Daily Archives: February 8, 2021

A foundation backed by Ikea, the Swedish furniture retail giant, has committed $250m to seed a sustainable equity fund designed by Osmosis, a specialist investment boutique.

The allocation by Imas, an 11bn foundation that invests on behalf of the charitable arm of Ikea, is the second large contract it has awarded to Osmosis.

The new Osmosis resource-efficient ex-fossil fuel fund aims to outperform the market capitalisation-weighted MSCI World index by investing in companies that score well environmentally. Around 170 constituents of the MSCI World index, which holds around 1,430 companies, have been excluded from the new Osmosis strategy. As a result, the portfolios exposure to both carbon pollution and water consumption is reduced by two-thirds and waste output by almost half compared with the MSCI index.

Henrik Lundin, chief investment officer at Imas, said he believed the strategy would produce better risk-adjusted returns by taking explicit account of the environmental costs resulting from carbon pollution, water consumption and waste creation.

The Osmosis strategy is a clever source of alpha. It should ultimately deliver outperformance over the MSCI World index, said Lundin.

It is important when divesting from fossil fuels that cuts are also made to water consumption and waste creation, which are also environmental risks

Imas provided $270m in 2017 as seed capital for a sister Osmosis resource-efficient fund that also prioritises investments in companies with a good record on carbon emissions, water usage and waste. That fund has delivered cumulative net returns (after fees) of 54 per cent compared with a 50 per cent return for the MSCI World.

It is important when divesting from fossil fuels that cuts are also made to water consumption and waste creation, which are also environmental risks, said Ben Dear, who co-founded Osmosis in 2009.

Clean water is a scarce resource that requires energy for purification while huge amounts of plastic waste end up in the oceans or polluted landfills, causing damage to the natural environment.

Although a rebound in oil prices from their depressed levels was possible as the global economy recovers from the pandemic, the longer-term outlook looks bleak for companies involved in the carbon-based energy sector, said Dear.

Osmosis, which counts the Oxford university endowment as both a shareholder and investor, now oversees assets of $2bn. It won its first Australian pension client in November after securing a mandate from the A$50bn Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation.

Climate change themed funds were among the biggest sellers in Europe last year as investors stepped up efforts to protect their portfolios from climate change risks.

Assets in European sustainable funds surged 52 per cent in the past year to hit 1.1tn in December. Flows in 2020 were almost double those of 2019, at 233bn.

Here is the original post:

Ikea foundation bets $250m on green investment fund - Financial Times

Cancer ranks as a leading cause of death in every country in the world, and, for the first time, female breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer, overtaking lung cancer, according to a collaborative report, Global Cancer Statistics 2020, from the American Cancer Society (ACS) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Data show that 1 in 5 men and women worldwide develop cancer during their lifetime, and 1 in 8 men and 1 in 11 women die from the disease.

The article describes cancer incidence and mortality at the global level and according to sex, geography, and levels of social and economic development, and discusses associated risk factors and prospects for prevention for each of 10 major cancer types, representing more than 60% of the newly diagnosed cancer cases and more than 70% of deaths from cancer.

Distribution of Cases and Deaths for the Top 10 Most Common Cancers in 2020. Source: GLOBOCAN 2020.Courtesy of American Cancer Society

The report appearing in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, shows an estimated 19.3 million new cancer cases and almost 10 million cancer deaths occurred in 2020. Female breast cancer was the most commonly diagnosed cancer, with an estimated 2.3 million new cases (11.7%), followed by lung (11.4%), colorectal (10.0%), prostate (7.3%), and stomach (5.6%) cancers.

The incidence of breast cancer is increasing in countries where rates of breast cancer have been historically low. Dramatic changes in lifestyle and built environment have had an impact on the prevalence of breast cancer risk factors such as excess body weight, physical inactivity, alcohol consumption, postponement of childbearing, fewer childbirths, and less breastfeeding, the authors noted. The increasing prevalence of these factors associated with social and economic transition results in a convergence toward the risk factor profile of transitioned countries and is narrowing international gaps in the breast cancer morbidity.

Death rates of breast cancer among women in transitioning countries were even higher compared with the rates among women in transitioned countries (15 and 12.8 per 100,000, respectively), despite the substantially lower incidence rates (29.7 and 55.9 per 100,000, respectively). As the poor outcome in these countries is largely attributable to a late-stage presentation, efforts to promote early detection, followed by timely and appropriate treatment, are urgently needed through the implementation of evidence-based and resource-stratified guidelines, said Hyuna Sung, PhD, lead author of the report and Principal Scientist at the ACS.

