Raphael Stevens

DSW is trying out a new store look and layout at a location opening this weekend in Houston, in an attempt to focus customers’ attention on key brands.
The chain is piloting the format as consumers move back toward shopping in stores after two-plus years of pandemic lockdowns and restrictions.

DSW debuts a new smaller store.
Source: DSW

DSW is trying out a new store look and layout at a location opening this weekend in Houston, in an attempt to focus customers’ attention on key brands.
It will feature shops-in-shops for national brands like Adidas, Brooks, Birkenstocks and Crocs, as well as Vince Camuto and Crown Vintage. Designer Brands, DSW’s parent company, calls the concept “Warehouse Reimagined.”

At the company’s investor day last month, Designer Brands CEO Roger Rawlins laid out a goal of doubling the sales of the brands it owns while maintaining sales of national brands. “In order for us to accomplish both of those goals, the physical experience we create for our consumer as well as for those national brands, it has to evolve” Rawlins said later in a Zoom interview with CNBC.
DSW is testing out its new format as consumers move back toward shopping in stores after two-plus years of pandemic lockdowns and restrictions. Total U.S. retail sales, excluding autos, grew 7.2% from the prior year, Mastercard SpendingPulse said in a report issued Thursday. E-commerce transactions dropped 1.8%, while in-store sales increased 10%.
“They have to create excitement, and a ‘wow’, to get people off the couch and into the store, that requires more creativity” Dana Telsey, CEO of consumer products consultancy Telsey Advisory Group, told CNBC in a phone interview.
Much of the new layout has been informed by online shopping behavior, according to Rawlins. He said nearly 90% of DSW shoppers visit the website before heading to the store.
“These national brands are so relevant to the consumer, they search their name before they search DSW,” he said.

DSW new pilot store opening in Houston, TX this weekend. “Warehouse Reimagined” will feature shop-in-shops for some key brands like Hush Puppies.
Source: DSW

Deutsche Bank analyst Gabriella Carbone told CNBC over email that the new DSW store format “could be impactful over the long-term.” She said the real linchpin, though, is for the chain to “showcase national brands in a more prominent way with curated shop-in-shops, which should help Designer Brands Inc. continue to build its vendor relationships.”
The DSW “Warehouse Reimagined” store will have an open-sell format, where sizes are available for customers to grab themselves without help from associates. For shoppers that aren’t interested in help from employees at all, self-checkout will be an option. QR codes will be integrated to allow consumers to access more information on their phones while in-store, rather than just the current brand and price displays.
While the new format is smaller – at around 15,000 square feet rather than the typical 25,000 square feet – Rawlins said he’s committed to offering consumers the same level of inventory, striving to remain in-stock for all sizes. The smaller square footage helps to lower fixed costs, while the new design also allows for selling the same amount of inventory, he added.
Rawlins isn’t publicly disclosing financial goals for the “Warehouse Reimagined” strategy. But, to gauge its success, industry observers like Telsey will want to know whether there is any resulting sales lift, and how sales compare to the non-remodeled stores, among other metrics.

DSW new pilot store opening in Houston, TX this weekend. “Warehouse Reimagined” will feature shop-in-shops for some key brands like the retailer’s own Crown Vintage and Mix No. 6.
Source: DSW

While in a different subsector of retail, Target calls out material sales improvements in the hundreds of stores it’s remodeled since 2017. At Target’s 2022 investor day in March, Chief operating officer John Mulligan said traffic gains help drive an average two to four percent average sales lift in the first year following a remodel and another one to two percent lift in the second year.
DSW will be looking to the pilot program for some lessons. Rawlins said roughly one in five DSW stores come up for lease renewal each year. Designer Brand will potentially look at deploying what’s working to stores as leases expire. It has about 700 stores.
One major national brand DSW is going without? Nike. The athletic kingpin ended its wholesale partnership with the retailer this year as part of its to increase its own direct-to-consumer business.
“Losing Nike is a big deal,” Telsey said. “It’s a challenge to replace Nike, you have to be able to reinvent yourself in order to do that. I think that’s what [DSW is] trying to do.”

