Press release: 18 Nov 2012 11:34 PM PST
Indian technology giant Wipro topped the ranking in its first appearance in the Guide to Greener Electronics released by Greenpeace International today.
The guide, in its 18th version, ranked 16 electronic companies across the world based on their commitment and progress in three environment criteria: Energy and Climate, Greener Products and Sustainable Operations.
While most of the ICT companies have made progress in removing toxic chemicals from the mobile phones, computers and tablets they produce, barring few, their manufacturing and supply chains are still too heavily dependent on dirty energy sources that are contributing to climate change while at the same time lagging behind in effectively managing e-waste they produce, particularly in India. Wipro scored the most points due to its efforts to embrace renewable energy and advocacy for greener energy policies in India. Wipro also scored well for post-consumer e-waste collection for recycling and for phasing out hazardous substances from its products. [2] “Wipro has set a new benchmark for sustainability, not only in India but across the globe, that will have a long-term impact in shaping the green energy debate in the electronics industry,” said Greenpeace India Senior Campaigner Abhishek Pratap. “The rest of the electronics sector should follow in the footsteps of Wipro’s climate leadership.” HP dropped from No. 1 in last year’s edition of the guide to No. 2.
Nokia moved up from No. 4 to No. 3.
Taiwanese computer maker Acer was the most improved company in the guide, moving up nine spots to No. 4 for engaging with its suppliers on greenhouse gas emissions, hazardous substances, conflict minerals and fibre sourcing.
Dell dropped from No. 3 to No. 5.
Apple dropped slightly from No. 5 in last year’s edition to No. 6.
Blackberry maker RIM did not improve from its 16th ranking, the bottom of the group.
As the Indian version of Guide to Greener Electronics has been merged with the International version, all the companies have also been assessed on their performance on managing the e-waste, generated from their products in India (3).
Only two companies Wipro and Samsung have shown strong e-waste management programme which can be seen as best in class practice.
Their programme consists of e-waste collection, recycling and phasing out of hazardous chemicals from the products, setting a new bench mark for other companies to follow in India and elsewhere.
Many global companies did not even develop an e-waste management programme for India which casts a doubt on their ability to meet obligation put on them under the newly enacted E-waste (Management and Handling) rule. An ambitious collection target of 20 % can be set up under the new rule.
 As global electronics use grows, only corporate environmental leadership can prevent increased electronic waste and ensure that the industry transitions to using clean energy to manufacture its products. Electronic companies have also gained political power in many countries, meaning their advocacy for clean energy can impact government policy. "Given the massive energy crisis around the world including caused by depleting & polluting fossil fuel, the next big environmental challenge for consumer electronics companies is to reduce their carbon pollution," said Greenpeace International IT analyst Casey Harrell. "Companies should work with their suppliers to implement more efficient manufacturing processes and to power the supply chain with renewable energy, not fossil fuels, just as they have successfully done to reduce the toxic materials in electronics.” Harrel added. 1. This year’s 18th Guide to Greener Electronics: www.greenpeace.org/ 2. Wipro and three other Indian consumer electronic companies were assessed separately in a version of the Guide to Greener Electronics specifically for Indian companies, using the same set of criteria from 2007 – 2011. The current edition of the guide merges the Indian version and the international version. 3. A new E-waste (Handling & Management) Rule, 2011 was enacted in year 2011 and was enforced from May 1st, 2012. Under the rule, all electronic manufacuring companies as producers are responsbile for management of e-waste produced from their products- physically and financially. Under the rule, companies operating in India and selling products on their brand name are mandated to collect post-consumer products, recycling it responsbilly along with their factory scraps and pay the cost for recycling if neccesory. The entire rule can be accessed here http://www.moef.nic.in/ 4. The Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics, launched in 2006, has prompted improvements within the electronics industry, including the phase-out of hazardous substances from products. A timeline of Greenpeace electronics campaigning: http://www.greenpeace.org/ |
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Wipro is the greenest ICT company in the world
Management Tip of the Day - New Job? Only Make the Sacrifices You Want To
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How safe are India’s banks?
