Oct
16
Impending El Niño to Affect Commodity Prices
As the worst El Niño in almost 20 years approaches, forecasters in the United States and Australia are predicting a spike in commodity prices. Farmers are already bracing for the damage and to account for this, food pricing has increased dramatically over the past 3 weeks. Sugar prices have gone up by 31% and dairy has seen a 36% increase. The El Niño phenomenon can affect the entire world’s weather patterns and while it is not supposed to peak until the end of 2015, rice farmers are already predicting as high as a 20% drop in rice production. Scientists and agriculturists will not know the full effect of El Niño until closer to December. Read more…
Driver Pay Increases Due to Talent Shortage
As the trucking industry struggles to find drivers and recruit the next generation of transportation professionals, truckers are seeing the first pay raise in years. Due to the extreme shortage, companies are increased driver pay to retain their employees and also incentivizing candidates with items such as bus tickets and signing bonuses. The trucking industry is valued at an estimated $700 billion and has seen a fair amount of growth over the past year, prompting employers to invest in their drivers with the average increase in pay across the industry at around13% since 2013. Read more…
Target Urges Suppliers to Eliminate Toxic Chemicals
Target’s stakeholders have spoken and the major retailer has listened. Target has launched a program called the Sustainable Product Index, a program incentivizing suppliers to eliminate toxic chemicals from the products stocked at Target. Target has stated that there are over 1,000 chemicals on their list with the description of “high level health concerns” and has implemented a point system to tally the suppliers using safer chemicals. Based on the percentage of safer chemicals used in a product, suppliers can get anywhere from 3 to 10 points. Points are also awarded based on transparency, certified as ethically sourced and if they have no affect on our oceans. Read more…