Interview with Alexis Lecanuet, Accenture Middle East: Creating Value Through Continuous Transformation

How has your professional journey qualified and prepared you for being the Middle East Region MD for Accenture?
As a true veteran at Accenture, starting my journey with the company back in 1996 – I am proud to champion large-scale transformation projects in the region by spearheading value-added advantage for stakeholders. Over my 25-year tenure, I also led large, complex transformation projects across Europe, MENA, and Turkey.

[caption id="attachment_21252" align="aligncenter" width="900"] Alexis Lecanuet (right)[/caption]

I'm humbled by the opportunities and experiences I have embarked upon, and along with an outstanding leadership team, we are excited to deliver on our business objectives in the region, emphasising innovation and human ingenuity at the core of everything we offer. Our strategy, purpose, and brand are grounded in Accenture's enduring formula for market leadership: embracing change and continually transforming the business to create value, powered by the talent and creativity of our people.

What sets the Middle East apart from the rest of the world?
The Middle East has undergone a tremendous transformation in less than half a century, and with this region's bold leadership visions, we know the best is yet to come. Speed, agility, and change are at the core of each of these visions and we are confident that this region will reach new heights in a very short period.

In line with the UAE Vision 2021, Accenture maintains its support to private and government businesses to further enable the UAE to become a leading technology hub by helping establishments and governments apply technology to create positive change and transform business and society. Taking Expo 2020 as an example, the digital infrastructure we have built with the underlying software to navigate the Expo logistics to connect all vendors, participants and visitors is a significant infrastructure to run the best worldwide events. Building digital capabilities for Expo 2020 is a giant cannon shot for Dubai to enhance the tourist experience in the future. This is the biggest post-pandemic hybrid event of this scale, and the next ten most significant events on earth will leverage the same technology, back-office capabilities, and digital experience that this Expo has used.

In Saudi Arabia, we are deeply rooted in Vision 2030 and are aligned to the strategic pillars of the country. The vision of Accenture in Saudi Arabia is to become the partner of choice in the country's economic transformation by bringing together the right capabilities to co-create and deliver innovative ideas and solutions. We believe that Saudi's vision has a clear aim – to bring public and private organisations together, to collaborate on shared objectives and make way for a stronger, more innovative future.

What are some of the major challenges and opportunities facing businesses in the region?
Organisations globally are looking to accelerate innovation to support business and operating model reinvention, fast-tracking transformation programs to future proof their businesses. According to our latest Accenture Innovation Maturity Index, Middle Eastern companies registered a significant surge in their innovation strategy scores as businesses reviewed their strategies due to COVID-19. In the past five years, we found that 67% of Middle East executives indicated that they had taken measures to modernise their existing technology infrastructure – moving from data servers to cloud storage. In the next five years, this figure is poised to increase to 86%.

Moreover, yet despite the pandemic opening doors to embrace new ways of working and doing business, there was only a marginal uptake in companies reimagining themselves, reflected by a 1% increase in the overall index score. This signifies the regional dichotomy between a culture that sets companies up to innovate new ways of working enabled by technology and traditional ways of doing business, which often require a physical presence.

There is no doubt that companies must intensify their innovation priorities in the region and make greater strides in their business transformation. There is a real opportunity and a short window to make this a reality.

Secondly, we believe that a knowledge economy is the end game. The race to attract top talent will only get more heated, leading organisations to work harder to create positive corporate cultures that focus on helping the personal and professional development of their employees. When it comes to managing talent, some of the key challenges companies face revolve around learning how to manage a multi-generational workforce and retain talent.

Managing today's workforce has become more challenging than ever. With the rapid rate of innovation and the widespread use of technology, generational differences have become exacerbated. Comprised of baby boomers, Generation X, and millennials, and with Generation Z starting to enter the workforce, companies will need to be aware of the differences between each generation to ensure that they are engaging all employees. In the UAE, especially, there is an additional layer of complexity added on by a workforce made up of over 200 different nationalities.

To retain talent in a post COVID world, you have to go beyond the transactional to truly understand employees. Today, we see that shared humanity at work can make all the difference in this crisis. Therefore, companies need to go beyond the transactional to truly understand their employees if they want to create productive, inclusive, and rewarding working environments for the long haul.

The effect of this positive environment cannot be overlooked. Our research has shown that an empowered workplace, which means a workplace where there is a culture of equality and where employers make decisions that positively impact employees, can positively impact employees' capacity to innovate than even pay rises or advanced degrees. In other words, empowered employees could raise global GDP by $8 trillion by 2028. The UAE is definitely on route to seizing this potential.

Accenture for example is helping shape the future workforce in the region through multiple initiatives including: The Hour of Code initiative; the 2020 Hours of code with Expo 2020; our collaboration with Al Maskari Holding to equip UAE nationals with the skills needed to future-proof their careers and to strengthen the local talent base; training blue-collar workers with Smart Labour; female empowerment, talent development, and gender balance in the region through our collaboration with E7.

Lastly, the intersection of digital technologies and sustainability is critical. According to Accenture's 'Care to Do Better' September 2020 report, approximately 70% of workers expect that companies will start to behave more responsibly and equitably than they did before the pandemic. Roughly one in two workers agree that the ethical, sustainable and moral values a company holds will become more important to it following the pandemic than they were before.

Today, Accenture is pioneering '360-degree Value' – and helping clients transform and reinvent their businesses, reskill their employees or simply become more sustainable through transitioning to the cloud to ensure clear financial return. Exponential changes in technology were transforming the way we work and live before COVID-19, and now its impact has raised change to a new level, requiring companies to reimagine everything and requiring economies and entire industries to rebuild. At this moment, to emerge stronger, there is only one choice: embrace change and ensure that it benefits all — your customers, people, shareholders, partners and communities.

Please give an example of how technology and innovation has benefited one of your clients
Expo 2020 aspires to attract approximately 25 million visits by 15 million unique visitors during the six months. The mega-scale multinational event that is Expo 2020 Dubai will be nothing less than a once-in-a-lifetime celebration of technology and human ingenuity. The first significant post-pandemic global gathering, and arguably one of the most important, this Expo will define the future of mega-scale, multinational events for the foreseeable future. Indeed, the subsequent 10 most significant events on earth will leverage the same technology, capabilities and infrastructure, and digital experiences that this Expo is deploying.

Expo 2020 is a living example of Accenture's perspective on the way organisations must move from a partial focus on customer experience to full-business alignment around delivering the best possible experience to everyone involved. As the Digital Services Premier Partner, Accenture hit the ground running, marrying technology with human ingenuity – or what we call the "Business of Experience", organising the whole entity around the delivery of exceptional experiences.

Since the beginning, Accenture appreciated the ever-increasing speed of tech innovation and the need to ensure that this World Expo leveraged the latest possibilities. But with the unforeseen impact of Covid-19, the visitor context has also shifted. But focusing on the visitor experience from the very start proved to be the golden thread that tied everything together, ensuring a seamless, connected Expo 2020 visitor experience.

This was manifested across five broad areas:

The first was the actual visitor layer itself. Creating a unique experience for millions of people – across ages 5 to 85 – was vital. This Expo needed to cater to all. The second was supporting the more than 190 participant nations and each one's large team. The third was empowering the Expo's thousands of workers who are the front line of delivering the famously warm and uniquely Emirati hospitality, both in person at the event and in the background. The fourth was spurring data-driven decision-making throughout the organisation to ensure all efforts were motivated by real-time intelligence shaping personalised experiences. Finally, the fifth area was coordinating the vast, multi-cloud infrastructure, making it run seamlessly across all teams and users.

With a single-minded focus on relevant, personalised experiences, the event will deliver the best possible experience for everyone – from all the participant nations, managing teams, contractors and vendors, plus on-site and behind the scenes workers, to the actual visitors at the event itself, not to mention the millions who will interact with the Expo digitally.

Accenture also laid the foundation for future innovations and technologies at Expo 2020 that create a positive impact through digital innovation and improve the way the world lives and works. With innovation and technology being at the heart of Expo 2020 Dubai, we share a common goal of joining together businesses, systems, and people worldwide while providing the smartest and most innovative experiences for participants and visitors.

Accenture implemented and integrated intelligent systems to support various Expo teams – from procurement and marketing, to finance and HR, as well as participants and partners– to achieve their goals on smart and secure platforms.

As Expo's Systems Integrator, Accenture coordinated more than 15 applications behind the scenes, supported by our robust Services Delivery Platform. As the first World Expo to be hosted in a multi-cloud environment, Accenture helped manage the apps and infrastructure for a secure, reliable, and resilient event.

What are your key services in the Middle East?
Accenture is a global professional services company with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and security. Combining unmatched experience and specialised skills across more than 40 industries, we offer Strategy and Consulting, Interactive, Technology and Operations services—all powered by the world's largest network of Advanced Technology and Intelligent Operations centers. Our 569,000 people deliver on the promise of technology and human ingenuity every day, serving clients in more than 120 countries. We embrace the power of change to create value and shared success for our clients, people, shareholders, partners, and communities.

Since 2011, Accenture has been leading rapid digital transformation for various clients in the region, from government entities to private enterprises and multinationals.

What industry and services sectors do you focus on?
Accenture provides services and solutions across more than 40 industries in five industry groups. This industry focus gives Accenture's professionals a thorough understanding of industry evolution, business issues and applicable technologies, enabling us to deliver innovative solutions tailored to each client.