Data show that lung cancer remained the leading cause of cancer death with an estimated 1.8 million deaths (18%), followed by colorectal (9.4%), liver (8.3%), stomach (7.7%), and female breast (6.9%) cancers. Lung cancer death rates are 3 to 4 times higher in transitioned countries than in transitioning countries, however, this pattern may well change as the tobacco epidemic evolves given that 80% of smokers reside in low- and middle- income countries. With about two-thirds of lung cancer deaths worldwide attributable to smoking, the disease can be largely prevented through effective tobacco control policies and regulations.

According to the report, an estimated 28.4 million new cancer cases are projected to occur in 2040, a 47% rise from 2020 globally. Transitioning countries are experiencing a larger relative increase in cancer incidence (64% to 95%) versus transitioned (32% to 56%) countries due to demographic changes. The authors state that this may be further exacerbated by increasing risk factors associated with globalization and a growing economy. The authors warn that the growing rate of incidence could overwhelm health care systems, if left uncontrolled. Efforts to build a sustainable infrastructure for the dissemination of proven cancer prevention measures and the provision of cancer care in transitioning countries are critical for global cancer control.

Data in this report do not reflect the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as they are based on cancer data collected in earlier years, and the full extent of the impact in different world regions is currently unknown. According to the report, delays in diagnosis and treatment, including suspension of screening programs and reduced availability of and access to care, are anticipated to cause a short-term decline in cancer incidence followed by increases in advanced-stage diagnoses and cancer mortality in some settings.

The burden of cancer incidence and mortality is rapidly growing worldwide, and reflects both aging and growth of the population, as well as changes in the prevalence and distribution of the main risk factors for cancer, several of which are associated with socioeconomic development, said Freddie Bray, BSc(Hons), MSc, PhD, senior author of the report and Head of the Section of Cancer Surveillance at IARC. Effective and resource-sensitive preventative and curative interventions are pertinent for cancer diagnosis. Tailored integration into health planning can serve to reduce the global burden of cancer and narrow the evident cancer inequities between transitioning and transitioned countries observed today.

This press release was published on the American Cancer Society website on February 4, 2021.

Go here to see the original:

Female Breast Cancer Surpasses Lung Cancer as the Most Commonly Diagnosed Cancer Worldwide - Cancer Health Treatment News

TV Somanathan, Expenditure Secretary and Tuhin Kanta Pandey, DIPAM Secretary, talks about COVID-19 vaccination expenditure, divestment target for 2021-22, allocation to the healthcare sector and among others during an exclusive interview with Swati Khandelwal, Zee Business. Edited Excerpts:

Q: You have to spend around Rs 35 lakh crore this year. How will the money come and how allocations will be done? Do you think that it is realistic?

TV Somanathan: I am supposed to spend it. Yes, it is realistic and this year, under the revised estimates, we are going to spend more than Rs 34 lakh crores. So, the increase between this year and next year is actually felly small. The biggest increase we have had is this year and we have really as somebody put a step on the accelerator after November, at a time when there was an absorptive capacity. And I think, in the coming year, when COVID effect will come to an end, I think we have a much better chance of using money productively and I think the construction sector, infrastructure sector can absorb the amounts that we are proposing to spend, particularly, the railways, national highways, power, these all are sectors where the absorptive capacity is there. So, we have basically this year provided as fully as they wanted, and we are prepared to provide even more if required.

Q: The government has set a divestment target of Rs 1.75 lakh crore for 2021-22. Some people are saying that it is a bit ambitious, and you are saying that it is realistic. Tell us the way the target will be achieved?

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: Finance Minister has also mentioned many of the transactions and we will compete them. For instance, big transactions have to be completed. She has also talked about the LIC's IPO as well as IBDI Bank, and they are large transactions. We will have a focus on strategic disinvestment and privatisation. In the case of the market, there is a minority stake sale method, which will be slightly low, and we will have a focus on strategic disinvestment. The process that we started and would have been completed if COVID was not in place, is back on track and will happen, now.

Q: Do you think that this Rs 1.75 crore will also have some amount from the ongoing financial year?

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: It keeps rolling. The pipeline continues to roll, and the target is booked as per the transactions that are completed in the year.

Q: Are you looking at LIC and BPCL in it?

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: BPCL, Shipping Corporation of India, Air India, BEML, Pawan Hans, Neelanchal Ispat are there, and these transactions are likely to be completed.

Q: Everyone was expecting that healthcare will take the centre stage in your allocations and a lot of focus has been made on it. Do you think that the trend will continue in the future as well and what was the thought process in it?

