Investor Watch: November 4, 2024

COVER STORY

Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and other top states know what’s good for the Goliaths can be good for the Davids too.

FREE TRADE ZONES

U.S. Foreign-Trade Zone activity in the Gulf States leads to a record-breaking year.

OHIO RIVER CORRIDOR

Louisville and Cincinnati top this year’s rankings with major assists from communities across the river.

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Find out more about GSK’s mammoth investment in Pennsylvania; CoreWeave’s planned data center next door in New Jersey; and a semiconductor equipment “super factory” in Malaysia.

Photo courtesy of One Click LCA

Last week, Finland-based One Click LCA, the sustainability platform for construction and manufacturing whose clients include such firms as Arup, ArcelorMittal, Skanska and Saint-Gobain, launched Materials Compass, which the firm called the world’s largest construction life-cycle assessment (LCA) database, showing the environmental impact of more than 250,000 construction products. Enabling data-driven decisions throughout the design and construction process, the product allows stakeholders to select lower-carbon materials and ultimately reduce carbon emissions from construction projects via verified environmental product declarations (EPDs) and other product sustainability data.

“We want to embed decarbonization into the design and construction process, instead of it being an afterthought,” said Panu Pasanen (pictured), the CEO and founder of One Click LCA whom Site Selection readers will remember from his insightful comments this year’s Sustainability Rankings.

Norway’s METCentre is a test center for floating offshore wind, is located outside of Karmøy on the country’s west coast.

Photo courtesy of Norwegian Offshore Wind

Speaking of sustainability and northern Europe, a new report from Menon Economics commissioned by Offshore Norway, Norwegian Offshore Wind, Eksfin and Innovation Norway finds that the offshore wind industry has the potential to contribute to 62,000 jobs by 2050. “Market Development for Fixed-Bottom and Floating Offshore Wind” finds that offshore wind could generate between 52 billion and 139 billion NOK (US$4.7 billion and $12.6 billion) by 2040.

“The report also highlights that delays in the Utsira Nord floating offshore wind park impact Norway’s potential global market share,” said a news release from Norwegian Offshore Wind. “In a similar analysis conducted by Menon in 2022, the maximum market share for Norway in 2050 was estimated at 13%. In this year’s analysis, it has been adjusted down to 11%, as Norway has lost some of its lead.”

“The report shows that the political choices we make now will be crucial to achieving the full potential for employment in offshore wind,” said Arvid Nesse, head of Norwegian Offshore Wind. “A major commitment to offshore wind is a long-term investment for Norway, but the analysis supports the need for predictable policies going forward.”

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Photo by Harris & Ewing courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.

Speaking of political choices: This photograph by Harris & Ewing from Election Day on November 8, 1938, shows members of the District of Columbia League of Women Voters next to voteless ballot boxes in downtown Washington, D.C, draped in black in order to “impress upon Washingtonians what they were missing,” says the Library of Congress citation. Mrs.. Karl Bradford, Mrs. R. Shull and Mrs. Henry Chalmers (l. to r.) handed out information on what it meant to the citizens of Washington not to be able to vote.

It would not be until March 29, 1961 that the 23rd Amendment was ratified by Congress, extending the right to vote in presidential elections to citizens residing in the District of Columbia and granting the district electors in the Electoral College as though it were a state, though the district can never have more electors than the least populated state. According to the Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute, the Washington, D.C., Voting Rights Amendment, proposed in 1978 but ultimately falling short of ratification in 1985, aimed to provide the District with full representation in the U.S. Congress in addition to participation in the Electoral College. It did not advocate for statehood, a more recent issue last broached in 2020 by proposed legislation that never saw a vote in the Senate.