Gross non-performing assets of scheduled commercial banks
The Hindu : C P Chandrasekar : Oct 29 ,2012
Ever since liberalisation opened up and deregulated the markets and institutions that constitute India’s financial system, the positive effect that has had on India’s banks has been a periodic refrain. One indicator regularly used to support that argument is the sharp fall in the share of non-performing loans to total, with the ratio of gross non-performing assets to gross advances falling from close to 16 per cent in the mid-1990s to as low as 2.5 per cent a decade later, where it has remained since (Chart 1).
However, the figures of loans on the books of the scheduled commercial banks that are non-performing seem to be gross underestimates. This is because the loans given to a number of large borrowers, who have been finding it difficult to meet the associated interest and amortisation commitments have been “restructured” in recent times. This allows troubled or even non-performing assets to be recorded as standard assets, concealing in the process the real state of affairs.
Such restructuring of debt favours the debtor at the expense of the creditor. The RBI’s prudential guidelines define a restructured account as one where the bank, for economic or legal reasons relating to the borrower's financial difficulty, grants to the borrower concessions that the bank would not otherwise consider. Restructuring can involve some combination of changes in the terms of advances, such as alteration of the repayment period, reduction of the repayable amount, reduction in the rate of interest and conversion of debt to equity. It can also be accompanied by the provision of additional credit, despite the shortfall in meeting past commitments. The intent is to help the company recover. But, often that intent is not realised. The only benefit is that in return for the losses the creditor institution suffers, it is in a position to treat the asset (after providing for any write down) as a standard asset subject to conditions. But this may in fact provide the cover to abuse the restructuring route to bailout private investors at the expense of the banks. As Chart 2 shows the net result of this strategy has been that the troubled assets restructured by India’s banks had by March 2011 exceeded the identified non-performing assets of the banking system.
The dangers associated with restructuring was brought to public attention in the Kingfisher Airlines case, which is now facing the prospect of liquidation as a result of a combination of bad strategy, bad acquisitions, profligacy and obvious mismanagement. Unfortunately, it is not just the airline that is in a mess, but also the banks (including the venerable State Bank of India) that have lent to it. If they withdraw they invite default of the large volume of debt they have already provided. So they restructure debt, offer better terms, extend repayment periods, and provide more credit to keep the unit afloat. Thus, in 2010, the banks had under the Corporate Debt Restructuring (CDR) scheme of the RBI, restructured debt to the tune of Rs. 77 .2 billion owed by Kingfisher. Now, while the debt of the airline has increase by another Rs. 10 billion or so, the airline has been forced to suspend operations with no hope of repaying the banks unless the impossible happens.
What is disturbing is that it is now emerging that Kingfisher is no exception, but is the tip of a debt default iceberg that has been hidden by restructuring. The total volume of restructured loans as of the end of March 2012 was Rs. 2,18,068 crore, up from Rs. 75, 304 crore just four years back. Moreover, much of this is in the beleaguered infrastructure sector. Such credit rose sharply because of the government’s decision to use the banking system as an instrument to further an aspect of its larger liberalisation agenda, which was the entry of the private sector into core infrastructural areas involving lumpy, capital intensive investments in power, telecommunications, roads and ports and sectors like civil aviation. Under normal circumstances banks are not expected to lend much to these areas as it involves a significant maturity and liquidity mismatch: banks draw deposits from savers in small volumes with the implicit promise of low income and capital risk and high liquidity. Infrastructural investments require large volumes of credit and do involve significant income and capital risk, besides substantial liquidity risk. So what is required for supporting infrastructural investment is increased equity flows from corporate or high net worth investors and the expansion of sources of long-term credit like a bond market. Neither of these, especially the latter, occurred in adequate measure. So the public banking system (besides a couple of private banks) became the main source of finance, possibly because of governmental pressure.
