Roughly two years after its inception, the Alberta Petrochemicals
Incentive Program has received grant applications for projects valued at
around C$28 billion. Site Selection’s Gary Daughters spoke to corporate
and government leaders about how some of them are progressing.
Vertical indoor farming in Saudi Arabia; semiconductors in France;
Samsung Biologics’ second Bio Campus in Songdo, South Korea; Safran in
India; Volvo in Slovakia; Baosteel in Cambodia; UNCTAD trade update.
Sokol Blosser Winery is among the hundreds of Certified B Corporations in
Oregon.
Image courtesy of Sokol Blosser
Among all the new yardsticks for companies trying to prove they’re doing
good in the world as well as doing business, Certified B Corporations
(or B Corps) have found traction in the virtue marketplace, primarily
because they adhere to a legal framework that allows stakeholders across
the spectrum to be prioritized over shareholders alone. B Corps (think
Patagonia) are certified by the nonprofit B Lab to meet rigorous
standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and
transparency. The “B” stands for “benefit.” “B Corp certification is to
business what Fair Trade certification is to coffee or USDA Organic
certification is to milk,” the organization explains.
“Over the course of 2020-2021, 6,000 applications for certification came
in from around the globe, and 50,000 new companies registered to use the
B Impact Assessment to understand how they measure up to high
environmental and social standards — a nearly 40% increase over the
previous two years,” says a letter in B Lab’s 2021 annual report from founders Andrew
Kassoy and Bart Houlahan. They anticipate over half a million companies
will be using the B impact assessment within five years. Today there are
more than 5,000 B Corps across 80 countries and 155 industries. So the
natural question for us at Site Selection is: Where are they
headquartered?
I found and downloaded the entire list of “Known Benefit Corporations”
from B Lab and sorted by state where incorporated. Here are the top 10
states and their numbers:
State
No. of Incorporated B Corps
Oregon
1,284
Delaware
1,004
Nevada
959
Colorado
516
New York
455
California
267
Maryland
113
Connecticut
72
Pennsylvania
71
Massachusetts
62
For nearly 1,570 of the companies, the list includes a separate column
denoting operating state/province. Below are the top territories in that
category. For the record, B Lab itself is based in Berwyn, Pennsylvania.
— Adam Bruns
The state’s manufacturing assets are broadly dispersed, deeply
experienced and tremendously varied, from Argonne National Lab to the
Rock Island Arsenal.
The City of St. Petersburg, Florida, is releasing an RFP for the
development of the Historic Gas Plant District site, currently home to
Tropicana Field. The RFP for the 86-acre site calls for additional
emphasis on equitable redevelopment, a 17.3-acre carve out for a
baseball stadium, specific requirements for affordable and workforce
housing and new details that respond to current economic and societal
conditions and community sentiment. The RFP can be found here: www.stpete.org/Residents/Current%20Projects/docs/HGPD-CC.pdf.
PROJECT WATCH
Bangladesh
Majority-owned by Turkey’s Arcelik conglomerate (part of Koç Group),
Singer Bangladesh this week has launched construction of a $78 million
manufacturing complex at the Bangladesh Special Economic Zone (formerly
called the Japan Economic Zone, according to one published report) in
Araihazar, Narayanganj. The plant will manufacture a variety of home
appliances, from TVs to refrigerators. According to a Daily Star report
from a press briefing in Dhaka, the plant will aim for LEED-Gold
certification, and exporting would be considered after satisfying
domestic demand. The operation is expected to start production next
year.
As reported by the Taipei Times and other news organizations, this
semiconductor equipment component manufacturing arm of Foxconn has begun
production at a new fab in Miaoli County’s Jhunan Township (sometimes
spelled Zhunan). Among the company’s customers is equipment maker
Applied Materials, which in April invested more than $58 million in the
company. According to Bloomberg, Foxsemicon Integrated Technology Inc
develops, designs, manufactures and sells semiconductor equipment and
system assemblies including thin film transistors (TFT), liquid crystal
displays (LCDs) and semiconductor wafers.
UNCTAD’s Creative Economy Outlook
2022, launched last week at the Third World Congress
on Creative Economy in Bali, Indonesia, finds that global
exports of creative goods increased from $419 million in
2010 to $524 million in 2020, while world exports of
creative services increased from $487 billion to almost $1.1
trillion during the same period. “Developing economies
export more creative goods than developed ones,” the
organization stated. “In 2020, China was by far the largest
exporter of creative goods ($169 billion), followed by the
United States ($32 billion), Italy ($27 billion), Germany
($26 billion) and Hong Kong (China) ($24 billion).”
Already known for its industry/university partnerships, scientific
institutes and expanding Technology Campus, the 148-acre Potsdam Science
Park in Germany is welcoming a new facility investment from DiGOS, a
satellite tracking technology company founded by a Potsdam University
graduate who says he wanted to do more with his IT degree than make
apps. Founded in 2014, the company employs 425 people today, and plans
to house around 60 when it moves into a new HQ at the parks’ Technology
Campus by 2026. As for tracking down the science park, Managing Director
André Kloth says, “The connections to Berlin and the surrounding area
are fantastic. We have the University of Potsdam on site with the
institutes for astronomy, physics, computer science and geosciences. So
it is of course a great advantage for us to use the academic potential
for joint projects or the promotion of young scientists.” As of last
winter, university enrollment was more than 21,400 students, including
more than 5,000 in science programs and more than 3,100 international
students from 121 countries.