TV Somanathan: For the coming year, the financial year 2021-22 (FY22), our focus has been on the Atmanirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana that has been announced of Rs 64,000 crores. It includes a health infrastructure that will help us with all future epidemics, pandemics and infectious diseases in general as well as non-infectious diseases. That is the focus of that program and that is a five-year program. But this year's expenditure will also have a big element of vaccination, which is about Rs 35,000 crores. After that, hopefully, that will not need to continue in the future years, which will give us a little bit of space to build-up further on the core-health expenditure. The other thing we have done is a huge step in preventive to health costs with things like clean water, sanitation, hygiene. The rural program was launched previously and now, we are getting into an urban program because WHO study clearly shows that at least in a country like India in a normal year, when COVID is not here, it is things like diarrhoea, malaria, dengue are the threats to the health. And they very much depend on the absence of stagnant water, presence of clean water and so on. So, we are focusing on a very holistic set of health interventions.

Q: When it comes to disinvestment than there are people who say providing targets related to it is not a good decision as it may make you compromise on its real valuations. Do you not think that the government should focus more on the real valuation of every asset instead of the time?

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: Whatever is the process of our sales is very transparent and it includes financial bidding - it is important to make sure that competitive bids are made. Secondly, there is a reserve value, which is determined after the bids are received. So, the question that it will be sold under value does not arise. Now, it is a matter of value and if you will ask me to provide its break-up then I will not be able to do so because that value will be discovered in the market. It is an estimate overall, and if you ask me to split it and tell what we will get in this transaction then it will be wrong because the value will be determined only after the bids are received. The value will be discovered step-by-step. So, an overall estimate has a purpose in which the government is trying to tell that we will have a focus on strategic disinvestment. It is not so that it should be done at any value, maybe the less one. This is a reason that RE (revised estimates) comes at times although it is not so that it will happen at the BE (budget estimate) level. Because if there is something that is not possible then it comes but we are showing an optimism because the process that we started and would have completed it if COVID was not there in place. So, if it now comes into the advance stage and we have received the expression of interest (EoI) then it means that it will help us in concluding those, this year.

Q: Always there is a question that big players are showing an interest or not and is there global attention on the assets of India or not. So, let us know about the global response that you are getting for it?

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: There is a generic policy, and the finance minister has already announced the new privatisation policy. Secondly, when the actual transactions take place than in our process, we also conduct roadshows. And, when the EoI comes, before that we conduct roadshows and usually take an opinion of the investors. Our transaction advisors are appointed, who perform a general scanning, talk to people to find out what interests them. Only then, they pursue the transaction.

Besides, when I am saying that the disinvestment is back on track then it means, the interest has increased, gradually,because they look forward to the seriousness of the government and the atmosphere - the 7-8 months period of COVID which was a painful time - which would have caused problems in strategic disinvestment because in the period they are supposed to take the management control. The transaction is carried forward by looking at it.

Q: Priority-wise health is necessary, and infrastructure is also required for the country. What kind of focus you will have on education and don't you think that expenditure is required on that front also and it can be the next focus area, over a period of time? What is the government's thought in that area?

TV Somanathan: In education, the provisions that we made are broadly in line with the previous year's provisions. In education, I think the greatest challenge is on quality and it is not on quantitative expansion, we don't need more school buildings. Actually, the country has almost enough schools.

Q: But probably the teachers who can be paid better?

TV Somanathan: I don't think that the government teachers are paid badly. The question is on the attendance of teachers actually coming to government schools and attending. The paradox in education is that the best-paid teachers are often not seen in the schools, but the less paid teachers do show up. There are a lot of important managerial questions in education and that is not resource-based. The real challenge in education is how to make quality, how to make teachers come, take an interest, how to make students understand, build their ability to answer tests, not do it by rote. These are the questions. Actually, in education, the challenge of the resource is the least of the challenges, but the challenge of qualitative improvement is the main challenge. So, it is not a finance ministry problem.

Q: Were there some areas, where you thought that should be prioritised instead of that when you were sitting down to allocate?

TV Somanathan: We have done a very active reprioritisation throughout the year and for next year also because they will continue to be something that will not be the focus next year. Of course, they are pretty small, but we have tried - within each ministry - for example we were severe on travel budgets. The point is if you can't travel but you leave the money there then it gets used on something else that is less productive. So, we have taken a very targeted extracting money that is not required and putting them into capital. That is how we have been able to manage these things.

Q: Expenditure that is required on social schemes, like affordable housing or Har Ghar Jal and so on. Do we have funds for those?

TV Somanathan: We have again made big increases in most of them, drinking water, sanitation, housing, and all the flagship social schemes have been adequately provided. And we are committed to complete those programs.

Q: You have kept a target of Rs 1.75 lakh crore, and we expect that it will be completed this year. Do you think that you can even beat the target? You have also started the asset monetization drive. Do you think that parallel work will be done on both?