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

Under Armour reported an unexpected loss and sales below estimates as the company grappled with global supply chain challenges and Covid lockdowns in China.
The athletic apparel retailer’s stock fell as it also issued profit guidance that came in below Wall Street estimates.
Also on Friday, rival Adidas said that its growth in 2022 will come in on the low end of a forecasted range due to a “severe impact” from coronavirus-related lockdowns in China.

The interior of an Under Armour store is seen on November 03, 2021 in Houston, Texas.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images

Under Armour sees a tough year ahead, roiled by global supply chain challenges and another round of Covid lockdowns in China that are putting a dent in demand.
The sneaker and apparel maker on Friday issued a disappointing outlook for its fiscal year 2023, after reporting an unexpected loss for the three months ended March 31 and sales that came in below Wall Street estimates.

The news sent investors fleeing, with Under Armour shares tumbling nearly 18% in premarket trading.
Also on Friday, rival Adidas said that its growth in 2022 will come in on the low end of a forecasted range due to a “severe impact” from coronavirus-related lockdowns in China. Adidas now sees its sales in the Greater China region falling significantly this year.
Under Armour Chief Executive Officer Patrik Frisk called the headwinds temporary and said that the underlying demand for the brand remains strong, however. The retailer is staying disciplined to make sure it doesn’t order too much inventory, Frisk told analysts. The risk is that Under Armour could later be forced to discount excess goods that don’t sell, which weighs on its profitability.
Here’s how Under Armour did in the three-month period ended March 31, compared with what Wall Street was anticipating, based on a Refinitiv survey of analysts:

Loss per share: 1 cent adjusted vs. earnings of 6 cents expected
Revenue: $1.3 billion vs. $1.32 billion expected

Under Armour reported a net loss for the quarter of $59.6 million, or 13 cents per share, compared with net income of $77.8 million, or 17 cents a share, a year earlier.

Excluding one-time items, it lost a penny per share. Analysts had been looking for adjusted earnings per share of 6 cents.
Chief Financial Officer David Bergman said profit margins were pressured by elevated freight costs, particularly those of ocean freight, which came in higher than the company had expected. Under Armour also used more air freight to fetch goods from overseas, he said.
Sales grew to $1.3 billion from $1.26 billion a year earlier. That missed estimates for $1.32 billion.
In North America, sales grew 4%, to $841 million. Its international business, however, grew just 1%, to $456 million, dragged down by a 14% drop in the Asia-Pacific region, which includes China.
Not only is China a growing market for Under Armour to try to win new customers, it’s also a major manufacturing hub for much of the athletic apparel industry. A number of international corporations, including Apple and Estee Lauder, have warned in recent days that a drag from China’s Covid controls will hit their businesses.
In the 12 months ended Dec. 31, Under Armour produced roughly 67% of its apparel and accessories in China, Vietnam, Jordan, Malaysia and Cambodia. And substantially all of its footwear was made in China, Vietnam and Indonesia, an annual filing shows.
In the first quarter of the fiscal year 2023, which runs from April 1 through March 31 of next year, Under Armour sees sales flat to down slightly from the prior-year period.
Bergman said the first half of the year will be the most heavily hurt by order cancellations and supply chain delays. Under Armour is also anticipating Covid-19 impacts in China will lessen as the year drags on, he said.
For the entire year, Under Armour is projecting to earn between 63 cents and 68 cents per share on an adjusted basis, which is below analysts’ expectations for 86 cents.
It sees sales growing 5% to 7% from the prior year. Analysts were looking for a 5.4% increase.
Under Armour said the outlook takes into account three percentage points of headwinds due to its decision to cancel some orders to vendors due to capacity issues and supply chain delays.
CEO Frisk said that the brand should return to delivering “sustainable, profitable returns” as global supply chain challenges and coronavirus-related complications in China normalize.
He also teased future projects to drum up demand, include a resale platform and a loyalty program that Under Armour plans to trial in North America by the end of 2022.
Find the full financial release from Under Armour here.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

Best Buy is expanding into merchandise categories such as beauty gadgets and outdoor furniture, as it looks for ways to drive growth beyond the Covid pandemic.
The retailer announced it has begun to carry dozens of skin-care devices, including a facial steamer and a tool for at-home microdermabrasion, at nearly 300 stores and on its website.
Chief Merchandising Officer Jason Bonfig said the company has taken cues from customer and employee feedback — and clicks and searches on its website.