As the largest independent technology services provider, we have a privileged position in the ecosystem and are a leading partner of many key players, including SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, and Workday. The scale and scope of our global delivery capabilities are unmatched, with skilled professionals working from more than 50 delivery centers and at client sites around the world.

In terms of services, we offer:

Strategy and Consulting works with C-suite executives and boards of the world's leading organisations, helping them accelerate their digital transformation to enhance competitiveness, grow profitability and deliver sustainable stakeholder value. We use our deep industry and functional expertise underpinned by data, analytics, artificial intelligence, and innovation to help clients solve a diverse set of business challenges, including identifying and developing new markets, products and services; optimising cost structures; maximising human performance; harnessing data to improve decision-making; mitigating risk and enhancing security; implementing modern change management programs; shaping and delivering value from large-scale cloud migrations; building more resilient supply chains; and reinventing manufacturing and operations with smart, connected products and platforms.

Interactive combines creativity and technology in service of meaningful experiences that drive sustainable growth and value for our clients. Our capabilities span ideation to execution: growth, product and culture design; technology and experience platforms; creative, media and marketing strategy; and campaign, content and channel orchestration. With strong client relationships and deep industry expertise, we are uniquely positioned to design, build, communicate and run experiences, reimagining the entire journey for customers, employees, patients and citizens alike. We embed this focus on experience across our services.

Technology provides innovative and comprehensive services and solutions that span cloud; systems integration and application management; security; intelligent platform services; infrastructure services; software engineering services; data and artificial intelligence; and global delivery through our Advanced Technology Centers. We continuously innovate our services, capabilities and platforms through early adoption of new technologies such as blockchain, robotics, 5G, quantum computing and Edge computing. Technology also leads the innovation and R&D activities in our Labs, our investments in emerging technologies through Accenture Ventures, and the management of our ecosystem alliance relationships across a broad range of technology providers.

Operations operates business processes on behalf of clients for specific enterprise functions, including finance and accounting, sourcing and procurement, supply chain, marketing and sales, as well as industry-specific services, such as platform trust and safety, banking, insurance and health services. We help organisations to reinvent themselves through intelligent operations, enabled by SynOps, our human-machine platform, powered by data and analytics, artificial intelligence, digital technology, and exceptional people to provide tangible business outcomes at speed and scale, including improved productivity and customer experiences as well as sustained long-term growth.

How is digital transformation for financial services?
The COVID-19 pandemic has driven a rapid uptake of digital banking around the world. The incredible speed of the adoption has rewritten some of the industry's fundamentals, including how consumers behave and what they expect from banks in 2021. To manage disruption and create new value in a rapidly changing world, financial institutions need to change in order to become more innovative, agile and human.

2020 gave the banking industry a glimpse of the future. However, it will be 2021 that will determine how much of that future is institutionalised and how much reverts to the way things were pre-COVID. This year bank management teams will need to decide how much they want to lead versus follow. How much do they want to maintain the stretch versus letting the elastic relax a little. In areas where they take the learnings of 2020 and build a slingshot, how many shots should they take, how far away should the aiming point be, and how should they trade off the reward of hitting those targets against the cost of failed launches?

The potential energy created by the stretch of 2020 can certainly be used to accelerate the development of the banking industry on multiple dimensions. We'll look back on this period as an inflection point and many metrics will show a pre- versus post-pandemic discontinuity. However, the desire to build slingshots is not without risk. There are many areas where it isn't clear if bank employees, customers, or regulators are ready for revolution rather than evolution, and there will be a need for the industry to take a collective breath in 2021. The ability to navigate these trade-offs by leading rather than following will differentiate those institutions that will widen the competitive gap in 2021 versus those that will snap their elastic or be embarrassed by a misfire. The world of retail and commercial banking was already a complex and fast-moving sector, and the fallout from COVID will make navigating it even harder.

What are some of the strengths Accenture brings to strategy, value creation and digital transformation?
Business speaks in the language of value. We believe 360-degree value has the potential to transform our industry and the larger business community—and ultimately make a real difference in society. For our clients, this means helping them transform and reinvent their businesses, reskill their employees, or become more sustainable by moving to the cloud with clear financial return.

Our global workforce of 569,000 delivers on the promise of technology and human ingenuity every day, serving clients in more than 120 countries. We embrace the power of change to create value and shared success for our clients, people, shareholders, partners, and communities.

Moreover, in the last year – we have re-shaped our focus by finding appropriate solutions at speed to help our stakeholders mitigate the effects of the pandemic. We launched Accenture Cloud First with a US$3 billion investment over three years to help clients across all industries rapidly become "cloud first" businesses and accelerate their digital transformation to realise greater value at speed and scale.

Our unique depth and expertise mean we can go straight to the heart of our client's most pressing challenges and fully deliver value.

How does Accenture support socio-economic development and a knowledge-based society?
Comprehensive socio-economic development based on digital transformation is namely one of the key objectives of government plans in the region with major economies making massive investments in AI, IoT and other such technologies as a part of initiatives like Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030, UAE's Vision 2021, and Qatar's National Vision 2030 development plan.

In the region, we are committed to our partnerships that complement and help governments and organisations harness the power of people, technology, and processes to promote employer brand, employee experience and up-skill the future workforce.

For example, as the Digital Services Premier Partner and Systems Integrator for the Expo 2020 Dubai, Accenture committed to a framework that guaranteed social and economic benefits for Expo teams, nations, vendors, suppliers, and visitors. We led several smart and innovative ventures and partnerships to create an engaging digital-driven experience that brings Expo 2020 to life for millions of visitors and audiences worldwide. Not only that – but on a community level and as conscious corporate citizens – we also supported Expo Live – Expo 2020's global innovation and partnership program. We teamed up with Smart Labour, a UAE-based Expo Live grantee helping blue-collar workers gain new skills for the digital economy.

Moreover, our commitment to gender balance and inclusivity in the region is unwavering. By championing equal opportunity as a company – we also realise our responsibility to the community. Earlier this year, we announced a three-year partnership with UAE-based 'e7 Daughters of the Emirates'. This endeavor will contribute to systemic in-country change through expert training and development in SME-led capability, storytelling, design thinking, cost control, and artificial intelligence (AI). We have also dedicated qualified professionals to mentor and help fill the gap between theory classes and real-life work experience to equip female students with future-ready skill sets. These activities also help embed a stronger culture of responsible business practices with all stakeholders within Accenture's communities.

On a global level – we have championed sustainability practices and committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2025. Accenture will make actual reductions in emissions by powering offices with 100% renewable energy, engaging key suppliers to reduce their emissions, and equipping Accenture's people to make climate-smart travel decisions. To address the remaining emissions, the company will invest in proprietary, nature-based carbon removal solutions, such as large-scale tree planting, that will directly remove carbon emissions from the atmosphere.

What excites you the most about the region's future?
The Middle East is paving the way for enterprises to reap the benefits of next-gen networks and technologies. The new post-pandemic way of working harshly reminded enterprises of the importance of keeping business hyper-connected and having a robust digital infrastructure in place, and the future budgets reflect that reality. Moreover, governments in the region have long realised the deployment of digital technologies as part of their national strategy of moving away from a primarily oil-based economy to a knowledge-based digital economy with a thriving private sector.

Today, the region has emerged as a global forerunner in advanced connectivity, with the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, among the first countries in the world to deploy game-changing power of new technology, including 5G networks, cloud, edge computing, AI – among others.

This is truly an exciting time for Accenture in the region and me personally. While governments and organisations alike are looking to accelerate innovation to support business and operating model reinvention, as well as fast-tracking transformation programs – we are delighted to be the partner of choice on their ambitious journey.

About Accenture

Accenture is a global professional services company with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and security. Combining unmatched experience and specialised skills across more than 40 industries, they offer Strategy and Consulting, Interactive, Technology and Operations services — all powered by the world’s largest network of Advanced Technology and Intelligent Operations centers. Thei 569,000 people deliver on the promise of technology and human ingenuity every day, serving clients in more than 120 countries. They embrace the power of change to create value and shared success for their clients, people, shareholders, partners and communities.
For more information: accenture.com

About Alexis Lecanuet

[caption id="attachment_21255" align="aligncenter" width="280"] Accenture Middle East Regional Managing Director: Alexis Lecanuet[/caption]

Alexis Lecanuet is the Regional Managing Director for Accenture in the Middle East. In his role, he is responsible for Accenture business in the region, including defining and executing Accenture’s strategy, leading the clients’ portfolio, and managing the local operations.

Previously, Alexis led and grew the company’s products portfolio in the Middle East and Turkey region and focused on onboarding and retaining the largest names in the retail business. Over his 24-year career with Accenture, he has commanded large, complex transformation projects across Europe, MENA, and Turkey.

Alexis holds a Masters in Business Consulting from ESCP Europe Business School and a Business Finance degree from SKEMA Business School. He is married with four children and is currently based in the UAE.


Shelter Afrique: Building Africa — One Roof at a Time

The great continent is facing a shortage of affordable housing — and that’s just one of the developmental challenges being tackled by Shelter Afrique.

Africa’s housing scarcity is at crisis point due to rapid population growth and urbanisation.

Governments and development partners established Shelter Afrique (also known as The Company for Habitat and Housing in Africa). The Pan-African developmental finance institution has a mandate to support housing and urban development.

Established in 1982, the company’s primary role is to mobilise financial and technical resources to fund development by helping private and public sector institutions to identify, finance and implement housing and urban infrastructure projects. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 — housing for all — serves as a guideline.