The share of infrastructural lending in the total advances of scheduled commercial banks to the industrial sector rose from less than 2 per cent at the end of March 1998 to 16.4 per cent at the end of March 2004 and as much as 31.5 per cent at the end of March 2012. Four sectors have been the most important here: power, roads and ports, and telecommunications, and a residual ‘other’ category more recently, reflecting in all probability the lending to civil aviation.
The largest chunk of bank debt to infrastructure (estimated at Rs. 269196 crore as of March 2011) is to the power sector. The problem in the power sector is that large capital investments, wrong technology choices, poor management, high power costs that the state distribution agencies are not able to bear given the tariffs they charge, and difficult and costly fuel supplies, have all ensured that most of the high profile private power projects are not viable. The government has sought to prop them up with concessions such as coal allocations without success. If this leads to failure, the bankruptcy of the private sector power companies can spill over onto the banks carrying their loans, much of which has already been restructured. That could make banks looks far less safe.
The Middle East Could Be a Cradle of Innovation
We in the West tend to think of innovation as the next, new, shiny, tech, globally-accepted thing. But in emerging growth markets, new access to even existing technologies (e.g., higher-speed broadband, mobile phones, smart devices), can lead to fresh and surprising thinking about local and regional problems, and one day these over-looked corners of the globe may produce world-class innovations as a result.
Consider mobile devices in Africa. Throughout the continent — and this is true throughout other emerging markets too — millions of people are glued to their cell phones. Since Africans were never tethered to landlines, innovation has been astounding. Kenya's M-Pesa, for example, allows customers to withdraw and deposit money via text message. The company is now one of the largest mobile cash-transaction companies in the world — roughly 20% of the country's GDP passes through it. The growth doesn't stop there. With hundreds of thousands of cell towers providing reception to the most rural corners of the world, mobile providers have been compelled to build their own power generators. As a result, they've spawned entire ecosystems of entrepreneurs who are using the excess electricity to power local towns and build community charging stations. And thanks to "social entrepreneurs," people with little voice are using mobile technology to report crime and corruption to authorities while holding the "powers that be" accountable — which was impossible even a few years ago.
Long before the Arab uprising in 2010 — and uninhibited by uncertainty and instability today — Middle East entrepreneurs have used innovation to overcome challenges and to find new opportunities for growth. As I have suggested in a recent post here on HBR, the Arab world alone represents a large and hungry consumer market. So it's no surprise that companies in the region are finding innovative ways to reach consumers. In the face of country-by-country regulatory complexity,Aramex, the region's largest logistics company, created Shop and Ship, which allows customers to order products from nearly any e-tailer in the U.S. and China and eventually the Middle East. It's a seamless process. Aramex receives the ordered goods at its facilities, takes care of all the bureaucratic headaches, and then delivers the goods right to the shopper.
Other e-commerce companies are overcoming obstacles in innovative ways as well. With only two million credit card users in the Middle East, and even fewer comfortable using their cards online, and with well over 60% of package deliveries paid COD, payment services create as much friction as regulatory concerns. But innovators such as CashU have created safe gateways (e.g., cash cards) for buyers who are weary about shopping online and on mobile devices.
The fact that new markets are using technology to solve local and regional problems is no longer surprising. But what's provocative, for me, is at some point these efforts will yield globally-competitive innovation as well. As Dartmouth Professors Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble argue in their new book on innovation in emerging markets, Reverse Innovation: "It is easy to understand why a poor man would want a rich man's product. But why would a rich man ever want a poor man's product? The answer is that under certain circumstances, it offers new, unexpected or long-overlooked value."
This is why, when I travel throughout the Middle East, I look hard for situations and experiences that could foster innovation on a global scale. Simply put, the Middle East — despite its uncertainty — is rife with potential. This is a region that barely knew phone lines, yet mobile penetration regularly nears 200%. And when cheap smart phones (below $40) hit the market — as they have just started to in Africa — mass adoption of mobile computing will follow. What might this market have to teach the world about the future of mobile innovation?
