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“We need to accelerate and do it much faster, particularly on the renewables side,” Miguel Stilwell de Andrade told CNBC Friday.
The EDP CEO’s comments come at a time when tensions between Russia and Ukraine have pushed discussions about energy independence to the forefront of many people’s minds.
On Friday, the company reported a net profit of 657 million euros ($746.1 million) for 2021, a year-on-year drop of 18%.

A wind turbine in an energy park operated by EDP’s renewables unit, EDP Renovaveis, in Maunca, Portugal, on June 18, 2018.
Daniel Rodrigues | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The CEO of Portuguese utility EDP has linked the rapid adoption of renewables to Europe’s energy independence, telling CNBC that investment in the sector needed to be “much faster.”
“These are [indigenous] … resources — wind, solar — that we have in Europe,” Miguel Stilwell de Andrade, who was speaking to “Squawk Box Europe” on Friday morning, said. “So we would become less dependent on external sources of energy, whether it’s gas or coal.”

“I think the answer is, actually, we need to accelerate and do it much faster, particularly on the renewables side,” he added.  
The executive’s comments come at a time when tensions between Russia and Ukraine have pushed discussions about energy independence to the forefront of many people’s minds.
Russia was the biggest supplier of both petroleum oils and natural gas to the European Union last year, according to Eurostat.

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By 2030 the EU, of which Portugal is a member, wants to cut net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55%. In terms of renewable sources in its energy mix, a proposal has been made to increase the current target of at least 32% by 2030 to at least 40%.
“To increase EU energy independence, we need to keep investing in renewable energy sources, but we also need to do more to decrease our dependency on fossil fuels,” the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, has said.

“We have ambitious targets in Europe in general, in terms of what we want to do,” de Andrade said, going on to reference the Paris Agreement.
Adopted in 2015, the accord aims to “limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.”
For his part, de Andrade said the trick was to “accelerate that on the ground, translate that into national plans, translate that into concrete projects on the ground.”
“And for that we need, also, much more agile, much faster permitting and licensing for renewable projects,” he said. “We need to make sure that the networks are investing to make those interconnections.”  “And if we can do that, if we can really accelerate that pace we will get cheaper energy [that’s] reliable, and also be more energy independent.”
As a company, EDP wants to be coal free by 2025 and is aiming for 100% of its electricity generation to be based on renewables by 2030.
On Friday, the company reported a net profit of 657 million euros ($746.1 million) for 2021, a year-on-year drop of 18%. EDP said it had been “penalized by non-recurring effects of 169m [euros], including impairments of thermal assets in Iberia.””Excluding these impacts, recurring net profit increased 6% [year-on-year] to 826m [euros], supported by the strong performance in renewables globally, the integration of Viesgo in Spain and the growth of activity of networks in Brazil,” it said. Viesgo is a firm specializing in electricity distribution.
EDP said its performance in 2021 had also been affected by the rise in wholesale market energy prices and hydro resources being lower than average in Iberia. More

Warby Parker debuted on the stock market in September in a direct listing.
Co-founder Dave Gilboa said it is now becoming a “holistic vision care” company, rather than solely a glasses-maker.
Gilboa said the firm could grow faster than the rest of the industry, but it is dwarfed by incumbent EssilorLuxottica, with a market cap of around $87 billion.

A worker dusts a display of Ray-Ban sunglasses, manufactured by EssilorLuxottica, in a store in Barcelona, Spain, on June 30, 2021.
Bloomberg | Getty Images

Eyewear company Warby Parker is at an inflection point in its 12-year history. 
The firm has been credited with being a leader in direct-to-consumer, a model where businesses cut out middlemen to sell via their own stores, and it has arguably been an inspiration to other companies such as luggage-maker Away and sneaker brand Allbirds.

Warby Parker made its name by selling glasses online and undercutting incumbents such as Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica by offering frames with a starting price of $95 — including lenses.
Having debuted on the stock market via a direct listing on Sept. 29, and seeing its stock price soar that day, Warby Parker is now embarking on the next leg of its journey: it is shifting toward selling services as well as glasses, co-founder and CEO Dave Gilboa told CNBC in a phone interview.
“We’re at this kind of interesting transition where historically we’ve been a glasses company and eyeglasses brand and now, we’re transitioning to becoming a holistic vision care company,” Gilboa said. “Where, in addition to buying glasses from us … Now, an increasing number of our customers are also getting their eye exam and prescriptions from us,” he added.
Warby Parker’s customers spent an average of $218 each in 2020, up from $188 in 2018, and it expects growth to come from people who buy progressive — or multifocal — lenses, eye exams and contacts, per a 2021 investor presentation. The company said these “holistic vision customers” have the potential to spend $500 and up a year after their initial purchase, more than double the amount for a glasses-only shopper.

