Raphael Stevens

In this articlePOSHDATA-GBThredUp is an online consignment and thrift store. It has struck partnerships with retailers, including Walmart.ThredUPSecondhand apparel has gained popularity among shoppers and now, some want the government to give it a boost.Nearly half of consumers — 44% — think the government should promote a more sustainable approach to fashion, such as offering tax breaks to brands or shoppers who buy secondhand clothing, according to a new survey of 3,500 adults by consulting firm GlobalData in a report commissioned by online resale site ThredUp. The consumers were polled in March and April. GlobalData didn’t provide a margin of error.The findings reflect shoppers’ engagement with social issues, from racial equity to climate change, and desire to see politicians and corporations get engaged, too. It may also indicate that more people have grown used to public policy as a tool that nudges consumers toward eco-friendly habits.ThredUp President Anthony Marino said initiatives like plastic bag fees and tax credits for electric vehicles have paved the way for the apparel industry to become the next frontier. And, he said, the pandemic has raised consumers’ awareness about their own environmental impact and desire to reduce waste.”When a virus that comes from a city in a part of the world that you’ve never heard of before rocks your life, you start to see things are pretty tightly connected,” he said.Over the past year, he said, people have been stuck at home and noticed the huge amount of clothes, shoes and other items piling up or getting squeezed into drawers. That has inspired some to start selling gently used items or to become more intentional about what they buy, he said.”Our closet isn’t too far away, so it’s been all too obvious the excess of stuff around us,” he said. Plus, he said, people watched the budget during the recession and found they could stretch dollars or make extra income with resale.Resale has become a growing part of retail as younger consumers look for brand-name, yet wallet-friendly options and companies like ThredUp and Poshmark put an e-commerce spin on sifting through racks at a garage sale or thrift shop. The resale market is expected to more than double over the next five years from a $36 billion industry in 2021 to $77 billion in 2025, according to GlobalData research. That’s a growth rate that is 11 times faster than the broader retail clothing sector, it found.ThredUp went public in March and has struck deals with more than a dozen retailers, including Walmart, that have added resale items to company websites or become places where customers can drop off clothes to sell. On Tuesday, its shares closed at $25.88, about 85% above its $14 a share price on the day of its initial public offering, giving it a market value of $2.35 billion. Shares of Poshmark, which also went public earlier this year, closed at $45.88 on Tuesday, giving the company a market cap of $3.47 billion.According to the survey, 33 million consumers bought secondhand apparel for the first time last year, and 76% of those first-time buyers plan to increase their spending on secondhand over the next five years.That could get a lift if the government weighs in with regulations or incentives, according to the survey. Fifty-eight percent of retail executives say they would be more likely to test resale if it came with financial incentives, and 47% of consumers said they would be more likely to purchase secondhand clothes if they could skip sales tax or receive a tax credit. More

In this articlePTONMaggie Lu uses a Peloton Tread treadmill during CES 2018 at the Las Vegas Convention Center on January 11, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada.Ethan Miller | Getty ImagesSome Peloton customers are outraged after the company disabled a free run setting on its high-end treadmill, forcing users to pay an extra monthly membership fee, according to reports across social media.Previously, people who had shelled out more than $4,000 for Peloton’s Tread+ treadmill machine were able to select a “Just Run” setting and exercise without accessing Peloton’s digital workout content. But following a recent safety update, the “Just Run” feature has disappeared, multiple users said on Twitter after receiving an email notice from the company.Now, Peloton users need to pay a $39 monthly membership fee to use their treadmills. And some customers are threatening legal action, Business Insider separately reported, as they’re angry over the additional charges.A Peloton spokesperson told CNBC that the company will be waiving three months of membership fees for all Tread+ owners, as it works on another update that brings back the “Just Run” feature.The change in settings on Peloton’s treadmill machines comes after both versions were recalled in May over safety concerns. Peloton recently said it would be rolling out an automatic software update on the Tread and Tread+ machines that were already on the market, which would add a safety-lock feature.”We understand that this is an inconvenience for some and are working on updates to Tread Lock that will allow us to make Tread Lock and Just Run available without a Peloton Membership,” the Peloton spokesperson said in an emailed statement.As more consumers leave the house and return to an office or the gym, Peloton is shifting its approach to reach new customers. The New York-based company announced Tuesday the debut of a corporate wellness offering that offers subsidized memberships and discounts on equipment to partners’ employees. Peloton is also reportedly working on an armband that tracks users’ heart rates, which would launch it into the wearables market.After rising more than 400% in 2020, Peloton shares are down about 22% year to date. More