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: In asset monetisation,the money does not come to the government until the government's own land is not sold off. The receipt does not come to the government. You can take it through a special dividend from the companies if the companies do it. The drive for asset monetization is to make the companies nimble and move them towards the growth capital. And investors can take big and new projects and take out money for the purpose through unitholders. So, it shows a path of restructuring in which it can generate resources internally and use it as its growth capital. But the money does not come to the government from the CPSEs. But, yes, it can come through special dividends, but we directly do not get disinvestment receipts. Likewise, if the subsidiaries are sold, then the receipts of sales of those subsidiaries do not come to the government but it goes to the companies. But the finance minister's statement should be connected with the reform programs of the next 2-4 years. It is wider, in which the government would like to come out from the public sector, it will take time as things don't happen in a day. It means we are heading towards an economy where reform is happening a restructuring is going on. The government has a special focus on capital building, farmers' building, education, health, the other core areas, where private sector investment is not available and shift resources towards those. Like, a lot of resource initiatives will move towards health as there is a need to reduce the out of box expenditure. And to bring resources for the purpose, we will have to invest in areas where we can generate resources.

TV Somanathan: I will add to this, the privatisation policy that they have brought in and has been approved and mentioned is not merely a matter of raising resources, but it is actually something that will change the economy works, in terms of efficiencies, speed of response. There are things that the private sector does better. So, getting out of those sectors is good for the economy, not just because it brings resources to the government.

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: For instance, there was a COVID pandemic, and it is true that our CPSEs have also responded at different locations. But pharma industry of India is largely private, and they have invested with an alacrity. So, in building an Atmanirbhar Bharat we have to look towards what has been produced in India and it is not so that only the public sector should do it. Basically, it is about efficiency, their incentive system and how fast they can ramp up and can decide. So, we are expediting in that direction. Overall, it will have an impact on GDP growth and employment. So, this is an objective.

See the original post:

Privatisation policy will change the way the economy works: TV Somanathan - Zee Business

An earthy, musty smell hangs in the air of Impact Earths cavernous headquarters on Brighton-Henrietta Town Line Road, where crews are emptying buckets of vegetable peels, apple cores, coffee grounds, egg shells, and other food scraps into totes destined for small farms for composting into a top soil-like material.

Roughly 20 tons of food scraps pass through the facility each week, according to the company, organic waste collected from residential customers and commercial clients, such as restaurants and institutional kitchens, that would otherwise sit in a landfill.

Everyone has food waste to varying degrees and rather than throw it in the trash bucket and have that go to the landfill, which we know is a bad thing, diverting it and having it turned into soil or energy is a much better alternative, said Robert Putney, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Impact Earth.

Impact Earth became Monroe Countys only residential food waste composting service in January after it acquired its competitor, Community Composting, for an undisclosed price. But the merger is more significant than a couple of companies consolidating. It is the latest sign that there is growing interest in and demand for composting in the Rochester region.

That shouldnt come as a surprise. Across the country over the past five years, the number of communities offering some form of composting has grown by 65 percent, according to a 2019 report from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

Still, Rochester and Monroe County towns and villages are somewhat advanced when it comes to composting in America in that residents can subscribe to a curbside food scraps pickup service. The U.S. PIRG study noted that such programs are available in less than 2 percent of the 19,000 towns and cities across the country.

At the same time, Rochester and Monroe County lag their peers in New York in terms of public composting programs. The city of Buffalo and Onondaga County, for instance, launched municipally-funded initiatives years ago.

The growing interest in food waste recycling, a term often used for the collection and composting of food scraps, emerges as governments and the public at large have become increasingly aware of the problems posed by burying food scraps in landfills.

In the United States alone, food waste generates the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as 37 million cars, roughly 1 in 7 cars on the road, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. That accounts for both the energy to grow unused food, as well as the methane that is released by food rotting in landfills.

The problem will only worsen, as studies project the global population will need potentially twice as much food by 2050 as it did in 2005.

Food waste is actually a very high percentage of what goes into the municipal waste stream, said Charles Ruffing, director of the New York Pollution Prevention Institute, which is based at Rochester Institute of Technology.

Community Composting was a relatively young company, having been started by Rochester residents Brent Arnold and Steven Kraft in 2013. Since its founding, Arnold figured, the company has kept some 1,500 tons of food waste out of landfills an amount equivalent to 937 Toyota Priuses.

But Arnold noted its customer base grew by about 30-percent annually and was still rising at the time of the sale a rate too rapid for the company to keep pace.

As Putney put it: There was more demand for curbside than what the company was doing.

Impact Earth, which is located in Brighton near Monroe Community College and the Henrietta border, is an equally young company. It started in 2014 with a focus on helping event organizers cut down on the amount of trash they were sending to landfills. As the company grew, it started collecting and composting food scraps from commercial clients.