[gallery columns="2" size="large" link="file" ids="21262,21261,21260,21259"]

Shareholding

Shelter Afrique's share capital is held by two groups of shareholders comprising 44 African countries, from Algeria to Zambia, under the Class A category of shareholding, which is open to African States.

The African Development Bank (AfDB), the African Reinsurance Corporation (Africa-Re), and Fonds de Solidarite Africain fall into the Class B category, created to accommodate Africa-based financial institutions.

The company is working to expand its shareholding to accommodate non-African investors under Class C.

Shelter Afrique products and services

Shelter Afrique offers products and services to support the delivery of affordable housing and commercial real estate. These include project finance to large-scale low-cost housing developers, lines of credit to financial institutions, equity investments and joint ventures, trade finance, and social housing. It also has a Centre of Excellence established to provide research, capacity development and advisory solutions to member states.

Strategic Partnerships

Shelter Afrique builds strategic public–private partnerships and smart partnerships to achieve sustainable impact.

It has entered into strategic partnerships with various governments, private sector players, and non-governmental organisations such as Habitat for Humanity International, UN-Habitat, and Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa. It recently partnered with the government of Cameroon to establish the Industrial Housing Corporation of Cameroon (IHCC). Shelter Afrique is keen to forge partnerships with governments as key partners in the housing sector. The cost of land and infrastructure can sometimes constitute up to 50 percent of the final cost of a housing unit. IHCC is a joint venture with Shelter Afrique (51 percent) and the government (49 percent) through the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development of Cameroon. The government of Cameroon will provide land, off-site infrastructure, and tax incentives. Shelter Afrique will provide financial and consultancy support to ensure the right technical partner is selected to manufacture housing components.

Shelter Afrique funding

Shelter Afrique’s activities have been funded primarily from equity resources from shareholders and medium-term borrowings from commercial lenders. Lending partners are made up of international development finance institutions, including the ICD (Islamic Development Agency), AFD (French Development Agency), EIB (European Investment Bank), KfW (German Development Agency), BOAD (the West African Development Agency) and the African Development Bank.

Other critical strategic partners include the African Union for Housing Finance, the International Union of Housing Finance, the Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa, and UN-Habitat.

As funding needs increases, Shelter Afrique is exploring funding options, including the development of local capital markets. It is looking to raise an East African bond targeting markets in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda.

The Yaoundé Declaration

At the close of the 40th Annual General Assembly of Shelter Afrique, held in Yaoundé, Cameroon, 44 African Ministers and Heads of Delegation of Ministries agreed to enhance mechanisms for the mass production of decent and low-cost affordable housing. In a communique termed The Yaoundé Declaration, participants resolved to address leadership and governance, policies and legislation, co-ordination, land systems, finance and taxation, capacity building, and adoption of new building technologies.

The 40th Anniversary of Shelter Afrique

This year, Shelter Afrique marked its 40th anniversary under the theme Four Decades of Affordable Housing Policies in Africa: Mapping the Next Forty Years, which offered shareholders, the board of directors, and management to consider what happens next against the backdrop of the pandemic.

The anniversary coincided with Shelter Afrique’s 40th AGM, giving it the opportunity to review its strategy on Africa’s housing policy environment to shape policy and plan for the future.


Ginger Krieg Dosier: Biotech Innovation Traces Path from Marine Structures to Carbon-Neutral Concrete

Portland cement production accounts for eight percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, and uses 10 percent of drinking water. Concrete, of which cement is the vital component, is the second-most consumed substance in the world after water. Every second, 1,000 metric tons of concrete are used across the globe.

[caption id="attachment_21269" align="alignright" width="300"] Biomason CEO and Co-founder: Ginger Krieg Dosier[/caption]

“Biomason is the only company in the world using biology to commercially produce cement, eliminating the need to emit CO2 in production,” says Ginger Krieg Dosier, CEO and co-founder of Biomason.“We are curing the disease, instead of treating the symptoms.” Krieg Dosier and husband Michael, who serves as CTO, founded Biomason in 2012. Since its inception, the company has created biocement® materials aimed at creating a positive impact on the environment, from the manufacturing process to product performance.

“For millions of years, nature has used carbon as a building block for cementitious materials such as marine structures. While other cement technologies continue to rely on traditional methods of production, we at Biomason have learned to emulate nature’s blueprint of harnessing carbon to create cement in a completely different way. Our biocement technology grows in ambient temperatures, using natural microorganisms to create controlled, structural cement without emitting carbon.”

Krieg Dosier recalls her first moment of inspiration to grow structurally sound materials as a child studying a seashell. Now, the company takes a cue from coral reef systems to produce carbon-neutral cement. Its multi-patented biotech process combines naturally occurring bacteria, carbon, and calcium to grow biocement. Unlike traditional cement production, which requires calcination with kilns and can take up to 28 days to fully cure, biocement forms in ambient temperatures and reaches maximum strength within 24 to 72 hours. It’s also three times stronger than concrete masonry units.

From 2013 to 2019, Biomason secured over $30m, including investor support from Novo Holdings, Martin Marietta and Noel Ventures. The company has seen tremendous growth over the past three years, laying the foundation to realise ambitious commercial and climate-action goals.

The Biomason team — 85 and growing and with over 50 different disciplines — moved in 2020 to a new headquarters and production facilities in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park.

“Our recent additions of top-level experienced hires to our Executive Leadership Team have positioned us for continued acceleration and expansion,” Krieg Dosier told The Digest. “2021 has been an important year for Biomason; we’re rapidly scaling our technology and team and launching projects with global brand customers.”

Its first commercially available product, bioLITH® precast, is made from 85 percent granite from recycled sources and 15 percent biocement — and it’s paving the way to low-carbon building solutions across the US and Europe.

“Our precast tiles are in use in multiple projects, including at H&M Group’s Swedish headquarters and at Martin Marietta’s new Raleigh location. We are actively working with clients ranging from commercial companies and developers to innovative architects and designers worldwide to incorporate bioLITH and biocement technology into their projects.”

In partnership with the US Department of Defence, Biomason has developed a technology to create Engineered Living Marine Cement. Biocement is seeded with natural marine microorganisms that pull nutrients from seawater to propagate calcium carbonate structures, which results in sustained structural integrity, self-healing abilities and marine-floor anchoring. It has also developed an application to facilitate safe take-off and landing areas for military helicopters.

“As we look toward the future for Biomason, we have no intention of slowing down.” The goals encompass business development and continued technological advancement, she says. “Primarily, we are growing our licensed manufacturing and strategic partnerships, increasing profitability, and implementing additional biocement technology platforms.”

Rather than making incremental improvements on a 200-year-old formula, this revolutionary technology addresses the root cause of cement-based emissions. Imagine switching off the world’s kilns. Biomason aims to reduce 25 percent of carbon emissions from the global concrete industry by 2030.

“We are continuing to iterate and advance, because we know critical accelerated change is needed across multiple applications, as we are in a climate-change crisis. The potential uses for Biomason’s technology are vast, and we are eager to see them through.”


CBRE: Tech Adoption Accelerating Across Real Estate Industry

The expanding deployment of technology, from connectivity and hardware upgrades to machine learning and AI, means that almost every feature of the property industry can evolve quicker than ever.

Real estate had been slower to integrate new tech than other sectors. The pandemic has brought the integration of technological solutions that deal with immediate challenges — managing remote working, health and sanitation tracking. touchless movement. Normal business practices are being upended, spurring experimentation.

[caption id="attachment_21272" align="aligncenter" width="1000"] Figure 1: Regional funding per annum ($ billions). Source: “The Automation Imperative”, MCKinsey & Company Operations, September 2021[/caption]

This shift builds on digital transformation as the technology ecosystem around the built environment matures and consolidates. Consumer and company expectations are rising, underpinned by demographic changes that see demands for greater tech capacity for homes and workplaces.

The technologies that are now available — and others being developed — are set to radically reshape how we interact with and use buildings, and have the potential to lead to more human-centric, resilient and responsible built environments.

New technologies, new companies and new operating models have made it difficult to navigate the shifting landscape. Businesses are often left overwhelmed. Where and when does a business start to invest, and how does one know which area to prioritise?

Sizing the Proptech Market

The number of companies providing technology-based services across the real estate industry has risen by 300 percent since 2010; venture capital and other funding has also risen. But it remains a relatively young ecosystem, with around three-quarters of those companies founded in the past 10 years.

"Nearly all technology applications across the built environment are based on advanced data processing, analytics, and automation."

Consolidation and in-house investment by established property companies has fewer start-ups being founded. Funding, and the number of companies being funded, continues at elevated levels, driven by a variety of capital sources. Funding is migrating towards more established companies, with most capital going to later-stage funding rounds and products with strong adoption post-Covid.

Built environment technology start-ups can be found around the world, and the more established companies have global operations and customer bases.

Automation and AI

Nearly all technology applications across the built environment are based on advanced data processing, analytics, and automation. Infrastructure and buildings are pumping out data, and across the core set of technology types and tools — from smart buildings and cities to automated workflows and property accounting in the cloud — the ability to gather, process and analyse this information is crucial.

But siloed, partial, and lagged data inhibit the ability to use the available technology. Manual data collection, lack of company and industry data standardisation, lack of integrated software or complex data privacy statements are the issues here.

Centralised, structured information is key to some of the most exciting applications of new tech, with the greatest ability to boost efficiencies and aid decision-making. Generating trust in data and technology — particularly for AI applications where these automate processes or are public-facing — is crucial for acceptance and adoption.