Co-CEOs, Neil Blumenthal & Dave Gilboa of Warby Parker at the NYSE, September 29, 2021.
Source: NYSE

Physical outlets are another opportunity. Currently, Warby Parker has 160 locations in the U.S. and Canada, and Gilboa said it has the potential to increase that number to 900, though he said it will take a while to get there.

A big question, however, is whether it can take on EssilorLuxottica, the $85 billion French-Italian giant created in a 48-billion-euro merger in 2018. Warby Parker’s market cap is currently $3.37 billion, but some analysts think it can compete.
“For sure,” said Oliver Chen, an analyst and managing director at investment bank Cowen, when asked if it has a chance against the European company. “You could argue that Warby Parker is a disrupter, you know in this segment, a very profitable segment, and Warby Parker offers better value [than others],” he told CNBC by phone.
Warby Parker made revenue of $487 million in the 12 months to June 30, 2021, up 33% on the year prior, and while it was profitable on an EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) basis over that period, making $27 million, it posted a net loss of $53.2 million.
EssilorLuxottica’s model is a multi-brand one: it manufacturers its own labels such as Ray-Ban and operates under license for some of the world’s largest luxury players including Chanel, Versace and Ralph Lauren. It produces around 80 million to 90 million pairs a year according to a company spokesperson in an email to CNBC, and it made 5.5 billion euros in revenue in the third quarter of 2021, selling in North America, EMEA and Asia.

The French-Italian company also runs Sunglass Hut and other stores that sell its eyewear, and owns vision insurance companies too, including EyeMed, leading to criticism by some that it is a monopoly. But for Rebecca Harwood-Lincoln, an eyewear industry consultant, operating in different aspects of the market is “a fabulous concept.”
“They very successfully bought out retail outlets, so the likes of Sunglass Hut, Lenscrafters, David Clulow … then they get automatic distribution of their products and they benefit from the margins,” she told CNBC by phone. Last year, the firm bought Dutch eyewear retail GrandVision in an $8.5 billion deal.
While Warby Parker sees growth coming from its domestic market, EssilorLuxottica identifies an aging Asian population and a growing number of people who need glasses — but don’t yet own them — in the likes of China and Latin America, as opportunities. Innovation-wise, the spokesperson said it is focused on Ray-Ban Stories — its smart glasses collaboration with Facebook — and Stellest, a lens that has the potential to slow the progression of short-sightedness in children.
Can Warby Parker compete? “We don’t spend a lot of time thinking about others in the space and, as a direct-to-consumer company, we get a lot of feedback [on] what’s working well,” Gilboa said. “We do expect to grow significantly faster than the overall industry over the years and decades to come … We don’t really think in terms of market share or kind of getting bigger than the others in the category,” he added.
Mark Mahaney, a senior managing director and analyst at Evercore, says while Warby Parker has a “decent” business model (the firm gives it a “hold” rating), gaining market share might not touch EssilorLuxottica. “How about this for fun? [Warby Parker] could triple their market share, and I’m not sure that Essilor would even notice.”

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Indonesia has relied heavily on inactivated virus vaccines produced by China, which studies previously showed were less effective than mRNA shots.
On Wednesday, Indonesia hit a daily record high of more than 64,000 cases — superseding daily infections in the previous wave, which peaked just under 57,000 in July 2021.
Two medical doctors who spoke to CNBC argued that China-produced vaccines — such as the one developed by Sinovac Biotech which Indonesia has relied on most heavily — are still able to prevent severe illness and death.

Indonesian Red Cross officers spray disinfectant at the Pondok Bambu residential area in Jakarta, Indonesia on February 10, 2022. This action as an effort to suppress the omicron variant of the coronavirus.
Eko Siswono Toyudho | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

Indonesia is going through a new wave of Covid infections, with daily cases hitting record highs last week.
The Southeast Asian country has relied heavily on inactivated virus vaccines produced by China, which studies previously showed were less effective than mRNA shots.

Messenger RNA, or mRNA, vaccines use genetic material to trigger the infection-fighting process in the body, while traditional vaccines use a dead or weakened virus to produce an immune response.
On Wednesday, Indonesia hit a daily record high of more than 64,000 cases — superseding daily infections in the previous wave, which peaked just under 57,000 in July 2021.
The country has reported 5.2 million cases of Covid-19 to date and at least 146,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic, according to the health ministry. It has the highest number of cases among Southeast Asian countries, Johns Hopkins data showed.
The latest surge in Indonesia’s Covid cases has put China-made vaccines to the test.
Two medical doctors who spoke to CNBC argued that China-produced vaccines — such as the one developed by Sinovac Biotech which Indonesia has relied on most heavily — are still able to prevent severe illness and death.