Two years ago, it expanded into residential service and began accepting food scraps for a fee of $5 per bucket. Customers were able to drop off full five-gallon buckets, and pick up clean, empty ones, at the Rochester Public Market and area farmers markets.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the company pivoted to a curbside pickup model, Putney said. By October, the company had 500 curbside customers, many of whom previously used the drop-off service.

Today, after acquiring Community Compostings clients, Impact Earth serves about 3,000 residential customers in neighborhoods across Monroe County through curbside pickup and drop-off locations.

The acquisition boosted Impact Earths collection capacity, but company officials say the higher volume translates to more efficient and less expensive collection and compositing that could ultimately drive down costs to customers.

Theres just an economy in combining the two groups together, which was also a driver for us, Putney said.

A state law coming into effect next year requiring large producers of food waste to donate edible food it would otherwise discard and compost scraps could also boost Impact Earths business.

Food waste is a major problem in the United States. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that food waste accounts for roughly a quarter of the trash sent to the countrys landfills.

In Monroe County, an estimated 119,270 tons of food waste was generated in 2010, according to an analysis conducted as part of the countys 2015 solid waste management plan. The scraps which weighed more than a military aircraft carrier amounted to an estimated 16 percent of the countys solid waste.

That figure doesnt include the large amounts of food scraps that county residents run through their garbage disposals and into the sewers, noted Mike Garland, the countys Department of Environmental Services commissioner.

Ideally, food shouldnt be wasted at all, but when it cant be avoided, diverting it away from landfills and sewers is the next best option.

When food waste is entombed with trash, it not only takes up finite space in landfills, but shortens the lifespan of landfills. As food waste breaks down underneath thousands of tons of garbage, it emits offensive odors and generates substantial amounts of methane, a potent climate-disrupting greenhouse gas.

Composting food scraps turns them into nutrient-rich, soil-like humus a valuable commodity to gardeners and farmers. Impact Earth gives some of its compost to customers free of charge and sells the rest.

Local governments, including Rochester, have started looking at food waste recycling programs to help cut their communities carbon emissions and save money. The U.S. PIRG report noted that, in 2017, the average price to dump waste at a landfill was $52 a ton, but the average price for dumping organic waste at a composting facility was $35 a ton.

The city of Rochester, which does its own refuse and recycling collection, in 2019 beganstudying the feasibility of a municipal food waste recycling program as a way to save money and the environment. The city is expected to launch a pilot program in the near future.

Shortly after County Executive Adam Bello took office last year, his transition team recommended that the county work alongside the city as the latter explored a potential municipal composting program. The county is doing just that, Garland said.

But the county will explore its own food waste reduction efforts, including food scraps composting, as it develops a climate action plan, Garland said. The first phase of work on the plan will start this year, although handling food waste is expected to begin in 2022.

We realize its going to be a community-wide effort, a county-wide effort, to implement an aggressive climate action plan, Garland said.

The city and countys peers to the west and east already have public food scrap composting programs.

Buffalo started its Scrap It! initiative in 2018 and added six food scraps drop-off locations the following year. Between May and September of 2019, the city composted 8,638 pounds over four tons of food waste, according to Buffalos annual recycling report.

Onondaga County residents are also able to drop off their food scraps at a composting facility owned by the Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency. Countywide, upwards of 95,000 tons of food waste is processed annually, mostly from businesses and factories. Of that, roughly 6,000 tons comes through the Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency composting facilities, which are where residents can drop off food scraps.

By contrast, neither Rochester nor Monroe County have any such public program. Their only options are composting in their own yards, which isnt an option for everyone, or subscribing to the service offered by Impact Earth.

Community food waste recycling programs are in their infancy and they take different forms in different places, Ruffing said. Some are run entirely by for-profit companies, while others are operated by local governments. Sometimes they are the product of public-private partnerships.

Ruffing believes that the public-private arrangement may prove to be the best model for expanding and promoting food waste composting efforts.

The private sector is better positioned to run the routes, do the pickups depending on the location, even operate the composting facility, Ruffing said. But generally it takes a municipality scale to do the communication, the encouragement, in some cases the regulation.

Putney also sees the public-private model as key to the future growth of Impact Earths residential composting business, especially if local governments set up programs where residents can opt in and pay for the service through their tax bills. Those programs would help Impact Earth to break into the mainstream and reach Putneys next target: 10,000 customers.

A collaborative approach is always best, Putney said. We collaboratively collect trash now so it wouldnt be any different.

The company already has contracts with the towns of Victor andCanandaigua to administer their food scrap drop-off programs. It has also served as a consultant on Rochesters food waste recycling feasibility study.

For now, its not clear what an expansion of food waste recycling services in Rochester would look like. Residents could see ramped-up curbside pickup, more municipal food scrap drop-off sites, or even the development of neighborhood food waste drop-of hubs.