Creating the information infrastructure to attain these benefits can be achieved through a combination of industry collaboration, regulation, and enterprise-wide data platforms.

Human-Centric Environments

Integrating health and occupancy tracking with facilities management systems can lead to much more convenient and efficient services.

Touchless technologies such as voice or gesture-controlled access systems permit occupants to move around a building freely, while occupancy tracking can allow real-time cleaning schedules to be automatically adjusted. The past year has also seen experimentation with advanced robotics in facilities management, with remote-controlled and even autonomous robots able to manoeuvre around properties.

Dynamic Portfolio Management

Improvements in automation and AI analytics offer significant scope for recalibrating portfolio strategies and management for investors and tenants. Automating existing processes makes real-time updates available for fund benchmarking and reporting, while the use of larger and more targeted datasets will make the portfolio strategy process more granular.

The shift towards space-as-a-service and higher levels of engagement and customisation aligns priorities between landlords and tenants where there is a need to cater to the user, employee, or customer experience across asset classes. For tenants, tech-enabled portfolio management will support dynamic and flexible hybrid workforces, providing the right space in the right markets at the right times.

Tech and Actionable Data

With the stakes so high, it is crucial to invest in tech that delivers strong ROI and helps informed decision-making. It should also lower costs, shorten response times, and reduce downtime. It is vital to separate the hype from reality and focus on tech that will have a measurable impact on operational performance.

It is also imperative that the facility management (FM) software is user-friendly. If people who interact with it struggle to use it or have to use to multiple apps or portals to complete their task, they are less likely to engage with it. Having the right skills in the right teams is essential to ensure that the data are correctly analysed and effectively communicated.

[caption id="attachment_13595" align="aligncenter" width="412"] Author: David Casas Alarcón CBRE Property Management Accounting Lead[/caption]


Uncertainty and Pessimism Surround Emergence of the Omicron Variant

The Omicron variant will either be a major development in the Covid-19 crisis… or a blip on the ever-changing, post-pandemic screen.

Uncertainty has always plagued the global economy, from the Great Depression through to the 2016 Brexit referendum. In the weeks leading up to Brexit “decision day”, the stock market volatility index for the FTSE 100 rose 33 percent — and fell by 22 percent — in the space of a few weeks.

Although the stock market can be an indicator of overall performance, the real effects of uncertainty are shown in consumption and business outlook. When firms are unable to predict the outcome of a national decision — an election, say, or a referendum — they are risk-averse. They pull back on investment and slow down on growth.

Consumers react in a similar way. The empty supermarket aisles seen at the outset of the pandemic shows how unpredictable consumers can be when faced with uncertainty. They fill shopping baskets and clear shelves of certain items, but they hold back on expensive purchases.

When coronavirus first struck, the stock market wobbled. The crash began in late February of 2020, and throughout the month of March brokers experienced drops as high as 12 percent. Days of especially large falls spawned nicknames such as Black Monday (at 7.8 percent), Black Thursday (10 percent) and the sequel no one wanted, Black Monday II — the aforementioned 12 percent fall.

The Omicron variant could have a similar effect. If it is an aggressive strain — a possibility, according to WHO scientists — understanding the impact of previous variants will help us to better prepare for any economic fallout.

Delta is considered by many health officials to be one of the most aggressive variants, striking in India before cases were recorded in the UK or the US. When the news of Delta first broke, the stock market reacted poorly considering the steps to economic recovery that were in place. At close, the Dow Jones and the S&P 500 were down for several consecutive days in July.

The economy could react to the emergence of Omicron in a similar way. Although lockdowns have been largely avoided thus far, the very possibility means that many sectors and industries will face difficulties.

One emerging market that swiftly reacts to human impulse is that of cryptocurrency. The relatively recent phenomenon has taken the trading world, especially the younger crowd, by storm. The quick buy-and-sell nature of crypto makes it vulnerable to the whims of the masses. When people get spooked, they sell; when billionaires Tweet, they buy.

When the news of Omicron first emerged, Bitcoin — still the leading token — saw its floor implode from a steady $57,000 to $43,000. This caused a period of mass selling — with nearly every cryptocurrency experiencing a drop in value. From Ethereum to Doge, values fell — as did the value of many wallets.

The global economy is still reeling from the first wave of the pandemic. With supply suffering in every sector and industry, and inflation on the rise, it is no wonder that investors are concerned about global economic output.

Apparently anticipating the worst, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has said that — should Omicron prove to be deadly — we should expect governments to begin rolling-out support for businesses. We should also expect demand to fall, as it did at the beginning of the pandemic.

For investors, the combination of uncertainty and pessimism could plague financial markets. Decisions on buying, selling, or holding are tricky when an unpredictable factor is introduced. How those investors react in coming months will decide how we remember the Omicron variant further down the track.

By Yogesh Patel


Brand-Power is Real — but the Goalposts Won’t Stop Moving

From the upstarts to the everlasting, branding and marketing drive sales.

That goes beyond mere recognition, and requires a certain stability: Sellotape, Google, and Rollerblade are generic terms intrinsically tied to products. Big name firms are those most able to weather difficulties, but over recent decades, brands have had to face a growing number of disruptors.

During the 2008 global financial crisis, according to Edelman’s Barometer, brands saw a 20 percent drop in public trust. As income slipped away and redundancy figures rose, people began to lose faith in the companies they had come to know and love.

They cut back on consumption — and started to expect more from leadership. They diversified their purchases, and supermarkets began to stack competing products. The advent of peer-to-peer reviews meant brands could no longer hide behind a logo.

The pandemic has, in many ways, been a successor to the 2008 crisis. In 2020, 60 percent of those canvassed by Edelman were putting their trust, and their money, into recognised brands. But in 2008, it was the failure of a branded bank that triggered the economic collapse. It lost the public’s trust because there was no accountability. Consulting firm McKinsey says consumers are now selecting businesses that have best adapted to the pandemic landscape. With fear spreading across the globe, producers of staple goods have seen their profits rise.

Trust in branding

Amazon is a shining example of brand trust. The AmazonBasics line, a private label owned by the e-commerce titan, started supply customers with supporting products for larger purchases. Buying a new TV? Well, you need cables and wall-mounts and a stand to make the most of your purchase. Amazon fills that need across all markets.

How does it produce products from such disparate industries? It doesn’t. Recognition and innate trust drive customers towards branded — but third-party-made — products. This, combined with lower shipping and packaging costs, means Amazon can undercut its competitors.

Throughout the pandemic, the Amazon name and logo have been used to maximum effect, and the company has more than doubled its revenue. But how will branding reliability change going forward?

Recent consumer surveys suggest businesses will need to change. Back in 2008, transparency suddenly became vital. In 2021, the public expects that as a given — plus health, security, and social outreach.

A recent Deloitte report shows a significant parallel between concern over personal wellbeing and propensity to purchase a named brand. Consumers prefer brands owned by businesses that are recognised for job security and labour protection. If they value their employees, customers will be inclined to value the product. ESG is the top priority today. Before the pandemic, niche companies dominated the sustainability market.

Established brands have had to adapt to match the disruptors. Those which best transform to meet consumer preferences and socially responsible criteria are likely to emerge as winners.

By Yogesh Patel


Obituary - Wilbur Addison Smith (1933-2021): Lion of African Literature

A charming chauvinist, addicted to adventure, and in his personal life often as ruthless as the characters depicted in his fast-paced novels, Wilbur Addison Smith conquered the apex most writers quietly aspire to but seldom reach: the ability to ignore critics, speak freely, and disregard societal and political convention.

Smith offered no opposition to reviewers who refused to grant him admittance to the cathedral of high literature and readily agreed that he was in the business of churning out ripping yarns – 49 of them in total, selling an estimated 140 million copies worldwide. The effete literary world did not at all match the writer’s old-fashioned notion of masculinity which had been thoroughly instilled by a somewhat larger-than-life father.

Herbert Smith, a former boxer and metal worker who ended up running a 25,000-acre cattle station in Northern Rhodesia, present-day Zambia, never touched a book and tried his best to suppress young Wilbur’s trance-like fascination with derring-do Biggles stories and John Buchan’s late-imperial adventure novels. Sent to boarding school in Natal, South Africa, to lay the groundwork for a “proper” career, the young Mr Smith continued to read voraciously and dabbled in writing whilst duly climbing the educational ladder up to Rhodes University in the Eastern cape where he obtained a degree in Commerce.

Securing a job first at the Goodyear tyre company, and a few years later at the Inland Revenue Service, Smith never renounced his love of the written word and regularly burnt the midnight oil, “getting nowhere” as he recalled in his 2018 biography. However, the iron discipline paid off and in 1964 his full-length debut novel When the Lion Feeds was accepted for publication. Writing, Smith once remarked, is not a game for sissies: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, and then try some more.”

Before long, Wilbur Smith was recognised as master of high-octane adventure, liberally sprinkling his work with violence, power, sex, and extreme yet believable daring to captivate a fast-growing body of loyal followers. He would take his readers on wild rides from his native Africa to tropical islands and from Ancient Egypt to the rise of the ANC (African National Congress) and its anti-apartheid struggle, venturing outside the beaten path with periodic escapades to other landmarks of history.

