Green Revolution – How some European countries are leading the way !

Iceland – Reykjavik - The Greenest place on earth!

Iceland is a small Island country in the North American hemisphere and is in the forefront with the Green revolution and Energy efficient ways.

Iceland meets about 80 % of the energy requirements with the renewable energy like Geo-thermal, Water and wind. This is against the forecasts for using renewable energy of 20% by the European union by 2020 and less than 5% by Asian countries like India and China.

The leading green index countries are Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, UK .. and US is around the 66 in the list and India is close to the bottom of the list as of now.

Iceland is the first country in the world to make commercial use Hydrogen in the cars and is also making great use of the Geo-thermal and water energy for the daily business and residential energy consumptions with practically no emissions and minimal use of the fossil fuels.

The country has a small population of about 300,000 and mostly concentrated around the capital city Reykjavik. High Energy dependent manufactures such as Aluminum - especially ALCOA sees this an opportunity to stay committed to stay Green and is in the process of build 300+ stoves using the energy from Geo-thermal and water. The renewable energy in Iceland is extremely cheap due to its availability in abundance and also innovative ideas and technologies of the Icelander's. This small island has or planning on having more than 8 Hydroelectirc plants and 6-8 large Geo-thermal based plants and is the pioneer for using Hydrogen fuel in commercial cars etc.. Iceland is indeed committed to the environment, preserving natural resources and staying green.

Some of new energy friendly and innovative green initiatives:

Developed nations in North America and Europe and combined with rapid growth in the BRIC nations – Brazil, Russia, India and China there is an un precedence growth in the consumption of natural energy and fossil fuels in the last few years driving up the oil prices and also resulting in consumption of non-recycle resources.

Here are some of the initiatives that some of the companies in Europe are taking to help protect the natural resources and be green friendly.

Recycle - More and more biz in Europe and North America are using recycle papers, plastics, Aluminum and other precious product that are using natural resources. This is help avoid the land refills and also reuse the natural resources..

Energy conservations bulbs– Leading manufactures in Europe are doing research in coming with LED bulbs instead of the energy efficient CFL. These new generation bulbs will utilize less than half of the energy of CFL and produce equivalent or more lumen output and will be significantly more lasting.

Wind Power for Shipping: Wind power is being tested to be used for large Ships complementing the regular oil guzzling engines and tests have proved that the energy requirements of the ships can be reduced by as much as 20% if the wind power is used during the sail. Just to keep the perspective – large ships consume oil to deliver 35 to 40 feet per gallon and the study predicts that the shipping industry is consuming couple of billions of gallons of oil.

Energy efficient Hybrid cars – Several new energy efficient cars are in the research stage and recently Aptera Motors out of Carlsbad, California has rolled out prototypes of the new 2 seat car that can go up to 300 miles per gallon and is expected to be priced around 30000 USD and working primarily on recharging battery with minimal to no fuel emission. Number of these units have already being pre-sold.

Energy efficient cooking stoves: In the developing countries, there is significant usage of stoves that are energy in-efficient and natural resources. Shell foundation has invested about 25 million to work with companies to develop low cost energy efficient stoves and these will be sent to about 10 million households in India, Africa and Latin America.

That is it for now..Save energy - Think and implement Green !

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References and Resources: Newsweek, BusinessWeek, Economist

Why India and why now ?

In the last 10 years, India has emerged as a growing economy and a power in the Asia and continues to be a rising star in the international business community, India has unlimited opportunities and is becoming the land of opportunities.

Since the Liberalization of the Indian Economy in the early 1990, the trade laws in India have been revised to allow significant foreign investment and trading with foreign companies and other nations has become relatively easily. The new regulations have opened the doors for Indian Business to market their services outside India. This helped the Indian Businesses as they began to partner with large companies including a number of Fortune 500 companies by providing quality services at low costs.

As we all know that the water flows from an high level to a low level, so do the costs ! Business in the high cost and developed countries took a note of the low cost service providers and manufacturers as well as manufacturing opportunities in India and are looking at lower their costs of operating business in these high cost countries ie, USA, UK and other European countries.

While more and more service are being provided by the Indian Companies or the Multi-nationals companies in India, the costs of services, salaries, real estate and property costs are increasing in India due to the exponential increase in the demand and is causing a strain the te infrastructure. However there cost differentials are still quite high between USA & India and this will continue to be so till the next few decades.

With the liberalization during the early 1990s the doors opened up for the Indian businesses to explore the opportunities with the business across the world. The Y2K fear during the late 1990s compounding with the gigantic nature of the impact to the business and the scope of work prompted the businesses in USA and UK to look for cheap resources outside. The newly available IT Services in India came as a critical resources to the businesses.

Together with the Internet boom during the same period, IT companies like INFOSYS, TATA CONSULTANCY (TCS), WIPRO, SATYAM etc.. opened their doors to the business in the USA and Europe. Initially during the mid to late 1990s the businesses in USA and Europe were looking for help with the Y2K, Euro initiatives and some software maintenance from these companies.

The Internet boom in during the 1999 and 2000 led to tremendous requirements in the Internet & eCommerce programming for the dot com businesses in the USA & Europe.

With the boom in Foreign direct investments (FDI) in India, the requirement for the IT & Business skills increased tremendously and workers in these areas started to see their salaries and perks raise and the attrition rate began to climb.

Most of the skilled work force are int he 20s and 30s and this affluent age group now are the main drivers of the real estate, automotive and the retail industries.These factors let to changes in Indian market dynamics and the young middle class now have a lot of money to spend and now moving from the basic necessities to the looking at buying the luxuries in life. The Business marketing in India are now targeting this young work force by offering products and services targeted at this audience. This size of this young target middle to high class is growing rapidly and the estimates are that by 2025 India will have largest working middle class in the world.

During the years prior to the 1990s, the Indian middle and rich could not purchase imported items as the Government had a number of restrictions on imports due to the low foreign exchange (FOREX) reserves and also was asking the Indian citizens to purchase the Indian made goods and items. Most of the items in the automotive and electronics were using the old technology and were not appealing to the Indian consumers. The liberalization of Indian Economy allowed the companies in India to partner in Technology transfer and tie up and partner with the leading manufacturers in the developed countries like USA, Germany and UK primarily in the consumer and automotive industries. The Indian consumers can purchase the world best automotive and consumer goods and also able to afford these goods.

As we all know that the water flows from an high level to a low level, so business do want to lower their costs !

The Businesses in the high cost and developed countries like USA, UK & Canada are in high pressure to lower cost and stay competitive and also improve the shareholder value. These businesses are now taking a note of the low cost service providers and manufacturers as well as manufacturing opportunities in India and are looking at lower their costs of operating business

The trade laws in India now allow investments and trade with foreign companies and other nations like USA, UK, Canada, Germany. This has resulted in an affluent middle class in India and the demand for foreign goods and high quality consumer goods has increased by multiple folds and thereby opening up an new market segment for the affluents.

सौर्सस: बुसिनेस वीक, इकोनोमिस्ट॥