Best Buy acquired Yardbird, a direct-to-consumer outdoor furniture company last year. Now, it’s carrying wicker chairs and more at some stores in Southern California.

Electric bikes. Patio furniture. Beauty gadgets.
Best Buy is adding merchandise that might surprise shoppers who typically think of its stores and website as a place to buy smartphones, laptops and TVs.

The company said Friday it has begun to carry about 100 skin-care devices, including a facial steamer and at-home tool for microdermabrasion, at nearly 300 stores and on its website.
Best Buy is making a broader push into categories such as fitness and furniture as it looks to propel growth beyond the Covid pandemic. The company benefited from early pandemic trends, as people sought computer monitors for home offices, kitchen appliances for more at-home cooking and theater systems or giant TVs to pass the time.
Now, however, the retailer faces a more challenging landscape. It cautioned in March that it expects a same-store sales decline of between 1% and 4% in the coming year after a period of very high demand.
There are already signs of softening electronics sales, as consumers direct dollars toward vacations and social events. Major appliance maker Whirlpool missed on estimates and saw sales drop 8.3% in North America in the most recent quarter versus the year-ago period, the sharpest decline since the pandemic began. Microsoft, which produces Xbox video game consoles, gave a negative outlook for the coming quarter with projected declines in the gaming category.
The NPD Group, a market researcher, projected that revenue from consumer electronics in the U.S. will fall by 5% in 2022, 4% in 2023 and 1% in 2024 — but said total sales will remain higher than pre-pandemic levels. The declines follow a record-setting year for the industry in the U.S. with consumer tech sales hitting almost $127 billion, a 9% jump over the elevated sales in 2020, NPD Group said.

Read more: Surging prices force consumers to ask: Can I live without it?
Some of the new items cater to consumers’ going out and getting social again — such as electric scooters, according to Best Buy’s chief merchandising officer, Jason Bonfig.
The retailer has expanded its merchandise offering in recent years. Best Buy debuted connected fitness products from exercise brands including NordicTrack and Hydrow in summer 2019. It rolled out outdoor grills from Weber and Traeger in June and a line of electric bikes, scooters and mopeds in August. It acquired Yardbird, a direct-to-consumer outdoor furniture company, for an undisclosed sum in November.
Best Buy has also bought health-care companies, including GreatCall, which sell devices and services that help older adults age in their own homes. It is testing services related to new products, too, such as a pilot program to offer repair services for e-transportation products.
Bonfig said in an interview with CNBC that the company has taken cues from customer and employee feedback — and clicks and searches on its website. For instance, he said, some shoppers would ask employees about outdoor furniture when buying a TV or audio equipment for the backyard.
“Our answer in the past has been ‘No, we actually don’t have an assortment of that,'” he said.
Now, with Yardbird, it does. This month, Best Buy added displays at one of its namesake stores and a handful of locations under the Best Buy subsidiary, Pacific Sales Kitchen & Home in Southern California. Customers can also buy outdoor sofas, wicker chairs and more on Best Buy’s website.
This year, the retailer plans to add Yardbird and e-transportation displays to about 90 stores, nearly 10% of its approximately 1,000 U.S. store footprint. More than 250 of its stores currently have fitness equipment and Best Buy plans to add a larger, more premium experience for those products in about 90 stores.
Best Buy does not break out revenue by merchandise category, but emerging areas have been a powerful driver of sales, the company has said. At an investor day in March, Bonfig said most of Best Buy’s over $12 billion in sales growth in the past decade has come from large established products like computing, TV and appliance, but one-third has come from newer groups such as wearables and virtual reality headsets.
Bonfig declined to tell CNBC specific growth numbers, but said the younger categories are resonating. And he said one of the skin-care devices it started to offer, the TheraFace Pro, has been a “breakout hit.” It sells for about $400, with features for cleansing and infrared light therapy. He said the products cater to consumers’ interest in health and wellness.
Michael Baker, an equity research analyst for retail at D.A. Davidson, said adding merchandise groups fits with the company’s history. With the moves, he said Best Buy can stay on the leading edge, expand its total addressable market and capture a larger share of consumers’ disposable income.
His price target for the company is $135, about 46% above where shares are currently trading.
The biggest risk, he said, is Best Buy could buy the merchandise only to see it linger and wind up marked down.
Baker said moderating sales may free up time and allow Best Buy to get creative in how it merchandises and promotes different kinds of items.
“There was such a focus on being able to fulfill demand for work from home, learn from home, play from home type products,” he said. “With those slowing, it gives them a chance to see where they can go from here.”