If you received two doses or three doses of Sinovac or Sinopharm, those vaccines frankly are doing their job.

assistant professor, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation

“That’s actually, I mean, the first and the main benefit of any kind of vaccine in the world,” said Dr. Dicky Budiman, a global health security researcher at Griffith University in Australia.
Being less effective is not the same as being ineffective, he told CNBC.
“If you received two doses or three doses of Sinovac or Sinopharm, those vaccines frankly are doing their job,” said Vin Gupta, an affiliate assistant professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, an independent global health research center at the University of Washington.
The shots don’t prevent infection, but are keeping people out of hospitals — “exactly what they should be doing,” he told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” last month, adding that the world has had wrong expectations of Covid vaccines.

Omicron threat

As omicron spread in December, researchers from the University of Hong Kong found that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which uses the new mRNA technology, fared slightly better than Sinovac shots against the variant, but noted that both did not provide enough protection.
In that sense, all countries remain vulnerable to high case numbers, said Dr. Edhie Rahmat, who is executive director of Project HOPE Indonesia. Project HOPE, short for Health Opportunities for People Everywhere, is a global health and humanitarian relief organization.
He pointed out that the U.S. has administered mostly mRNA vaccines, which are seen to be more effective — but it’s still vulnerable to omicron. Cases surged in the U.S. in January as the variant swept through the country. Deaths spiked but remained lower than in previous waves.
Many developing countries around the world relied on Chinese-made Covid vaccines which are easier to transport and store compared to those developed by Pfizer or Moderna, which must be kept at subfreezing temperatures.

CNBC Health & Science

Budiman from Griffith University said countries should use any available vaccine that has been approved by the World Health Organization.
“If we wait [for] the messenger RNA, many people … will die during the delta wave,” he said.
He also said he hopes the world won’t see vaccines as “Chinese” or “Western,” but rather as “available tools” that we have and can use now.

Virus situation

Covid cases in Indonesia started rising rapidly in January and continue to climb. The WHO said in a Feb. 15 epidemiological report that infections in the country increased 68% from the week before.
Rahmat of Project HOPE said the increase in cases has come mainly from cities with high population density such as Bandung, Yogyakarta and the capital of Jakarta. However, the virus could spread further in suburban areas soon, he said.
Bed occupancy rates in hospitals are also rising. “This is a worrying situation. If the cases increase sharply in the coming weeks, there will be many people who need hospitalization, and the hospital surge capacity could be reached very soon,” he warned.

The good news, Rahmat said, is that Indonesians are more aware of tracing and testing now, and are taking initiative to get tested when they’re in close contact with confirmed cases.
The country is also better positioned now, given that vaccination rates have risen, he added.
Additionally, both doctors said people who recovered from an earlier strain of the virus may have some immunity, though they cautioned that the level of protection would wane within months.
However, Budiman said public health measures are not strong enough. He said that the testing capacity is not high enough, which means official figures on case numbers likely do not represent the full picture.
Some 50.64% of the population is fully vaccinated, according to Our World in Data. By comparison, neighboring Malaysia has fully vaccinated 78.54% of its population, while that figure is 56% in the Philippines.
Authorities in Indonesia rolled out boosters for the general public in January.

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Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has started a proxy fight with McDonald’s over its treatment of pigs, pushing for two board seats at the global fast food giant.
McDonald’s said Sunday in a release that Icahn has nominated Leslie Samuelrich and Maisie Ganzler for election at the company’s 2022 annual shareholder meeting.
The corporate raider has pushed McDonald’s to require all its U.S. suppliers to move to “crate-free” pork, according to the release.

Carl Icahn speaking at Delivering Alpha in New York on Sept. 13, 2016.
David A. Grogan | CNBC

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has started a proxy fight with McDonald’s over the fast food giant’s treatment of pigs, pushing for two board seats at the global fast food giant.
McDonald’s said Sunday in a release that Icahn has nominated Leslie Samuelrich and Maisie Ganzler for election at the company’s 2022 annual shareholder meeting.

“Mr. Icahn’s stated focus in making this nomination relates to a narrow issue regarding the company’s pork commitment, which the Humane Society U.S. has already introduced through a shareholder proposal,” McDonald’s said.
Icahn, who helped define a new era of capitalism in the 1980s after taking over iconic companies including Trans World Airlines, has pushed McDonald’s for better treatment of pigs in recent years, according to The Wall Street Journal. Specifically, he is said to have called for the end of an industry practice that uses crates to house pregnant pigs so they can’t move.
“Animals are one of the things I feel really emotional about,” Icahn previously told The Journal.
The corporate raider has demanded that McDonald’s require all its U.S. suppliers move to “crate-free” pork, according to the release. The fast food chain uses pork in its bacon cheeseburgers, breakfast offerings and its McRib sandwich.
“While the Company looks forward to promoting further collaboration across the industry on this issue, the current pork supply in the U.S. would make this type of commitment impossible,” McDonald’s said. “Furthermore, it reflects a departure from the veterinary science used for large-scale production throughout the industry, and would harm the Company’s shared pursuit of providing customers with high quality products at accessible prices.”