Putney said theres merit to having both curbside and drop-off options available to residents. He noted that even after Impact Earth began offering curbside pickup, many customers opted to continue dropping off their scraps at farmers markets, which they want to support. As a business, the best way to attract and keep customers is to provide a service that works for them, he added.

I think the best way to encourage people to compost, whether its residentially or commercially, is to give them options, Putney said.

This article has been corrected to clarify the amount of food waste composted at Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency facilities.

Jeremy Moule is CITY's news editor. He can be reached at jmoule@rochester-citynews.com.

Read the rest here:

Composting is growing, but we're a long way from getting with the program - WXXI News

In 2020, the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic during which minimising interactions and physical distancing are promoted were exceptional. But at the same time, developments in the tech industry were tremendous.

The exponential growth of technologies has disrupted traditional industries at an ever-increasing pace. Furthermore, the pandemic has basically put these changes into hyperspeed. Never have we had the opportunity to rewrite entire sectors, redefine the problems they address and reinvent their solutions. There is an urgent need to create resilient local industries to ensure businesses survive come what may, and continue to support national growth.

It is crucial that Malaysia accelerates its capacity for innovation to remain competitive in a world on the cusp of super connectivity. Deep technologies such as semiconductors and sensors have brought digitalisation to our doorstep which, in turn, has enabled information to be transmitted at the speed of light. Digitalisation has also increased automation, particularly in activities that involve considerable lengths of time, high risks and complications.

A countrys pursuit of a strong growth trajectory may be based on a variety of economic models. For example, countries may embark on a high-tech model, a finance-hub model or a resource-based model, to varying degrees of success.

As Malaysias aspirations lean towards high-tech national advancement, it must choose to invest in high-tech, high-value, technology-based and inclusive economic activities which, in turn, lead to rapid development through a strong science and technology base, as is the case for countries such as South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. The resulting ecosystem is one that comprises government and private sector participation in cultivating and developing talents, encouraging investments in R&D and start-ups, dynamic marketing and commercialisation, and strong governance.

For both national security interests and commercial purposes, this pursuit leads to Malaysias technological sovereignty. It takes consolidated efforts and careful preparation to build Malaysian-based tech giants. The mastery of deep technology will determine whether Malaysia will join the ranks of developed countries or remain a middle-income developing nation. The first step towards this goal involves seizing the innovation opportunities that lie before us.

There are ample opportunities for the nation to grow further through innovation. For example, local value-added content comprises only 44% of Malaysias electrical and electronics (E&E) exports, compared with Chinas 70% and Indonesias 68%.

In the E&E sector, electronics and semiconductors have been identified as common enablers across all potential growth areas for technology disciplines and industries. The backbone and backend of the adoption of the entire digitalisation process appears to be in the electronics and semiconductor industry, so much so that it has led to the well-known tech war between the two giant tech countries, China and the US.

Semiconductors that contain up to 30 billion transistors are new electrical and electronic devices that power deep tech. We have seen a techno-nationalist race in deep tech semiconductors between the US and China over the past few months. Representing 2.3% of the global market share and more than 50% of its E&E exports in 2019, Malaysia is already in the semiconductor race.

Unfortunately, we have remained at the lower end of the value chain because of insufficient financial resources. As a result, we have not been able to move as quickly as more advanced nations such as South Korea or Taiwan. To improve our position, however, Malaysia can engage in the More than Moore ecosystem, exploiting diversity and increasing

the value chain. The importance of semiconductors cannot be overemphasised as they enable advances in key technological applications, including communications, computing, healthcare, defence systems, transport, clean energy and a myriad of other applications.

How will this new focus affect Malaysias existing value chain? The national applied R&D centre Mimos Bhd, founded in 1984, is the countrys forefront provider of information and communications technology (ICT), industrial electronics technology and nano-semiconductor technology. It pursues discoveries fundamental to microelectronics and ICT the vital elements in digitalisation and automation.

In 2005, Mimos mandate was renewed as the national R&D centre for cutting-edge frontier technology. The governments commitment to semiconductors was reflected in investments in experimental and manufacturing efforts, which translated into RM81 billion, or a 6.3% contribution to GDP, and 560,000 employees in 2019. Semiconductor manufacturer SilTerra Malaysia Sdn Bhd is an example of a company spearheading the countrys entry into chip manufacturing, an essential component of digital lifestyles.

Another area that merits close attention is the mining and processing of rare earth elements (REE), which has been at the centre of many political, policy and environmental debates. From semiconductors to chips and even magnets for hard disk drives, speakers and turbines, REE is an essential component in all electronic products. Given Malaysias strategic location for the REE industrys midstream value chain, we need to move forward with more evidence-based and sustainable policy initiatives to position the countrys high-value downstream sector for REE.