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

Unilever says the industry standard for freezer temperatures in many markets stands at minus 18 degrees Celsius.
The temperature of freezers in its trials will be minus 12 degrees Celsius, the company says.
Unilever will assess both energy use and the “product performance” of its ice cream at the new temperature.

According to Unilever, the industry standard for freezer temperatures in many markets stands at minus 18 degrees Celsius (around 0 degrees Fahrenheit). The temperature of freezers in the trials will be minus 12 degrees Celsius.
Chris Ratcliffe | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Unilever — which owns brands including Ben & Jerry’s, Magnum and Wall’s — is set to trial increasing the temperature of its ice cream freezers in a bid to lower energy use.
The consumer goods giant said the move could cut greenhouse gas emissions by around 20% to 30% a unit. Its two pilots, one in Germany and one in Indonesia, are due to take place this month and next year respectively.

According to the firm, the industry standard for freezer temperatures in many markets stands at minus 18 degrees Celsius (around 0 degrees Fahrenheit). The temperature of freezers in the trials will be minus 12 degrees Celsius.
Unilever said it will assess both energy use and the “product performance” of its ice cream at the new temperature. “Following the completion of the first two pilots and if successful, Unilever will work to ‘warm up’ its last mile freezer cabinets in a phased approach,” it said.
Emissions from what it calls “retail ice cream freezers” represent 10% of the company’s value chain greenhouse gas footprint, it said.

Read more about clean energy from CNBC Pro

By 2039, Unilever wants net zero emissions across its value chain. In 2021 it says total scope 1 emissions, relating to its own operations, and scope 2 emissions — which also include the purchase of electricity and thermal energy — came to 710,740 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.
Scope 3 emissions — which refer to indirect greenhouse gas emissions across its whole value chain — were 61,007,131 metric tons of CO2 equivalent in 2021.

The bigger picture
As the 2020s progress, corporations around the world are attempting to burnish their sustainability credentials by announcing net-zero goals and plans to reduce the environmental footprint of their operations.
While there is a significant degree of skepticism about many of the sustainability-related claims businesses make — concrete details are often hard to come by and the dates for achieving these targets are sometimes decades away — the fact they are making them at all is instructive, and points to a certain amount of pressure on corporations from some investors. 
During a panel discussion chaired by CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick earlier this year, Judy Kuszewski, chief executive of sustainability consultancy Sancroft International, spoke to the above point.
“One of the most exciting and most, perhaps, unexpected developments that we’ve seen in the last couple of years or so is that climate change is actually a topic that investors are looking carefully at right now,” she said.
They are “really asking questions about the company’s strategy and their future fitness to … deal with the inevitable changes that are ahead of us,” she added. More

Spirit Airlines rebuffed JetBlue’s offer and said it was sticking with its deal to combine with Frontier.
JetBlue executives argued the Spirit acquisition would have helped speed up its growth.
The airline has a host of issues to resolve in-house.

A JetBlue airliner lands past a Spirit Airlines jet on taxi way at Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport on Monday, April 25, 2022. (Joe Cavaretta/Sun Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Joe Cavaretta | Sun Sentinel | Getty Images

JetBlue Airways is at a quarter-century crossroads.
The airline’s first flight took off from New York City for Fort Lauderdale in February 2000. Twenty-two years later, JetBlue executives again set their sights on South Florida with a surprise bid for Spirit Airlines. That first flight was a success, the bid was not.