However, it was the epic 17-volume Courtney Series – published between 1964 and 2019 – that established Smith as the chronicler ‘sans pareil’ of the human drivers of history. Tracking multiple generations of the swashbuckling Courtney family from the 1660s to the late 1980s as they make their way around the globe – suffering, fighting, triumphing, loving, exploring, exploiting, and living their times to the hilt and beyond – Mr Smith bested James Michener at his own game and added significant more “sweep” to the genre. He also added a colourful cast of virile characters, driven by rivalry, revenge, and passion, describing their exploits meticulously – careful not to skip even the tiniest detail in scenes that kept readers both enthralled and pining for more.

In his personal life, Smith lived almost as passionately as the protagonists of his door-stopper novels. His disciplinarian father gifted Wilbur a Remington rifle for his eight birthday and the boy shot his first lion only five years later. A dedicated conservationist in later years, Smith at various times owned aeroplanes, part of an island in the Seychelles, farms, and homes in the UK, Malta, Switzerland, and Cape Town. Married four times, he became estranged from his three children after his third marriage sparked a family feud of sorts. Danielle (née Thomas) Smith died in 1999 from brain cancer. The writer adopted her son Dieter from a previous marriage although they ended up in court over the division of assets.
As his popularity rose, critics soon dropped Smith as their favourite. The initially raving reviews he received quickly turned sour with later works being dismissed as “dad’s books” and worse. However, sales continued unabated as did the writer’s formidable output. Smith invariably sat down to write – and let his imagination flow – at eight in the morning for an uninterrupted stint of seven hours. In an ultimate testament to his capabilities as a novelist, the few attempts to bring his tales to the big screen failed rather miserably.

The chauvinist and politically incorrect side of the writer occasionally popped out and was on full display in his 2018 memoir On Leopard Rock. Here, Smith confessed to a certain pride in having fathered three children without “ever having changed a nappy.” In his reminiscences, Smith also deplores the lack of “real men” in today’s world and makes no excuses for the wildlife he admits to having “slaughtered” and the elaborate schemes he deployed to avoid the taxman.

Wilbur Smith, novelist and adventurer, born on January 9, 1933, continued to write until hours before his passing from undisclosed causes in Cape Town on Saturday, November 13. He is survived by his fourth wife Mokhiniso Rakhimova and three children from earlier marriages.


The Fallacy of ‘Chinese Characteristics’: Critique of Liberal Democracy Misplaced and Premature

[caption id="attachment_21358" align="alignright" width="300"] Night view of the city around Hejiang Tower, Huizhou City, Guangdong Province, China[/caption]

Amongst political philosophers, it has of late become fashionable to hail China as a model of effective governance. The country’s rapid development – according to the World Bank the fastest sustained growth of a major economy ever in world history – seems to imply that it has found an alternative, and much more efficient, way of government that assures both strong growth and political stability — Chinese Characteristics. Western liberal democracy, a product of the Age of Enlightenment, is being eagerly dismissed as worn-out and tired: a has-been no longer fit for purpose in an age of dynamic technological – and societal – change.

Writing in The Economist, Chinese venture-capitalist and political scientist Eric Li, merrily hops on the bandwagon with an essay as fascinating as it is contradictory – and dead wrong besides – in an attempt to showcase the marvels of the ‘Chinese Way’ – and expound on the countless perceived failings and disappointing outcomes of the West’s ‘inferior’ ways.

Li, and with him most Chinese political scientists whose thoughts mostly matured at universities that discourage a truly free exchange of ideas, argues that democracy and liberalism are, in fact, not inextricably linked. Through the ‘liberal’ use of empirical data and a peculiar interpretation of history, Li tries to convince his readers that Western liberalism in fact smothers democracy and is ‘hostile’ to it.

Li is an alumnus of the prestigious Fudan University. The alma mater of many of China’s leaders, Fudan University last year suddenly revoked academic freedom from its governing charter and agreed to “adhere to the leadership of the Communist Party of China, fully implement the party’s education policy, and adhere to the guiding position of Marxism.”

Honest Abe

In a passage that may cause some offense to those slightly better versed than the writer in the basic tenets of democracy, Li bravely quotes Abraham Lincoln’s famous and concise definition of the term: ‘government of the people, by the people, and for the people.’ Rather preposterously, he goes on to state that the current Chinese government outperforms ‘America’ on all three counts. There is no mention of China’s one-party state, the cliques and cabals that run the country, and the staggering levels of income inequality which is amongst the worst amongst the world’s major economies. No mention either of the country’s appalling human rights record, its repression of ethnic minorities, its aversion to cultural diversity, its paranoid fear of free thought and expression, or its belligerence towards nearly all its neighbours, including unarmed Bhutan – arguably the world’s most inoffensive country.

Different forms of democracy, Li writes, need to be judged on their outcomes. However, that is not quite how it works. People the world over live by more than bread alone. If that were not true, cries for liberty would not have resonated and pragmatism would be firmly in charge. Most failed states are, in fact, the far-from-perfect product of a popular yearning for freedom – and not a widely-shared demand for good governance.

Democracy and liberalism are two sides of the same coin. Any attempt to shackle a nation by, say, restricting its voting options or access to information or judiciary independence is undemocratic for it stifles debate and renders useless any checks and balances in place.

It is also rather rich for Chinese political scientists to express grave concerns over the concentration of media ownership in the West when their own country lacks independent media altogether, keeps its citizens digitally locked up behind a firewall, and regards booksellers as enemies of the state to be imprisoned and re-educated.

Grateful for Life and Peace

If, as Li states, most Chinese are quite happy with their form of government, it is more likely that they are unfamiliar with the individual and collective freedoms guaranteed by liberal democracies. China may be illiberal, at least its present government doesn’t kill untold millions by great leaps forward and other severely misguided and deadly adventures. Mao’s 1958 epiphany led to the death of an estimated 45 million Chinese – a horror of unequalled magnitude in world history and one well within living memory of survivors and their first- and second-generation descendants.

After the cataclysmic events of the late 1950s and early 1960s, it may be considered but a small wonder that most Chinese profess a certain gratitude to their present leaders for keeping them alive and introducing a measure of prosperity and stability: when hell is the point of reference, purgatory seems a comfortable place to dwell.

One may well wonder why illiberal democracies – an oxymoron of note – insist on restricting access to information. The Great Chinese Firewall prevents internet users to access YouTube and other Google services, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Instagram, Snapchat, and even non-social media sites such as Foursquare, Dropbox, and Wikipedia. After all, a leadership afraid of booksellers is not one that exudes self-confidence.

Whenever a Western media organization publishes something that the Chinese leadership considers offensive to the country’s easily bruised honour, its website gets promptly blocked as happened to the BBC, The Guardian, and The New York Times, amongst a great many others. According to The Beijing News, a newspaper owned by the Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party, the government employs more than two million fulltime censors to monitor social media and microblogs for any sign of dissident thought.

Chinese characteristics

In his essay, Li cites and celebrates China’s handling of the Corona Pandemic as a prime example of the country’s efficiency in public governance, blissfully ignoring the fact that the country also hosted the first outbreak, browbeat the World Health Organization into downplaying this fact, silenced independent reporting on the matter, and prevented experts from investigating the origins of the disease. In fact, nobody can verify any data of any sort coming out of China which expects the world to believe whatever the powers-that-be in Beijing claim to be the truth.

The democracy with ‘Chinese characteristics’ that so enamours Li and others includes a long list of coverups, outright lies, corruption, and even war and the annexation and colonisation of neighbouring countries – in whole or in part.

Under President-for-life Xi Jinping, the liberal economic and legal system erected after Mao’s death in 1976 by Deng Xiaoping – and based on the ideas of US philosopher John Rawls (1921-2002) who considered law a restraint on arbitrary power – is rapidly being dismantled and replaced by a system more like that envisioned by the unapologetic Nazi philosopher Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) who justified arbitrary uses of power by the existence of ‘enemies of the political order.’ Schmitt and his teachings have been rescued from obscurity by a number of Chinese scholars.

The new political order that President Jinping is busy installing also shows disconcerting parallels with the Hobbesian observation that laws are not derived from an indisputable truth but imposed by Leviathan – the sovereign power. In this view, justice is always based on political choice and thus, by its very essence, polemic. Carrying this a little further: justice is ultimately based on the distinction between friend and foe – us and them.

Cult of Personality

The curtailing of academic freedom and the almost frantic search for people whose thoughts deviate from the party line are complemented by a series of much smaller tell-tale signs that China may no longer even be classified as an ‘illiberal democracy’. In November, the Ministry of Public Security, whose vice-minister Sun Lijun was ‘purged’ over allegations that he had formed a ‘political clique’ (note the return of Maoist phraseology), revealed the new oath all police recruits must take before receiving their commission. The pledge now includes a promise to ‘resolutely support the absolute leadership of the party’ and to ‘defend political security.’ The new oath also omits the previous requirement to ‘promote social fairness and justice.’ The ministry helpfully explained that the changes aim to ensure that the police force remains ‘ideologically, politically, and operationally consistent with President Jinping.’ The party, it seems, no longer enjoys political primacy whilst President Jinping emulates Louis XIV: “L’État c’est moi”

And it is this model of governance – one that imposes absolute loyalty, not to an idea or party, but to an absolutist leader – that China wishes to use as the blueprint for its new world order. However, what President Jinping and his acolytes seem to forget, conveniently or otherwise, is that China’s remarkable ascendancy is not so much the outcome of a wisely guided economic policy or, indeed, effective governance as the result of the decidedly liberal reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping which prominently featured economic freedom – and the oft-spoken-about expectation that gradual political openings would naturally follow.