Other fields with great potential are artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain. In the security and industry sectors, the integration of these advanced technologies will provide real-time automation to protect from extreme vulnerabilities.

On Dec 2, 2020, the National Policy on Science, Technology and Innovation, or DSTIN 2021-2030, was launched by the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation. DSTIN 2021-2030 is directly aligned with the Shared Prosperity Vision 2030 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).

DSTIN 2021-2030 provides the catalyst for Malaysia to shift from being a technology consumer to technology producer and to leapfrog to a high-tech nation status. Technology development will boost the quality of life, help us realise our full economic potential, embrace sustainability, conserve nature and the environment, increase productivity and develop future-ready talents.

Automation and the application of advanced technology will minimise our dependence on foreign labour and increase productivity through the application of new skill sets. In addition, DSTIN 2021-2030 will spearhead Malaysias journey to embrace the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and digitalisation, in tandem with these technological developments.

DSTIN 2021-2030 strives to improve governance and the ecosystem through the establishment of a technology commercialisation agency and a research management agency for integrated grant management. Similarly, the strengthening of research, development, commercialisation and innovation in DSTIN 2021-2030 would increase the allocation of experimental production to at least 50% of the overall research funding by 2025, equivalent to 2.5% of the gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) of developed nations.

The policy will also see better tax incentives for research in the private sectors implemented by the government to ensure significant increases in private sector research participation. Most importantly, the enculturation and growth of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and high-tech skills will ensure ample talent for the development of emerging technology industries and start-ups.

Early successes of the policy are already evident. An initiative led by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (Mosti) the National Technology and Innovation Sandbox for example, has succeeded in testing the use of drones in the aerial spraying of fertilisers in the Federal Land Development Authoritys plantations, thereby reducing its longstanding dependence on foreign labour.

In addition, the application of precision farming improves the economics of farming and, in the long term, helps resolve food security concerns in Malaysia. The use of drones for this purpose has been expanded to fertiliser spraying on paddy fields and chilli farms, a task commonly performed by foreign labour.

In closing the circular economy loop and aligning with the UN SDGs, a company nurtured by the Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology is producing a range of biodegradable packaging products for food, medical and industrial use made from agricultural biomass for the international market. Working closely with the local farmers association, the programme has successfully increased both the farmers income and their appreciation for the environment.

Another Mosti initiative addresses personnel safety and protection in Covid-19 quarantine centres through the use of service robots. These robots deliver food and medicine to patients at the Malaysia Agro Exposition Park Serdang and Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia quarantine centres, avoiding disease transmissions and for the protection of medical service personnel and frontliners. The robots also collect used personal protective equipment to lower the infection risks of healthcare workers and hygiene service providers.

Long-term planning is involved in mitigating the Covid-19 pandemic, and DSTIN 2021-2030 will be important in bringing Malaysia to the next level. This can happen only if we seize the innovation opportunities that lie before us to avoid the ever-increasing pace of disruption.

Covid-19 has accelerated the process of disruption by technology, and Malaysia needs to respond by accelerating its innovative capacity to remain competitive. Common enablers such as the semiconductor and REE industries will be key to becoming a high-tech nation.

With a new national policy that maps out the steps to grow Malaysias science, technology and innovation sectors, our path to securing our future through innovation has been set in motion.

Datuk Dr Siti Hamisah Tapsir is secretary-general of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation

Continue reading here:

my Say: The path for Malaysia to seize the innovation wave - The Edge Markets MY

The European Unions Green Deal places environmental sustainability at the heart of future economic development and targets a climate-neutral economy by 2050. But in a world of globalised supply chains, the bloc must be careful not to outsource its environmental impact to other nations, say experts.

The first step to avoid this is to develop methods to measure the extent ofEurope's supply chains and how they interact.

The vast majority of the EUs food production takes place within its borders, but about two-thirds of the non-food crops such as those used to produce biofuels its residents consume are from other regions, according to research by FINEPRINT, a project which uses fine-scale data, for example satellites, to create global maps of where natural resources are being extracted.

To address the environmental impacts linked to mining, agriculture and forestry, requires identifying where the extraction is taking place within a country, says Dr Stefan Giljum, an associate professor in the Institute for Ecological Economics at Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria, and FINEPRINT principal investigator. It is not sufficient to look at the average national impact, he says.

He gives the example of soybean exports from Brazil, and whether the beans were either grown in a rainforest (area) that was cleared last year or in the south where agriculture has been around for about 300 years.

But Dr Giljum and colleagues found that many of the datasets necessary to their research simply did not exist, so they decided to create their own. Their map of global mining activity, for example, found that mining activity uses an area of about 57,277 km, about double the size of Belgium.