Spirit on Monday rejected JetBlue’s $3.6 billion all-cash offer and said it was sticking with a deal to merge with fellow ultra-low-cost carrier Frontier Airlines, an agreement struck in February valued at $2.9 billion. Spirit’s stock fell more than 9% Monday after it announced it was turning down the JetBlue offer in favor of the Frontier deal, while JetBlue’s rose slightly while JetBlue’s rose more than 2%.
Miramar, Florida-based Spirit cited regulatory concerns in turning down the offer, saying it doubted a JetBlue acquisition would get approved, in part because of JetBlue’s Northeast partnership with American Airlines, which the Justice Department sued to block last year. The DOJ argued in its suit that it would drive up fares and hurt competition, specifically mentioning the importance of smaller carriers like JetBlue.
JetBlue said it would divest Spirit assets in New York, Boston and some in Florida under a revised offer. The discount carrier still said no. Spirit CEO Ted Christie said during the airline’s first-quarter call Thursday that he has “wondered whether blocking our deal with Frontier is, in fact, their goal.”
Spirit’s rejection leaves JetBlue Airways at a turning point. Nearly 24 years after it was incorporated, JetBlue has grown from a quirky leisure airline based in New York City with one class of service into the sixth largest airline in the U.S. with more than 100 destinations from Los Angeles to Lima, Peru.
Throughout its more than two decades of service, JetBlue stood out among its peers, advertising low fares and passenger amenities like seatback screens, satellite television and later, free Wi-Fi. It even has more legroom than competitors. Its latest venture – service to London – aims to capture rivals’ high-paying passengers with its Mint business-class suites.

JetBlue shares are down more than 43% over the last 12 months, as of Thursday’s close, underperforming a 29% drop in the NYSE Arca Airline Index, which tracks 18 mostly U.S.-based carriers. Over the same period, the S&P 500 is off 1.3%.

Loading chart…

That, combined with the rejection from Spirit’s board, is adding pressure on Robin Hayes, JetBlue’s third-ever CEO, and his management team to simultaneously grow the airline and ensure reliability in the process.
JetBlue in February ranked last among U.S. carriers for punctuality, with a nearly 62% on-time arrivals rate compared with a 17-airline average of almost 77%, according to the Department of Transportation.
In April, it faced a host of other operational trouble as thunderstorms swept through Florida, impacting operations of Spirit, Southwest Airlines, American Airlines and others.
“I think they can fix themselves. They need leadership who is really able to manage a much bigger and much more complex airline,” said Mark Ahasic, an aviation consultant who worked at JetBlue from 2000 to 2006, including as director of operational planning and manager of corporate planning. “It’s not the entrepreneurial startup JetBlue anymore. It’s an evolved carrier.”
JetBlue executives argued the Spirit acquisition would have helped speed up its growth, giving it access to Spirit’s fleet of more than 170 Airbus planes as well as more than 2,000 pilots at a time when pilot shortages and attrition are hindering expansion.
JetBlue has a host of internal issues to resolve, such as improving reliability and its relationship with crews, who have complained about grueling schedules coming out of the pandemic, something staff at other carriers like Southwest and American have also reported. JetBlue has already taken steps to reduce its schedule by about 10% this summer so it has more wiggle room for disruptions.
Wiggle room it hasn’t always offered its top boss.
A meltdown in February 2007 stranded thousands of customers and cost JetBlue’s founder David Neeleman his position as CEO then. (Neeleman now runs upstart carrier Breeze Airways.) JPMorgan airline analyst Jamie Baker noted the precedent in light of JetBlue’s operational problems during an April 26 earnings call, the week before Spirit rejected JetBlue’s offer.
“The constitution of JetBlue’s Board is different today, but it’s worth noting there’s precedent for senior leaders being let go when operations have suffered,” Baker said.

JetBlue and other airlines have had to navigate bad weather in travel hotspot Florida. The Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday it will “immediately” add staff to a main air traffic control center for the state after a meeting with airlines, during which carriers said they would continue to fly service to Florida above 2019 levels.
“We can’t control the weather, but we can try and control everything enough, and that’s what we’re laying out to do,” Hayes said on the April earnings call. “But the No. 1 priority from that for me, for the leadership team, for the Board right now is restoring our operational performance because that is the path to margin recovery.”
JetBlue says it will continue to work on its operation and toward regaining profitability. For now, it says it still wants to acquire Spirit.
“While we would unquestionably prefer to negotiate a transaction with you, if you continue to refuse to constructively engage with us so that we can deliver this value to your stockholders, we are actively considering all other options available to us,” Hayes wrote to Spirit Chairman H. McIntyre Gardner and CEO Ted Christie in an April 29 letter.
A JetBlue spokesman declined to elaborate, but a tussle for Spirit Airlines through a proxy battle or tender offer could be costly.
JetBlue’s bid for Spirit isn’t its first attempt at an acquisition. It lost out to Alaska Airlines in 2016 when that airline, another mid-size carrier like JetBlue, acquired Virgin America.
JetBlue hasn’t indicated that it is open to acquiring or combining with a different carrier than Spirit. Alaska’s CEO Ben Minicucci told CNBC in March that he wants his airline to grow organically and that a combination isn’t on the table currently. An Alaska spokeswoman told CNBC Tuesday that Minicucci’s strategy stands.
“A lot of times companies will do acquisitions to avoid having to fix their own house,” said Emilie Feldman, a management professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “Sometimes it’s better to let the acquisition go and fix your own business.
Ahasic added JetBlue has “more fundamental fish to fry.”

