… Infrastructure Bank (RIIB), a quasi-public state entity, sought to bring much-needed clean-energy finance into the state market. This case study describes how this bank set up the … Public Energy Partnership (RIPEP) was temporarily accelerating utility energy-efficiency efforts. The new state leadership created the RIIB. It was built by renaming and restructuring … brought into the agency. The RIIB administers a number of financial-assistance programs for environmental projects in the state. One of these programs is the EBF, a financing …
… NY Green Bank (NYGB), New York State’s $1-billion clean-energy fund, and a young new efficiency company named Sealed signed a $5-million loan-financing agreement as a way to broaden the market for home energy-efficiency upgrades. In New York State, those upgrades face two key barriers … adoption. The first barrier is that a whole-home upgrade is a high out-of-pocket investment for a homeowner. Homeowners who make upgrades often have to pay cash outright or take out …
… Like many countries, Australia has a large existing building stock that is responsible for a substantial percentage of its greenhouse-gas emissions. Given that it will take decades for these buildings to be replaced, the rigorous standards developed in recent years for new … of greenhouse gases that these buildings emit and reduce their operating costs. While these energy-efficiency upgrades are often cash-flow-positive with the right loans, they have …
… oil company PEMEX had to find ways to implement this policy. Nevertheless, in spite of efforts by various government agencies as well as PEMEX, by mid-2014 no ethanol had been … into Mexico's gasoline supply. As Mexican policy makers looked at the country's energy supply, they expected that substituting bioethanol for some portion of gasoline fuel would meet a number of the country’s needs. First, it …
… hail insurance, the most common policy in agriculture. In years when crops were damaged before they could be harvested and sold, crop insurance provided resources that allowed farmers to be able to plant the following season. Settlements for weather damage not only made it possible for growers to continue their livelihoods, but … therefore had to take a hard look at where the company should focus its efforts in the future. How could the company increase revenues, decrease costs, or reduce risk to make crop …
… the business. AXA’s business had grown rapidly over the previous decades. The company was formed in the 1980s through the merger of a few mid-sized French insurance firms. From the … and utilizing its strong balance sheet, technical expertise and abilities in product innovation, managed to turn around their acquisitions. Over time, AXA also branded the … examine how addressing these CR issues would add value to the company (e.g. by fostering innovation, by reducing costs), and then create metrics that would capture a business unit’s …
… products we buy. However, it is not something that consumers can easily spot or screen for. When, in June 2015, France’s Ecology minister, Segolene Royal, called on her country to … highlighted the hidden role it plays in the global economy. And, as fires set to clear land for palm oil plantations blazed in Indonesia throughout the fall of 2015, covering the … and local components of the palm oil market and its impacts, it is no surprise that the future of the industry is becoming an increasingly hot topic for economists, industry, …
… Before the federal government discontinued the United States Department of Energy’s (DOE) Qualified Energy Conservation Bond (QECB) program in 2017 as part of its tax reform package, states like Virginia leveraged this program to accomplish energy efficiency …
… to the greenhouse effect was underway and could have potentially devastating consequences for the ecology of the planet. Since automobiles were a substantial contributor of CO2 to … engines (ICE) and to seek an alternative powertrain that did not use fossil fuels. For GM, the search for a new powertrain required a substantial change in mindset, since the ICE had been a …
… taste, its beauty. Illy also has a dream that someday soon the coffee market might be transformed into something approaching the market for wine. Where connoisseurs discuss the fine … on origin-based, direct-traded coffee. Illy’s hope is that someone would come up with an innovation that would solidify the beginnings of the third wave and help reshape the market. … on origin-based, direct-traded coffee. Illy’s hope is that someone would come up with an innovation that would solidify the beginnings of the third wave and help reshape the market. …