more promising framework, called Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), provides a more comprehensive accounting of the full end-to-end resource consumption involved in the production and delivery of goods and services. Talk of the “circular economy” is gaining ground in boardrooms and communities, and its achievement rests on the principles of LCA. Neither trillion-dollar asset managers seeking ESG-rated investments nor cities pursuing a more circular economy are immune from the full accounting of sustainability. We can no longer isolate “energy companies”—we are all energy companies now. … [Read more...] about The hard truth about climate change: The devil’s in the details

After 20 successful years at the helm, and with profits at more than 100 million pounds a year, Shepherdson staged a dramatic departure from Topshop. The press blamed a fallout between her and Green over the decision to allow supermodel Kate Moss to design lines for the chain. However, industry insiders and Shepherdson herself deny this. From this moment on, the road ahead for Topshop under new management was a tough one. … [Read more...] about Where Topshop went wrong

While Stripe looks at the vendor side of transactions, creating a platform for many different shops to process payments, Fast hopes to do the same on the consumer side: create a system where people can register once, and then just log in to pay for things on multiple sites. The first time you see a Fast checkout button on a website, you can click on it and enter your details and credit card information. Then, the company is able to track you across sites and devices using cookies, IP addresses, and your email, which means that on any site with a Fast Checkout button, you won’t have to enter your details again. … [Read more...] about This Stripe-backed startup wants to bring one-click checkout to the rest of the web