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

Sustainable Energy

Sustainable Energy
TV Shows

Orsted plans to test growing corals on the foundations of offshore wind turbines.
The proof-of-concept trials in June 2022 will involve a bid to settle larvae and then grow corals at the Greater Changhua 1 Offshore Wind Farm.
The wind farm is located in waters 35 to 60 kilometers off Taiwan’s coast.

Alongside their natural beauty, coral reefs have an important role to play in the natural world. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, around one quarter of the ocean’s fish rely on healthy coral reefs.
Reinhard Dirscherl | Ullstein Bild | Getty Images

Danish energy firm Orsted plans to try growing corals on the foundations of offshore wind turbines to find out if the method can be carried out on a larger scale.
In hand with Taiwanese partners, the concept will be trialed in “the tropical waters of Taiwan.” This week’s news represents the latest step forward in the company’s ReCoral initiative, which it started working on back in 2018.

Last year, those involved with ReCoral were able to grow juvenile corals at a quayside site. These were grown on what Orsted said were “underwater steel and concrete substrates.”
The proof-of-concept trials in June 2022 will involve a bid to settle larvae and then grow corals at the Greater Changhua 1 Offshore Wind Farm, a major facility in waters 35 to 60 kilometers (22 to 37 miles) off Taiwan’s coast. The project will use areas measuring 1 meter squared on four foundations.
In a statement Wednesday, Orsted said the goals of the project are to “determine whether corals can be successfully grown on offshore wind turbine foundations and to evaluate the potential positive biodiversity impact of scaling up the initiative.”

Read more about clean energy from CNBC Pro

Alongside their vivid beauty, coral reefs have an important role to play in the natural world.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, around one quarter of the ocean’s fish rely on healthy coral reefs. “Fishes and other organisms shelter, find food, reproduce, and rear their young in the many nooks and crannies formed by corals,” the U.S. agency says.

As well as being a source for food and what it calls “new medicines,” NOAA says coral reefs offer protection to coastlines from erosion and storms as well as providing local communities with jobs.
Despite their significance, the planet’s coral reef fast threats including coral bleaching. In March, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, which manages the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, confirmed a fourth mass bleaching event since 2016.
According to a 2017 factsheet from the GBRMPA, bleaching is what happens when corals are placed under stress, get rid of very small photosynthetic algae — known as zooxanthellae — and start to starve.
“As zooxanthellae leave the corals, the corals become paler and increasingly transparent,” it says.
The authority’s factsheet cites the most common reason for bleaching as being “sustained heat stress, which is occurring more frequently as our climate changes and oceans become warmer.”
While corals can recover from bleaching if conditions change, they can die if things don’t improve.

More from CNBC Climate:

For its part, Orsted says water temperatures at wind farms located further away from shore can provide more stability, with “extreme temperature increases” prevented by what it describes as “vertical mixing in the water column.”
The overarching idea of the ReCoral project is that this stability in water temperature will restrict the chance of coral bleaching, enabling the healthy growth of corals on turbine foundations.
Whether offshore or onshore, wind turbines’ interaction with the natural world — including marine or bird life — is likely to be an area of major debate and discussion going forward.
In April, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that a firm called ESI Energy Inc had “pled guilty to three counts of violating the MBTA,” or Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
More broadly, the U.S. Energy Information Administration has said that some wind projects and turbines can lead to the deaths of bats and birds.
“These deaths may contribute to declines in the population of species also affected by other human-related impacts,” it says. More

SMALL BUSINESS PLAYBOOK 2022
Event Videos

Stacey Abrams isn’t only a Georgia governor candidate and Democratic Party leader, but co-founder of Now, a firm that helps small businesses with invoice financing.
Abrams, who made clear she is a “capitalist” while speaking to entrepreneurs at CNBC’s Small Business Playbook, says it should not be viewed as automatic that companies facing the pressure to speak out on politics do so.
“Performative values means nothing to me,” Abrams said.

