Directions (next ten questions) Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given. Certain words have been given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the question.
We are told that economy is growing and that such growth benefits all of us. However, what you see is not what you always get. Most people are experiencing declining economic security in response to the problems of the global system, many communities have turned to Local Exchange System (LESs) to help regain some control over their economic situations.
Local exchange systems come in many forms. They often involve the creation of a local currency, or a system of bartering labour, or trading of agricultural products as a means of supporting the region in which they are traded. Such a system help preserve the viability of local economies.
Local currencies allow communities to diversify their economies, reinvest resources back into their region and reduce dependence on the highly concentrated and unstable global economy. Each local currency system serves as an exchange bank for skills and resources that individuals in the community are willing to trade. Whether in the form of paper money, service credits, or other units, a local currency facilitates the exchange of services and resources among the members of a community.
By providing incentives for local trade, communities help their small businesses and reduce under-employment by providing the jobs within the community. In addition, the local exchange of food and seeds promotes environmental conservation and community food security. Local food production reduces wasteful transportation and promotes self-reliance and genetic diversity. Each transaction within a local exchange system strengthens the community fabric das neighbours interact and meet one another.
There are over 1000 local exchange programs worldwide – more than 30 local paper currencies in North America and at least 800 Local paper currencies in North America and at throughout Europe. New Zealand and Australia Local Exchange Systems vary and evolve in accordance with the needs and circumstances of the local area. This diversity is critical to the success of the local currencies. For instance, a bank in rural Massachusetts refused to lend a farmer the money needed to make it through the winter. In response, the farmer decided to print his own money Berkshire Farm Preserve Notes. In winter, customers buy the notes for $ 9 and they may redeem them in the summer for $ 10 worth of vegetables. The system enabled the community to help a farm family after being abandoned by the centralized monetary system. As small family farms continue to disappear at an alarming rate, local currencies provide tools for communities to bind together, support their local food growers and maintain their local food suppliers.
Local Exchange System are not limited to developed countries. Rural areas of Asia, Latin America and Africa have offered some of the most effective and important programs, by adopting agriculture-based systems of exchange rather than monetary ones. In order to preserve genetic diversity, economic security and avoid dependence on industrial seed and chemical companies, many villages have developed seed saving exchange banks. For example, the village women in Ladakh have begun to collect and exchange rare seeds selected for their ability to grow in a harsh mountain climate. This exchange system protects agriculture diversity while promoting self-reliance. There is no one blueprint for a local exchange system, which is sustainability. They promote local economic diversity and regional self-reliance while responding to a region’s specific needs. Local exchange systems play a pivotal role in creating models for sustainable societies. They are an effective educational tool, raising awareness about the global financial system local and local economic matters. Local exchange system also demonstrate that tangible, creative solutions exist and that communities can empower themselves to address global problems.
Directions (next ten questions) : Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given. Certain words/phrases have been given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.
From a technical and economic perspective, many assessments have highlighted the presence of cost-effective opportunities to reduce energy use in buildings. However several bodies note the significance of multiple barriers that prevent the take-up of energy efficiency measures in buildings. These include lack of awareness and concern, limited access to reliable information from trusted sources, fears about risk, disruption and other 'transaction costs', concerns about up-front costs and inadeuqate
Access to suitably priced finance, a lack of confidence in suppliers and technologies and the presence of split incentives between landlords and tenants. The widespread presence of these barriers led experts to predict that without a concerned push from policy, two-thirds of the economically viable potential to improve energy efficiency will remain unexploited by 2035. These barriers are albatross around the neck that represent a classic market failure and a basis for governmental intervention.
While these measurements focus on the technical, financial or economic barriers preventing the take-up of energy efficiency options in buildings, others emphasize the significance of the often deeply embedded social practices that shape energy use in buildings. These analyses focus not on the preferences and rationalities that might shape individual behaviours, but on the ‘entangled’ cultural practices, norms, values and routines that underpin domestic energy use. Focusing on the practice-related aspects of consumption generates very different conceptual framings and policy prescriptions than those that emerge from more traditional or mainstream perspectives. But the underlying case for government intervention to help to promote retrofit and the diffusion of more energy efficient particles is still apparent, even though the forms of intervention advocated are often very different to those that emerge from a more technical or economic perspective.