Icahn owns just 200 shares of McDonald’s stock, according to the release. He is also the majority owner of a company that supplies packaging for the pork and poultry industry, according to McDonald’s, which questioned why Icahn hadn’t called on that company to make similar commitments.
McDonald’s shares closed Friday down slightly at $250.60.

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General Motors had to temporarily drop heated seats as an option on vehicles in response to the chip shortage. But the largest U.S. automaker is not alone. The move is another sign of how automakers are having to respond to a crisis that has been cratering dealer inventory, spiking prices and delaying orders.
While GM does have a proposed remedy in place — a retrofit option will be available for owners later in 2022 — there really is no discernible end of the chip shortage in sight. There has been talk of trying to spur more domestic semiconductor production, but that will take years and billions of dollars to get off the ground.

Watch the video to learn more.

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U.S. speed skater Apolo Ohno competes in the 2010 Winter Olympics at Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, Canada.
Jamie Squire | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images

When Olympic speed skater Apolo Ohno hung up his skates for good in 2010, finding a path forward wasn’t exactly easy for him.
In fact, the eight-time medalist calls the retirement from the sport that made him a household name, “the great divorce.”

“The experience was abrupt; it was fast, it was a bit scary,” Ohno said.
“I had this one identity that I was married to, that had given me so much,” he said. “I needed to divorce from that identity in a way, not to lose everything in terms of those attributes that built all these experiences in my character today, but also to explore new ones.”
Ohno, now 39, is the most decorated U.S. Winter Olympian of all time. His post-Olympic job titles include sports analyst, entrepreneur, speaker and author. He also was ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” champ in 2007.
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These days, Ohno is, among other things, a partner with venture firm Tribe Capital, which invests in early-stage founders and technology companies and has $1.3 billion in assets under management.

His latest book, “Hard Pivot: Embrace Change. Find Purpose. Show Up Fully,” hits bookstores this week. In it, he hopes to impart what he learned since he retired from speed skating, lessons that he believes will be particularly helpful for those in the midst of the Great Reshuffle, also known as the Great Resignation. In the past year, millions of Americans have walked away from their jobs after reevaluating their lives amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The greatest amounts of growth come when we are faced with the harshest challenges,” Ohno said. “Those times come when we need to reinvent, when we need to pivot.”

‘Impostor syndrome’

Despite his earlier successes, Ohno admits to having felt insecure when he tried to find a new place in the world.
He even had moments when he suffered from impostor syndrome, which is when someone doubts their abilities. “There were many instances where my mind talked me out of doing something, or told me that I wasn’t good enough, or reminded me that I didn’t have what it took,” he said.

I was deeply dissatisfied with who I saw in the mirror, because that’s how I was conditioned.

Apolo Ohno
Olympic speed skater

He wanted to be recognized as more than an Olympic athlete, and in the process sought to find himself. That included global travel as a corporate speaker and exploring various business sectors, the latter of which forced him to learn new things.
One key struggle had to do with becoming more adaptable when it came to failure. He may have left the Olympic speed-skating arena behind, but not the mental conditioning that would never allow him to quit.
“We need to learn how to fail fast, and then reinvent and begin again,” he said.
“I didn’t know that early on,” Ohno added. “I just was like, ‘No, I’m just going to muscle through this, I’m going to by sheer willpower make this thing succeed.’ ”

Great Reshuffle advice

Apollo Ohno attends the 7th Annual Gold Meets Golden Event at Virginia Robinson Gardens and Estate on Jan. 4, 2020 in Los Angeles.
Alberto E. Rodriguez | FilmMagic | Getty Images

For those who want to make a career transition, Ohno hopes his experience can be a guide. His first piece of advice? Look within, as he did.
That practice involves dismissing the fear of people’s opinions, or FOPO, as performance psychologist Michael Gervais has called it.
“This transition process starts from having self-acceptance and self-love — which, by the way, full transparency, I really, really struggled with that,” Ohno said.
“I was deeply dissatisfied with who I saw in the mirror, because that’s how I was conditioned.”
Ohno focuses on what he calls five golden principles, which he said helped guide his transition: gratitude, giving — not only to others but giving yourself the best possible chance of success — grit to get through the challenges, gearing up your personal expectations, and go, as in “get into action.”
“Don’t suffer from paralysis by perfectionism,” he said. “Nothing’s ever perfect. It’s never a perfect time.”

Write down what you want to accomplish, step by step, and put the plan into action, he advised.
While Ohno has found a career as an investor and a purpose in helping people, he said he’s still learning every day.
“I am still growing, but I feel like today, I’m laser-focused,” Ohno said. “I view life as a gift, and that’s been a huge, huge change for me.”
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