The difference, of course, is that Deng Xiaoping was a pragmatist (“It doesn't matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice”) whereas Xi Jinping is an ideologue quite convinced of his own brilliance and impeccable credentials. But to maintain that China, in its present form, meets Abraham Lincoln’s three criteria for democracy is rather ludicrous and merely serves to illustrate a monumental, perhaps even malicious, misunderstanding of liberalism and its conjoined twin democracy. Much as it may try, it is unlikely that President Jinping’s China will succeed in reverting the end of history.


Too Much of a Good Thing: Inflation Spike Puzzles ECB - Engage or Ignore?

For years on end, central bankers in Europe and the United States have tempted providence to deliver a modicum of inflation. Over the past five years, the eurozone slid twice into deflationary territory. As recent as August 2020, the consumer price index retracted by 0.2% (year-on-year), prompting President Christine Lagarde of the European Central Bank (ECB) to conclude that headline inflation was likely to remain well below the bank’s 2% target for the foreseeable future.

What a difference a year makes: an energy price shock conspired with faltering supply chains and excess liquidity to push annual eurozone inflation to 4.9% in October – a rate not registered since the 1980s and the highest ever since the introduction of the euro in 1999.

Predictably, monetary hawks came out swinging to accuse the ECB of sleeping on the job and not heeding the warning signs. Most analysts now agree that the return of inflation is not merely ‘transient’ as Lagarde initially predicted. The eurozone core inflation rate – which strips out volatile components such as energy and food – spiked to 2.6% last month – possibly indicating that the headline rate is already feeding on itself through, amongst others, demands for higher wages.

ECB Governors Meet

On Thursday, the 25-strong ECB Governing Council convenes for its periodic monetary policy meeting. The council is widely expected to announce a tapering of its asset purchase programmes. The €1.85 trillion Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP), launched in March 2020 at the height of the first covid wave when financial markets went into a tailspin, is likely to end next March. The past few months, PEPP purchases have already slowed from €100bn in July to €70bn in November.

The ECB’s more traditional asset purchase programmes (APPs) currently run at a monthly clip of about €20bn. On Thursday, market analysts will be looking for signs that the bank intends to expand its APPs to pick up the slack and avoid a hard landing. An additional problem is Greece which benefits from PEPP bond-buying but is excluded from APPs that require an investment-grade rating. A solution of sorts is the suggestion that the ECB could reinvest PEPP bond redemptions.

The outcome of Thursday’s meeting is by no means a given. Monetary hawks will likely object to any significant expansion of APPs considering longer-term inflationary pressures. The doves argue that core inflation remains low and pandemic related risks high. They also warn that abandoning loose monetary policy may undo years of economic stimulus.

The near-term economic outlook for the eurozone is, in fact, nebulous. Pushed up mainly by household consumption, the eurozone GDP in Q3 grew at a quarter-on-quarter pace of 2.1%. Analysts mostly agree that the tailwinds from the reopening of economies have largely been exhausted as winter sets in and the omicron variant of the virus takes hold, prompting a return of severe restrictions. Persistently high energy prices, up on average 27% since November 2020, and tensions with Russia further murky the waters.

Calibrated Response

EU Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni called for “carefully calibrated” policies to meet the gathering headwinds. Gentiloni cautioned several member states (Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, and Greece) to watch their national debt which ballooned over the pandemic. He also called on member states to make full use of the EU’s €724bn recovery fund whilst urging governments move spending away from emergency measures and towards projects that improve economic resilience.

The Commission is currently in its ‘European Semester’ when it tries to coordinate policies across the region. However, the bloc’s fiscal and debt rules have been suspended until 2023, limiting Brussels to merely dispensing (unsolicited and non-binding) advice on the spending policies of member states. Gentiloni said that dealing with the emergency was probably easier than returning economies to ‘normal’.

That feeling is shared by the ECB in Frankfurt which also seems rather clueless about the economic resilience of the eurozone. When in doubt, kick the can down the road. Whilst Thursday’s meeting may produce fireworks behind closed doors, drastic changes to present policies are not likely to result. Moreover, Lagarde has all but discarded interest rate hikes for 2022. Markets are not about to challenge her on that. Swap rates, particularly after the appearance of the omicron virus strain, indicate that markets do not expect any rate moves before H2 2022. The ECB deposit rate stands at -0.5% since 2019.

Central Bankers Concerned about Inflation

Outgoing Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann, who on Thursday attends his last ECB Governing Council meeting, clashed publicly with Lagarde over the need to tighten monetary policy to choke off inflation – the German’s and his country’s long-time bugbear. Weidmann also repeatedly warned that asset purchases can become an “addictive habit” and pleaded for ECB monetary policy to “get out of crisis mode.”

With Weidmann’s imminent departure, Dutch Central Bank President Klaas Knot is likely to slip into the position of leading face amongst the ECB hawks. Knot favours ending the PEPP no later than March next year and is concerned that the uptick of inflation may be considerably less transient than expected. He is also reluctant to greenlight an expansion of APP bond purchases.

Knot is, however, not much concerned about the pandemic’s potential for continued economic disruption and seems confident that the omicron strain will not cause havoc – or, indeed, derail the eurozone economy: “Each successive wave has less of an impact. Both businesses and households apparently have found ways to work around lockdown restrictions.” The time seems right for the ECB to do likewise and trace a path back to normalcy.


Denise Coates Earns More Than Elon Musk, Would You Believe?

[caption id="attachment_21371" align="alignright" width="433"] Denise Coates[/caption]

British business leader Denise Coates is the highest-earning woman in Britain — testament to the fact that the odds can sometimes be beaten.

Easily able to pass unnoticed in public, Denise Coates’s net worth was recently estimated to be $5.3bn, putting her at number 509 on the global Forbes billionaires list. Not a bad for a business that started out from a portacabin in a carpark.

The founder and joint chief executive of online gambling empire Bet365 inherited her father’s provincial racing shops in the late 1990s and convinced her family to take a punt on internet gambling. When the dot.com bubble burst, Denise Coates mortgaged the betting shops to secure a £15m loan to shore-up the family empire, later selling the shops to bookmaker Coral.

The company has never had to answer to outside investors, and the publicity-shy 51-year-old takes home an annual salary of £469m — more than business titans such as Elon Musk.

Denise Coates incognito

Bet365 is everywhere to be seen, with commercials and billboards across Europe and into Latin America. Denise Coates, by contrast, remains barely visible.

Dubbed “the quiet queen of online betting”, she has always avoided the limelight. "I really don't enjoy the attention,” she said in her first-ever interview. “The public side does not come naturally to me... I'm not saying I'm a shrinking violet, I'm not. I've been bossy all my life. It's just that I very much enjoy actually running the business,"

Moving Bet365 online opened an international market which quickly outran traditional gambling shops. Perhaps drawing on insight from her first-class degree in econometrics, Denise Coates pressed for the development of betting software and a focus on “in-play” betting. Now, most of Bet365’s revenue comes from bets made during events.

Critics of the industry say that Denise Coates’s salary is obscene — and built on addiction and misery. In 2021, the British tabloids went into a frenzy when details emerged of her plans to build a £90m “glass palace” in Cheshire for her five children, four of whom are adopted. There was criticism, too, of her plans to create what The Daily Mail termed “an impregnable fortress” by buying up adjacent farmland. But Coates’s loyal fanbase believes she deserves to be rewarded for her entrepreneurial drive, vision, and tenacity — in the same way that other business titans have been.

Denise Coates’s fellow executives at Bet365 include her husband, childhood sweetheart Richard Smith, her father, Peter, and her brother, John. The business employs 3,500 people in Stoke — one of the UK’s most deprived areas — and the family’s dedication to the city makes the Coates’ reputation almost unassailable. On the day the news of her jaw-dropping salary broke, the city’s daily newspaper, The Stoke Sentinel, ran a story about profits and new jobs.

Denise Coates pays tribute to gratitude as a powerful force. “The more grateful we feel, the more things we receive to feel grateful for,” she said. “The more loved we feel, the more love we receive. The more beautiful we feel, the more attractive we become.”

Denise Coates Foundation

And Coates is not just about receiving; she is also focused on giving back via the Denise Coates Foundation. It “provides funding to charities that will use the resources to enrich the lives of those that they exist to support”. In 2020, the foundation awarded £3.6m to 23 charities, 22 of which received more than £20,000.

Rumoured increases in regulation may mean that Denise Coates cannot remain as hidden as she has so far been. But whatever changes are on the horizon, with more than £50bn in bets staked on Bet365 in 2021, any dent in Denise Coates’s salary packet isn’t likely to rock her world.


MTR Corporation Finance Director Herbert Hui: Cool Head and Strong Hand at the MTR Tiller

[caption id="attachment_21376" align="aligncenter" width="900"] MTR Finance Director: Herbert Hui[/caption]

With diverse revenue streams, including fare- and non-fare revenues from its property business, MTR has been able to ride out challenging economic cycles since its first railway line opened in 1979.

The integrated Rail plus Property (R+P) business model, in which property developments support funding of railway construction and maintenance, had kept the company profitable since it was listed on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong in the year 2000.

In 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, MTR recorded the first annual net loss in its history: HK$4.8bn ($620m).

With an investment banking and corporate finance career spanning three decades, MTR Corporation’s finance director Herbert Hui Leung-wah has the experience to take on challenges with confidence.

But nothing could have prepared him for the pandemic.