Stacey Abrams, Democratic gubernatorial candidate for Georgia, speaks during a ‘One Georgia Tour’ campaign event in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., on Monday, March 14, 2022.
Elijah Nouvelage | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Companies are under intense pressure to speak out on a variety of political issues at local, state and national levels. Whether it is police action in a city, Disney in Florida, or the likely wave of calls for more business response to the bombshell leak related to overturning the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case, the current era is one in which business leaders are expected to take a stand, or face potentially worse repercussions for remaining silent.
There may be no more influential voice in the Democratic Party — no less from a state that has featured prominently in big political-corporate fault lines — than Stacey Abrams, current candidate in the Georgia governor race. But Abrams says that assuming companies should speak out on every political issue is a mistake.

“Performative value means nothing to me,” Abrams said on Thursday at CNBC’s Small Business Playbook virtual event. “It shouldn’t be performing values because you think that’s what people want to see from you.”
Abrams is a small business owner, and at the CNBC event, she made clear that she is a “capitalist.”
“We should want to make money,” she said.
But it is important to remember, Abrams added, especially for small businesses, “that we enter the world as citizens, we don’t divorce ourselves from who we are when we open the doors.”
This means also accepting that customers come with their full selves when they come through the doors and any decision to speak out on politics is a decision to show your full self to those customers.

“We should be really selective about the way we are willing to impose our belief systems,” Abrams said. “But some things are so fundamental about who we are, we have too,” she added.
For the 1.1 million small business owners in her home state of Georgia, she said making choices about where to take a stand on political issues implies being willing to lose business, even if another form of value is gained.
During every major movement in this country’s history, from civil rights to women’s rights to LGBTQ rights, businesses have had to stand up. But the answer should not always be a reflective “yes,” and it shouldn’t be based on an accounting of only dollars and cents.
“The decision should be because you can’t meet your own moral compass, can’t be respectful of your own moral core,” Abrams said.
Her co-founder, Lara Hodgson — who is more conservative politically and with whom Abrams co-authored the recent book “Level Up” — said some businesses are created with purpose as part of their DNA. Their latest venture together, Now, which provides invoice payment solutions to small business owners for a fee, serves a diverse set of clients, employees and investors. And Hodgson and Abrams have to make sure they are true to what the business is built on, and that is to help small business owners facing cash flow difficulties.
When a business pivots — as theirs did after a failed effort to create the next “global beverage giant” under the brand Nourish, as Hodgson described their effort to create a better lineup of children’s spill-proof drinks — it is important to remember that a pivot represents not a total change of direction, but a fundamental position from which a new opportunity is being sought. For Abrams and Hodgson, that pivot DNA may include certain beliefs, but from a market opportunity perspective, it led to the problem of small business financing. “Don’t use the business to go out and talk about other things,” Hodgson said. “We are very laser focused on leveling the playing field for small business.”
The two often have disagreements, and they have different strengths and weaknesses. Abrams, who ran one of the most successful voter registration drives in modern history and was credited with delivering key Georgia races to the Democratic Party, says she is great with numbers that many entrepreneurs (and legislators) don’t understand.
“We’re very different, we’re not best friends,” Abrams said. “This gives us space to be incredibly honest, and not be in each others’ lives every minute of the day. If you’re waking up and working and going to bed talking to the same person, it will cloud your mind and create an echo chamber.” 
Hodgson said when they do disagree, they approach the topic with curiosity first and criticality second.
“When one of us shares a point of view, rather than jumping to judgment, we ask ourselves what can we be curious about, what can we learn from,” she said.
And amid differences of opinion, sharing a firm of idea of impact and outcome will outweigh any particular points of friction. “99.9% of the goal, we agree on the outcome, and how we would go about getting there is very different, but as long as the focus is the outcome and the impact, the different approaches are incredibly positive,” Hodgson said. More