There are other opportunities for innovation as well. The largest untapped resource of fresh water in the world lies beneath the Egyptian-Libyan desert but there isn't an adequate, cost-efficient, and reliable way to deliver petroleum in order to pump it. What innovation in solar pumping and agriculture may lie here? And what about the millions of people who communicated and coordinated on mobile devices and Twitter and Facebook during the Arab uprisings? They told stories. They toppled regimes. Might the next great global social network rise from these experiences?
There was a day, in my lifetime, when no one could imagine that Japan, or Finland, or Korea would become leaders in hardware innovation or computer gaming. True, there hasn't been a great, global software innovation outside of the United States in years, arguably ever. But as the region continues to use creativity to overcome its unique problems and as long as access to inexpensive technology continues to spread, "made in MENA" doesn't seem that far off.
CHRISTOPHER M. SCHROEDER
Christopher M. Schroeder (@cmschroed) is a Washington, D.C.- and New York-based entrepreneur, venture investor, and former CEO of the online content and social platform start-up healthcentral.com, which he sold last January. He is writing a book about tech start-ups in the Middle East, due in the spring 2013.
Aircel-Airtel SMS dispute leaves users fuming
The Hindu : Karthik Subramanian :chennai :20 Nov 2012
Text channel between networks broke down earlier this month; Aircel has taken issue to apex court
An ongoing dispute between mobile service providers Airtel and Aircel on the settlement of an inter-connection agreement over SMS services has left millions of users in the lurch.
The SMS channel between the two companies broke down just before Deepavali, and the blockade is likely to continue for some time, with Aircel having taken the issue to the Supreme Court.
CONSUMERS CONFUSED
Scores of users, unaware that the inter-connectivity between the two networks has broken down, are confused: specifically Airtel users who are not able to text or reply to messages from Aircel users. Some of them have even taken their mobile phones to service centres to get them checked.
“Mobile networks often bombard us with promotional messages,” says N. Arjun, a college student. “So why did they not inform us by text message that there was a problem of inter-connectivity,” he asks.
Small businesses that depended on text messaging as a primary means of communication between clients and service providers have been most hit. “No wonder my clients could not reach me over the past few days,” Narayanan Hariharan, an entrepreneur said.
Another heavy SMS user R. Sathyanarayanan, a professor with a management institute here, asked: “I have been struggling to understand the ‘message not sent’ alerts on my phone. Why could the service provider not inform us that there have been some restrictions on usage?”
The scenario has also led to some of the younger users conversant with instant messaging services on data networks, to opt for services like WhatsApp and Viber as the de-facto messaging service on their smartphones.
LONG-STANDING DISPUTE
The dispute between Airtel and Aircel is a long-standing one. Aircel had filed a petition with the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) in New Delhi last year over Airtel raising a bill of approximately Rs. 25 crore towards inter-connection usage charges for the period April to October 2011, at the rate of 10 paise per SMS terminating in its network.
Aircel contested the fee demanded by Airtel as too high and said it was untenable to pass on such a huge burden to its users. On Monday, both companies responded in very brief statements, as the issue is sub-judice.
An Airtel spokesperson said: “Airtel continues to be in compliance with Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) regulations as well as TDSAT judgements on the issue of SMS interconnection between operators. The TDSAT judgement has inter-alia specified execution of interconnection agreement for SMS services by Aircel with Airtel, which is pending till date with Aircel. Consequently, SMS services have been impacted.”
An Aircel spokesperson responded: “Bharti Airtel was the first to block SMSes between the two companies – Aircel and Airtel. This started on November 9, 2012. In these circumstances, if an SMS is accepted but is not delivered to an Aircel customer, the responsibility lies with the sender operator, in this case ‘Airtel’, and Aircel is in no way responsible for customer inconvenience or the customer being charged for the message not going through to its recipient. The case against Airtel is pending in Supreme Court and since it is sub-judice we will be unable to comment any further on this topic till the court hearing is over.”
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