“We have always believed that fare revenue was a very reliable source of income, but that notion was challenged,” he said. “We experienced a 40 percent annual drop in fare revenue in 2020.

“On top of that, the recurrent and stable nature of collecting rents from station shop and shopping mall tenants was challenged. We needed to give out rental concessions and reduce rents on lease renewal. Duty-free shops are still unable to reopen because of the closure of cross-boundary checkpoints.”

With the overriding need to keep Hong Kong moving with a high-quality railway service, Hui and his team implemented a set of cost controls to strengthen short-term financial management.

“As we can’t control revenues in a pandemic situation, we need a good idea of the cash-flow pattern going forward, and how you manage that. One of the things we did was to raise a very successful 10-year green bond in August 2020 — the largest for a corporate in Asia, amounting to $1.2bn. That reaffirmed our commitment to ESG, riding on MTR as a low-carbon, green form of transport. It also provided additional funds to reinvest into our system.”

MTR returned to profitability in the first half of 2021, with an interim net profit of HK$2.7bn ($350m). The company maintained its dividend to shareholders throughout the pandemic —at the same level as in 2019.

Hui was appointed as MTR’s finance director in 2016. Before that he was the company’s general manager for corporate finance from 2004 to 2011, when he spent much of his time working on the milestone merger between MTR and the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation.

He began his career at Morgan Stanley before moving on to HSBC as an investment banker, involved in pioneering transactions to reform and open-up the Chinese economy. Hui worked on the first batch of listings of H shares (shares of state-owned enterprises incorporated in mainland China) on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong in 1993.

“This was eye-opening to me as a Hong Konger, being at the forefront of state-enterprise reform,” he said. “It’s been exciting to witness China’s development over the decades and see where the country has come to. These experiences also helped me to develop a wider perspective beyond Hong Kong.”

After his first stint at MTR, he held CFO roles at Digital China Holdings Ltd, a mainland private enterprise, as well as K Wah International Holdings, a Hong Kong family-owned company. Hui was voted Best CFO in Hong Kong in an Asia’s Best Companies 2015 poll conducted by FinanceAsia.

Working under MTR’s CEO Jacob Kam with fellow executive team members, Hui’s experience and expertise have been instrumental in guiding MTR safely through the most challenging period in its history.


Right On Track: MTR Rail Empire Weathers the Pandemic in Style with Innovative Business Model

As public transport operators around the world battle sharp declines in patronage and revenues during the pandemic, MTR Corporation’s diversified “Rail plus Property” (R+P) business model is paying dividends.

A long-term vision has enabled the company to maintain its solid financial base and fulfil its mission to keep cities moving.

MTR is a global leader in urban rail transport with operations extending from its home base in Hong Kong to major cities in mainland China, Europe and Australia. The company takes pride in its track record for providing safe, reliable and efficient railway operations. It delivers 99.9 percent of passenger journeys on-time in Hong Kong, and has built a reputation for quality customer service.

[gallery size="medium" link="file" ids="21381,21380,21378"]

In Hong Kong, MTR’s railway is the backbone of the city’s public transport network, connecting all 18 districts and serving millions of passengers every day.

The densely populated city has a transport-orientated pattern of development. New railway lines open corridors for growth, in some cases supporting the development of purpose-built “new towns” and regeneration of older urban areas. MTR plays a central role in building and operating the lines — as well as rail-related property.

With end-to-end railway experience and expertise — from planning and design through to operations and maintenance — MTR has been delivering major railway infrastructure projects in international hubs for 40 years. They meet world-class design and engineering standards, and include Hong Kong’s High Speed Rail, Australia’s Sydney Metro, and Beijing Metro Line 4, the first PPP (public-private partnership) urban railway project in China.

With the its R+P model MTR builds new lines, and plans and creates fully integrated commercial and residential communities above (or adjacent to) stations along the railway alignment. The Hong Kong government grants the company land rights, for which MTR pays a premium based on the existing value of the land before railway construction.

The opening of a new rail line enhances the value of these property developments, bringing value-capture benefits to MTR. Newly occupied residential and commercial properties bring people to the area and stimulate patronage. There is a significant benefit to the city, too, with the increased supply of much-needed housing units.

Profits from the sale of residential properties above MTR’s new lines can be leveraged to finance future projects, and reinvest in the existing network to maintain performance standards and customer experience.

The model has proved a winner for the company, which opened its first line in 1979 and has been listed on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong since 2000. R+P has contributed to the city’s growth and development. A safe, reliable and efficient transport service with seamless connections to homes, offices and community facilities is prized by local residents.

In early 2020, MTR — like its transport industry peers around the world — found itself in the midst of an emerging crisis. Passengers cut back on journeys as social distancing measures took hold, cross-boundary train services and high speed rail to mainland China were halted, and tourist numbers dropped.

In the first two months, MTR’s Hong Kong patronage fell by 34 percent year-on-year. Steeper declines were to follow in some overseas rail operations as cities such as London, Melbourne, and Sydney were placed under lockdown. With less movement through the railway network, there were adverse impacts on station shops and shopping malls that MTR manages along the alignments.

Rail forms the backbone of the Hong Kong public transport network, and it was essential that services be safely maintained. This put MTR at the forefront of city’s pandemic defence. Extensive health and hygiene measures were implemented: extra cleaning, disinfection and ventilation for stations, trains, managed properties and work locations.

Customer-facing staff were required to wear masks and check their temperatures before reporting for duty. New technologies were introduced to enhance hygiene standards, including disinfection robots as well as contactless lift-button sensors. Train service has been maintained throughout the Covid crisis — including normal peak-hour frequency.

To help its stakeholders weather the storm, MTR offered passenger fare rebates and reductions, rental concessions to station and shopping mall tenants, and safeguarded jobs. It also maintained the dividend payments to shareholders at the same level as 2019.

With the negative impacts of the pandemic on its fare and non-fare revenues, the company tightened cost-control measures, including a recruitment freeze: staff accounts for 50 percent of operating costs. There were cuts in discretionary spending on marketing and consultancy, and cashflows were conserved by postponing non-essential capital expenditure.

A new corporate strategy was approved by the MTR board in 2020 to keep cities moving. There was a renewed commitment to innovation and the introduction of new technologies to ensure long-term sustainability. To create shared values with the communities the company serves, a strong ESG regime focused on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and promoting social inclusion, advancement and opportunities.

MTR has long embraced ESG in financing, too, issuing its first $600m green bond in 2016. In 2020, the company issued the largest single-tranche green bond for corporates in Asia-Pacific. Its $1.2bn bond in 2020 won Hong Kong’s Best Green Bond award and the company was named Best Issuer for Sustainable Finance in Hong Kong in The Asset Triple A Country Awards.

With the R+P model supporting long-term financial sustainability, MTR is moving to a brighter future. It plans to invest HK$100bn ($12.8bn) in the coming decade on new railway lines and extensions. An existing railway depot site will be transformed into a residential development, providing 20,000 apartments with rough 50:50 split between private and public housing.

This year, the Hong Kong rail network was expanded with the opening of the full Tuen Ma Line, a strategic connection for multiple existing lines. The company aims to open its fourth cross-harbour railway link next year, extending its East Rail Line which runs through the New Territories and Kowloon across to Hong Kong Island.


Decarbonisation and “Greenflation”

Accelerating the transition toward low or net-zero carbon emissions is necessary to keep global warming at theoretically safe levels. That will likely bring price shocks associated with rising metal prices, energy costs, and carbon taxes – what has been called “greenflation”. Greening the economy will also require public spending and redistributive policies.

Accelerating the transition toward low or net-zero carbon emissions is necessary to keep global warming at theoretically safe levels. That will likely bring price shocks associated with rising metal prices, energy costs, and carbon taxes – what has been called “greenflation”. Greening the economy will also require public spending and redistributive policies.

Moving Faster Along the Road to Decarbonisation

In the wake of the COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, the International Energy Agency has updated the CO2 emissions scenarios in its World Energy Outlook from October (IEA, 2021a), taking into account the most recent country pledges. Despite a steeper decline in emissions, the world would still be far from reaching the dreamed-of net zero emissions scenario by 2050 (Figure 1).

[caption id="attachment_21384" align="aligncenter" width="780"] Figure 1. Source: Birol, F. (2021).[/caption]

According to the IEA, if all Glasgow commitments are met, global warming will be bound to 1.8oC above pre-industrial levels by 2100. That would be a substantial decrease from the 2.7oC which pre-COP policies would have been expected to lead to, but obviously still distant from the “substantially below 2oC” promised in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Estimates by Climate Action Tracker (CAT) suggest that current pledges for 2030 will not deliver the emissions reductions necessary to push long-term warming down, leading to warming of 2.4oC if further revisions are not made. Figure 2 shows that, while the continuation of current policies would imply a 2.7oC increase in global mean temperatures, the full implementation of ‘nationally determined contributions’ (NDCs)—efforts by each country to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change—up to 2030 would lead to more 2.4oC of warming by the end of the century. Climate Action Tracker’s ‘pledges and targets’ scenario temperature of 2.1o C reflects all NDCs and submitted or binding long-term targets, including the United States’ and China’s net-zero targets, now that both countries have submitted their long-term commitments. The optimistic scenario of 1.8oC of global warming requires faster emissions reductions in the coming decade.