Mines

The team manually identified and marked more than 6,000 mining locations on satellite images, and the next step is to automate the recognition process. This would allow them to identify new mines, and investigate how land use has changed over time. The main problem with (automatically detecting mines from satellite images) is that you need solid training data in order to make sure that the algorithm can learn what is a mine versus a road or a building, Dr Giljum said. And this large new mining dataset can help train the software.

FINEPRINT, which ends in 2022, is also looking at other commodities and uses data about soybean, oil palm, copper, iron, coal and oil production among others. A high percentage of environmental impacts occur at the very first stages of the supply chain, Dr Giljum said. The ultimate aim is to connect fine-scale data of resource extraction and related environmental and social impacts and trace them along international supply chains all the way to the final consumer,he says. We want to create information for decision-makers, so that we can inform them of (a specific commoditys) environmental profile.

This is particularly important if the EU wants to push its Green Deal agenda: Europe is in a special position because it is (highly) dependent on imports and ecosystem services in other parts of the world, and we have a responsibility to be concerned about these (distant) impacts, he said.

But the reality is that while Europe is able to control what occurs in member states, the bloc and the world needs frameworks to understand how supply chains intersect and influence each other.

Soybean

There are environmental impacts that arise outside the borders of the EU, but that occur because of the demand taking place across the EU, says Simon Bager, a doctoral candidate at the Universit catholique de Louvain in Belgium. Bagers work focuses on deforestation and how policy action by the EU can reduce ecosystem destruction linked to commodity imports, such as beef, soy, palm oil, and cocoa. Large swathes of natural forests, such as the Amazon rainforest in South America, have been uprooted in favour of commodity production to meet consumer demand for food and feed. China consumes the majority of Brazils soy exports. In the EU, soybeans mainly sourced from the United States are primarily used for animal feed. Each year, the EU alone imports commodities associated with the destruction of some 190,000 ha of forest. Bager is part of COUPLED, a project which aims to understand the factors from local governance to global demand that influence land use in an increasingly interconnected world.

COUPLED uses an idea called telecoupling to explain these connections, says Professor Jonas stergaard Nielsen, a specialist in human land use and global climate change at The Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment Systems, based at Humboldt University in Germany, and COUPLED coordinator. The concept of telecouplings originated in the area of climate change research, where it is called teleconnections, said Prof. Nielsen. Teleconnections, a concept often used in atmospheric science, refers to climate links between two geographically separate regions. They say you can have a storm in the North Atlantic and that manifests as a drought in central Australia.

He gives the example of a dry forest in Argentina becoming a soybean field in order to feed pigs in Germany, whose meat is ultimately sold to China. The supply chain encircles the globe, but land use is local and influenced by individuals, companies and governments with their own agendas. COUPLED, which is a training programme, brought together 15 PhD candidates to investigate telecoupling as a method to track global supply chains.

The real issue is spillover systems and whether your supply chain is sustainable from a systemic perspective, Prof. Nielsen said. He points to sustainably produced pineapples in Costa Rica, which are packed on pallets made from rainforest-sourced wood. The spillover system (the pallets) renders the supply chain unsustainable. Things are connected and often in surprising and unexpected ways.

Things are connected and often in surprising and unexpected ways.

Professor Jonas stergaard Nielsen, Humboldt University, Germany

Telecoupling

Telecoupling allows those involved in the system not only to map out the supply chains extent, but also look for possible solutions. As part of his work on deforestation, Bager and colleagues developed a research paper on EU policy optionsfor addressing deforestation associated with commodity consumption within the EU. In this, they identified eight specific actors involved in the supply chains that can lead to deforestation such as consumers, governments, companies, landowners, etc., and summarised existing proposals into 86 unique policy options which target different actors. These range from the politically difficult, such as trade agreements, to fairly easy, such as the EU providing information to consumers, says Bager, but also vary in the ability to reduce deforestation. To increase impact, it is also important to concentrate efforts on sectors that are the most responsible for deforestation, such as soy, palm oil and cocoa, rather than rubber or maize which have smaller deforestation footprints.

But if the EU and the world in general plans to reduce its environmental footprint and curb climate change, it will need to better understand the extent of its supply chains and devise ways to regulate and control them.

Because of its economic heft, the EU has the ability to drive change and chart a path towards environmentally sustainable supply chains, Bager says. Our work focuses on deforestation, but you can also talk about biodiversity loss and water. The EU is getting more and more aware that it needs to address these impacts (beyond its own borders).

The research in this article was funded by the EU. If you liked this article, please consider sharing it on social media.

The rest is here:

To confront climate change, we need to understand the environmental footprint of global supply chains - Horizon