The racial wealth divide between white and Black families in the U.S. is more of a chasm than a gap.In 2019, the median household wealth for white families was nearly $190,000, almost eight times higher than that of Black households, according to Federal Reserve data.”Baby bonds” are one proposal to help close the divide. Unlike regular bonds, they are not a debt instrument traded in the public markets. Instead, the proposal would create a federally funded trust fund account for every newborn baby in the U.S.”I support this idea called baby bonds,” Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., told CNBC. Booker has proposed a baby bonds policy called the American Opportunity Accounts Act, which has been co-signed by many of his Democrat colleagues.The bill, if passed, would create a savings account for every child with at least $1,000 in it.”Depending on the wealth of your family, every child will get a deposit annually up to [age] 18 into that account, upwards of $2,000 for the lowest income children,” Booker told CNBC.When the child turns 18, depending on the families’ income, they could have nearly $50,000 in this account. If the child comes from a well-off family, they’d end up with just over $1,600 by age 18 since they wouldn’t be getting annual payments.According to investment firm Morningstar, Booker’s American Opportunity Accounts Act could reduce the racial wealth gap by 40%. Plus, baby bond recipients would only be able to use the funds for wealth-building activities, including buying a home, continuing education or starting a business.According to analyses from Booker’s office and from the City University of New York, a baby bonds program could cost the U.S. government $60 billion to $80 billion.”It’s a little bit more than food stamps,” said Naomi Zewde, an assistant professor in CUNY’s Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy.However, baby bonds cannot close the racial wealth gap alone, and conservative policy experts argue that baby bonds could reduce incentives to save or to pursue higher education.Watch the video above to learn more about how baby bonds could work, the economics behind the proposal, and what may be next for these policies on the federal and state levels.NBCUniversal and Comcast Ventures are investors in Acorns, and CNBC has a content partnership with it. More

In this articleENEL-ITThe coronavirus pandemic has sped up a transition in the energy industry, according to the CEO of Italian energy firm Enel, but a number of issues need to be addressed to ensure change takes place in a measured manner.  In a wide-ranging interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” Tuesday, Francesco Starace was asked about the “energy transformation” and how the pandemic had changed the landscape. “The way in which, for example, the EU has decided to take the exit route out of the crisis is to accelerate this renewable energy and this energy transformation,” he explained. “I would say it’s a transition rather than transformation,” he added. “It’s a big change that affects not only the energy industry, but … industry at large. So I can say yes, the pandemic has accelerated this trend in a major way.”Change does seem to be on the cards and in many cases it’s closely linked with major economies’ attempts to recover from the effects of the pandemic.The European Commission, for instance, has described the European Green Deal — a plan for the EU to be climate neutral by the year 2050 — as “our lifeline out of the COVID-19 pandemic.”The Green Deal is backed by initiatives such as the Just Transition Mechanism. This aims to mobilize billions of euros between 2021 and 2027 and focus on “regions that are the most carbon-intensive or with the most people working in fossil fuels.”While governments around the world are signaling their intent to move away from fossil fuels and pursue net zero targets, bringing about any meaningful change is a colossal task.Energy companies are still discovering new oil fields, for example, while in countries such as the U.S., fossil fuels continue to play a significant role in electricity production.For his part, Starace was keen to hammer home the point that any shift would not be without its challenges.  “The transformation is inevitable, that’s something that will happen anyway,” he said. “The risk is whether it happens in a disorderly fashion or in … an orderly way.””I think the risk is that we are not really taking into account all the consequences for the whole industry and economic activity of the world,” he went on to add.”That means that we try and push it in a way that creates problems for people or is … [u]njust, accumulates inequality in some parts of the world, rather than being more just.”Re-skilling the workforce With governments around the world signaling their intention to ramp up renewable energy capacity in the coming years, the need for jobs in the sector looks set to grow.According to the Global Wind Energy Council, expansion of the wind energy industry could create 3.3 million jobs in the next five years.Over in the U.S., the Solar Energy Industries Association says the solar sector will need over 900,000 workers if the country is to meet its goal of “100% clean electricity” by the year 2035. Read more about clean energy from CNBC ProInflation is a problem for sustainable investors — but these stocks will ride it out, Bernstein saysWant in on green hydrogen? This bank names six stocks to buy right nowGoldman advises investors to get in on this early stage energy opportunityMore than 231,000 workers were employed by America’s solar industry last year, a 6.7% decline compared to the year before, according to a recent report published by the SEIA, the Interstate Renewable Energy Council, The Solar Foundation, and BW Research.In his interview with CNBC, Enel’s Starace noted skilled people within the energy industry were “becoming a scarce … commodity.” Among other things, he went on to emphasize the importance of training people in large numbers.Clean air, less noiseOver the last few years, governments around the world have signaled their intent to increase the number of electric vehicles on their roads. This move away from the internal combustion engine is already underway.At the end of April, the International Energy Agency said roughly 3 million new electric cars were registered last year, a record amount and a 41% rise compared to 2019.According to the Paris-based organization, this jump pushed the total number of electric cars on the road to over 10 million, a figure supplemented by approximately 1 million electric buses, vans and heavy trucks.One of the potential benefits of electrifying transport is improved air quality, as Starace noted. “As we electrify — that means push[ing] fossil fuels out of the picture — the particulates, the polluting elements that are part of our daily life will disappear … and the quality of our life in cities will definitely improve.” More