[caption id="attachment_21385" align="aligncenter" width="780"] Figure 2. Source: CAT - Climate Action Tracker (2021).[/caption]

Agriculture, forestry, and land use matter as they correspond to about 20% of total greenhouse gas emissions, and forest cover can help remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Preventing deforestation can play a significant role in lowering CO2 emissions, and can even provide a net sink.

In what follows, we focus on energy.

There Will Be Metal Price Shocks on the Road to Decarbonisation

Supplies of renewable energy and biomass need to rise to meet global primary energy needs, and the trajectory towards decarbonisation will bring a sharp increase in the demand for metals, including copper, nickel, cobalt, and lithium, used intensively in green electricity and electricity storage. IEA (2021b) predicts that lithium and cobalt consumption, for instance, will need to increase more than sixfold to meet the needs of batteries and other uses in the production and non-consumption of clean energy.

Figure 3 shows how many minerals used in green technologies will go through a significant surge in demand during the energy transition. Demand for raw materials used in existing clean-energy technologies, such as solar panels and wind turbines, is expected to increase significantly.

[caption id="attachment_21386" align="aligncenter" width="780"] Figure 3. Source: IIF (2021).[/caption]

Such an increase in demand will face a slow-motion supply response. Copper, nickel, and cobalt mines are investment-intensive and take an average of more than a decade from discovery to production, according to the IEA. Lithium is often extracted from mineral sources and brine through salt water pumped from the ground. This reduces lead times for new production to an average of about five years. There will also be the challenge of ramping up production without going against social and environmental safeguards.

The combination of increasing demand and slower changes in supply could cause the prices of these metals to skyrocket. In fact, according to International Monetary Fund projections, if mining were to satisfy consumption in the IEA's net-zero emissions scenario, prices could reach historic highs for an unprecedented period (Boer et al, 2021). For example, the price of lithium could rise from $6,000 a metric ton in 2020 to about $15,000 this decade.

The production value of the four metals could increase up to six times to US$12 trillion in two decades, according to the IMF.

There Will Also Be Energy-Cost Shocks

Given the state-of-the-art in terms of technology, there may have to be a switch to more expensive non-carbon energy alternatives, for a significant period, if they are ultimately to replace conventional fossil fuels. Green premia—price of clean technology/price of carbon-emitting alternative—will have to be paid. Figure 4 illustrate this in the case of transport fuels.

The good news about such replacement is that the evolution towards cleaner technologies with declining costs is already taking place. The bad news is the presence of obstacles to such investments—particularly in the case of green infrastructure in non-advanced countries (Canuto, 2021).

[caption id="attachment_21387" align="aligncenter" width="780"] Figure 4. Source: IIF (2021).[/caption]

Fossil fuels have also provoked price shocks. The expectation has been that their prices will fall as the transition away from fossil fuels pushes demand for them to the bottom. However, supply conditions have also deteriorated because of the drop in investment in oil wells, natural gas centers, and coal mines.

In 2021, the lack of investment has been one of the causes of the spike in the prices of the three energy commodities. Oil surpassed $81 a barrel after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies such as Russia, which are part of the OPEC+ alliance, at an October 4 meeting, resisted calls to increase production. Unlike what has been seen since 2015, when oil and gas prices changed levels, this time U.S. gas and shale oil were not ready to close the gap. The trajectory of fossil fuel prices will not be steady…

In fact, public policy measures seen as favorable to the energy transition already place a price burden on the use of fossil fuels. Such policy measures include a price (tax) on carbon, elimination of remaining subsidies, mandatory transparency and sanctions on financial assets, and future bans on internal combustion engines.

We have then experienced what can be called the ‘first energy shock of the green economy era’ or, for those who deny that we have already entered that era, the ‘last energy shock of the fossil fuel era’. From May to October 2021, oil, coal, and gas prices together rose 95%. This year's strong economic recovery has been confronted by oil stocks at levels 6% lower than usual, as well as gas stocks in Europe at just 86% of previous levels, and below 50% in the case of coal in China and India.

At the same time, besides green premia still paid to replace carbon-emitting technologies with clean alternatives, existing stocks of investments in renewable energy have been shown to be insufficient to serve as a full alternative. According to figures from the International Energy Agency (IEA), in 2020, the share of renewable energy sources in domestic energy in the world was 13.8%, and 11% in OECD countries. In Brazil, according to the Energy Planning Company, the level was 46%. The year's energy shock reflected climatic phenomena—low wind in Europe, droughts affecting hydroelectric production in Latin America, floods in Asia affecting coal delivery—but also that investments in renewable energy are evolving below what is necessary for the energy transition—that is, driving the use of fossil fossils to net-zero between 2050 and 2060.

Higher input prices in energy production and use, as well as accelerated spending on climate change mitigation, will be tolls on the decarbonisation route.

A Carbon Price Shock Will Be Needed to Move Ahead on the Road to Decarbonisation

Moving along the road to decarbonisation will also demand a significant change in the relative prices of goods and services, with these starting to reflect their carbon-intensity in a context in which the carbon price will have to rise from zero to significant levels everywhere. Gaspar and Parry (2021) propose that, at the international level, measures be taken to reach a carbon price equal to or greater than US$75 per ton by 2030.

Such a carbon price may be established and charged explicitly and/or indirectly through the effects of regulations or limits on uses. Decarbonisation will be negligible if the price of carbon remains that of a ‘free good’ from nature. Carbon prices will also have to be among the factors influencing people's behaviors and lifestyles.

Transitioning away from fossil fuels and carbon-intensive production and consumption implies a wide-ranging switch to emissions-neutral alternatives in all sectors. Policymakers can stimulate this transition by raising the implicit cost of emissions. As it will take some time until alternative technologies are fully developed and deployed, the road to decarbonisation may entail higher costs along the way.

Greening the Economy Will Also Need More Public Spending and Redistribution Policies

The decarbonisation trajectory will also have consequences for public accounts. Necessary public expenditure on infrastructure to enable the transition will be required. Transitioning to a net-zero emissions economy will necessitate investment flows towards mass deployment of green electricity and electricity storage.

Except in the unlikely event of full coverage of expenditures with a carbon tax, the trend will be of increases in public debt, though in this case without intertemporal injustice, as future generations will be grateful not to have to live permanently with an even more adverse climate.

Decarbonisation will possibly have regressive income impacts. For example, real estate to be rebuilt or retrofitted corresponds to the largest share of assets of people in the lower half of the income pyramid. Direct carbon taxation will have different impacts on different urban groups. Compensating expenditures for regressive carbon pricing impacts will be demanded, as direct carbon taxation will have different impacts on different urban groups. It will be important to ensure income-transfer mechanisms both within countries and internationally associated with carbon pricing, to mitigate the regressive impacts of combating climate change.

Additionally, workers will have to move from carbon-intensive activities to greener substitutes. There will be not only the challenge of labor reskilling, but also of ensuring that new jobs are created in large enough numbers in dynamic activities. It is known, for example, that the production of electric cars requires less labor than that of combustion engine vehicles.

In addition, there will also be accelerated obsolescence of existing stocks of physical assets (machinery and equipment, buildings, vehicles), and intangible assets associated with carbon-intensive activities. The counterpart will have to be accelerated investment in new assets to replace them.

Bottom Line

What about GDP and its growth during the transition? Here the duality of impacts discussed above is repeated. On the one hand, there will be capital destruction, in addition to relative price shocks and the transitional impacts of reduction of potential growth. If the need for higher investment rates in GDP accompanying decarbonisation collides with supply capacity limits, consumption will have to adapt downwards throughout the transition.

On the other hand, cleaner technologies will also offer opportunities to increase productivity. In any case, the socioeconomic return of decarbonisation must include stopping heat waves, floods, hurricanes, droughts, floods, and storms from becoming even more intense and frequent, because the cost of that would be even higher losses of GDP of nations.

High metal prices, carbon taxes, and accelerated obsolescence of capital associated with fossil fuels, are tolls to be paid on the road to decarbonisation. Bearing in mind the consequences of not doing so, it will be worth paying such tolls. “Greenflation” will be worth paying for decarbonisation.

Policy Center for the New South, PB-51/21

References

Birol, F. (2021). COP26 climate pledges could help limit global warming to 1.8 °C, but implementing them will be the key, IEA Commentary, November 4.

Boer, L.; Pescatori, A.; Stuermer, M.; and Valckx, N. (2021). Soaring Metal Prices May Delay Energy Transition, IMF Blog, November 10.

Canuto, O. (2021). Matchmaking Private Finance and Green Infrastructure, Policy Center for the New South, July 7.

CAT – Climate Action Tracker (2021). Glasgow’s 2030 credibility gap: net zero’s lip service to climate action, November 9.

Gaspar, V. and Parry, I. (2021). A Proposal to Scale Up Global Carbon Pricing, June 18.IEA -

IEA - International Energy Agency (2021a). World Energy Outlook 2021, October.

IEA - International Energy Agency (2021b). Net Zero by 2050, May.

IIF – Institute of International Finance (2021). Navigating to Net-Zero: Greenflation Risk, December 2.

Otaviano Canuto, based in Washington, D.C, is a senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings Institution, a professorial lecturer of international affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs - George Washington University, a professor affiliate at UM6P, and principal at Center for Macroeconomics and Development. He is a former vice-president and a former executive director at the World Bank, a former executive director at the International Monetary Fund and a former vice-president at the Inter-American Development Bank. He is also a former deputy minister for international affairs at Brazil’s Ministry of Finance and a former professor of economics at University of São Paulo and University of Campinas, Brazil.