A health worker administers a dose of Covid-19 vaccine to a beneficiary, at a vaccination center, on June 10, 2021 in New Delhi, India.Sanchit Khanna | Hindustan Times | Getty ImagesIndia has reported more than 30 million Covid-19 cases since the pandemic started last year.Government data showed there were 50,848 infections recorded over a 24-hour period on Wednesday, bringing the total reported cases to 30.02 million. The reported daily death toll was 1,358.The United States is the only country in the world that has reported more cases than India.The South Asian nation suffered a devastating second wave when reported coronavirus cases spiked between February and early May. It left hospitals overwhelmed and medical necessities like oxygen and medicines in short supply.A highly contagious variant of the coronavirus — known as the delta variant — was first reported in India and is reportedly partially responsible for the rapid rise in cases there.It has since spread rapidly around the world and is found in more than 80 countries. The World Health Organization said delta is becoming the dominant variant of the disease worldwide.We think this reopening strategy is not prudent and may result in a renewed rise in infections and re-tightening of restrictions in the future.Priyanka KishoreOxford EconomicsLast year, India’s central government imposed a months-long nationwide lockdown to slow the outbreak that led to millions of people going out of work. This time, state governments imposed more localized restrictions to stem the spread of the virus.Some economists, including Kunal Kundu from Societe Generale, say that multiple waves of job losses, lost income, the unprecedented health crisis and related expenses are likely to leave Indian consumers “deeply scarred.” The second wave also took a toll on rural India, which likely affected demand in the countryside despite a normal monsoon, Kundu said in a note this week.Preparing for a third waveGovernment officials, epidemiologists and other health experts say a third wave is inevitable, and some predict it could hit India by October.In a Reuters poll of 40 health-care specialists, doctors, scientists, virologists, epidemiologists and professors from around the world, the consensus is that the third wave will be better controlled than the current wave.India’s Covid crisisRead CNBC’s latest coverage of India’s battle with the coronavirus pandemic:WHO labels a Covid strain in India as a ‘variant of concern’ — here’s what we knowGovernment confident India will have over 2 billion vaccine doses by December, minister saysIndia’s Covid crisis exposes deep-rooted problems in public health after years of neglectIndians turn to social media for help as Covid crisis overwhelms the health-care systemWhile experts say that vaccination is the way forward for India, many caution against lifting restrictions too soon.To date, less than 5% of India’s total population has received two vaccine doses that are required to be considered fully inoculated — the vaccination rollout faced challenges this year including supply shortages. Statistics compiled by scientific online publication Our World in Data showed that around 16% of the population has received at least one vaccine dose in India.The country set an ambitious target of producing more than 2 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses by December — theoretically, that’s enough to inoculate most of its population. But some public health experts say the vaccine target alone will not help immunize everyone.Vaccination rates are far below the levels deemed to be safe for easing social distancing measures substantially in the more populous and economically important states.Priyanka KishoreOxford EconomicsThey say the country needs to set up necessary infrastructure in rural India to roll out vaccination drives and convince people to get their shots as many, especially in the countryside, are still hesitant.The central government has rolled out a campaign to vaccinate all adults for free and on Monday, reports said India gave out a record 7.5 million doses.Reopening too soon is ‘not prudent’The decline in Covid-19 cases in recent weeks has prompted states to begin loosening restrictions, including the planned resumption of in-classroom teaching for schools and colleges. Some observers say the move can potentially backfire.”Vaccination rates are far below the levels deemed to be safe for easing social distancing measures substantially in the more populous and economically important states,” said Priyanka Kishore, head of India and Southeast Asia economics at Oxford Economics, in a Wednesday note.She noted that partial restrictions are likely to stay in the coming months, but the reopening has started at a faster-than-expected pace.”We think this reopening strategy is not prudent and may result in a renewed rise in infections and re-tightening of restrictions in the future,” Kishore said. She explained that states with low vaccination rates could be forced to retighten measures to fight new coronavirus outbreaks, which could have spill-over effects that may force other states to step up restrictions again.Oxford Economics remains cautious about the outlook and maintains its 2021 growth forecast for India at 9.1%. More