Based on the recognition of the multiple barriers to change and the social, economic and environmental benefits that could be realized if they were overcome, government support for retrofit (renovating existing infrastructure to make it more energy efficient) has been widespread. Retrofit programmes have been supported and adopted in diverse forms in many settings and their ability to recruit householders and then to impact their energy use has been discussed quite extensively. Frequently, these discussions have criticized the extent to which retrofit schemes rely on incentives and the provision of new technologies to change behaviour and the provision of new technologies to change behaviour whilst ignoring the many other factors that might limit either participation in the schemes or their impact on the behaviours and practices that shape domestic energy use. These factors are obviously central to the success of retrofit schemes, but evaluations of different schemes have found that despite these they can still have significant impacts.
Few experts that the best estimate of the gap between the technical potential and the actual insitu performance of energy efficiency measures is 50 % , with 35% coming from performance gaps and 15% coming from ‘comfort taking’ or direct rebound effects. They further suggest that the direct rebound effect of energy efficiency measures related to household heating is likely to be less than 30% while rebound effects for various domestic energy efficiency lead to increased demand for other goods and services). Other analyses also note that the gap between technical, potential and actual performance is likely to vary by measure, with the range extending from 0% for measures such as solar water heating to 50% for measures such as improved heating controls. And others note that levels of comfort taking are likely to vary according to the levels of comfort taking are likely to vary according to the levels of consumption and fuel poverty in the sample of homes where insulation is installed, with the range extending from 30% when considering homes across all income groups to around 60% when considering only lower income homes. The scale of these gaps is significant because it materially affects the impacts of retrofit schemes and expectations and perceptions of these impacts go on to influence levels of political, financial and public support for these schemes.
The literature on retrofit highlights the presence of multiple barriers to change and the need for government support, if these are to be overcome. Although much has been written on the extent to which different forms of support enable the wider take-up of domestic energy efficiency measures, behaviours and practices, various areas of contestation remain and there is still an absence of robust ex-post evidence on the extent to which these schemes actually do lead to the social, economic and environmental benefits that are widely claimed.
Directions (next ten questions) : Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below. Certain words/phrases have been given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.
Manufacturers of consumer packaged goods (CPG) face two key challenges this year. The first is continued slow or key challenges this year. The first is continued slow or negative growth in people’s disposable incomes. The second is changing consumer attitudes towards products and brands, as the great fragmentation of consumer markets take another turn. In responses, companies must dramatically shift the routes they take to reach consumers in terms of both product distribution and communications. In many markets, consumer wages have been static for five years now. Even where economies are starting to perform better, the squeeze on after-tax wages, especially for the middle class, younger people and families, is depressing consumer spending. Although growth in developing counties is still better than in the United States and Europe, a slowdown in emerging countries such as China- where many companies had hoped for higher sales – has translated quickly into lower-than-expected consumer spending growth.
Meanwhile, what we call the great fragmentation is manifested in consumer behavior and market response. In both developed and emerging markets, there is a wider variety among consumers now than at any time in the recent past. Growth is evident both at the top of the market (where more consumers are spending for higher-quality food and other packaged goods) and at the lower end (where an increasing number of consumers are concentrating on value). But the traditional middle of the market is shrinking.
Further, individual consumer behavior is more pluralistic. We are used to seeing, for example, spirits buyers purchasing a premium brand in a bar, a less costly label at home for personal consumption and yet another when entertaining guests. But this type of variegated shopping has now spread to the grocery basket as well. Fewer consumers are making one big stocking-up trip each week. Instead, shoppers are visiting a premium store and a discounter as well as a supermarket, in multiple weekly shops – in addition to making frequent purchases online. During recession, more shoppers became inclined to spend time hunting for bargains and as some traditional retailers either went out of business or shuttered down, retail space was freed up and was often filled by convenience stores, specially shops, and discounters. A decade ago, CPG companies had only a handful of sales channels to consider supermarkets, convenience stores, hypermarkets in advanced economies and traditional small and large retailers in emerging countries. Since then, various discounters have made significant inroads, including no frills, low variety outlets, such as Europe’s Aldi and Lidl, which sell a limited range of private-label grocery items in smaller stores and massive warehouse clubs, such as Costco and Sam’s club, which initially operated solely in the U.S. but are now expanding internationally. In addition, dollar stores, specialized retailers, and online merchants are having an impact on the CPG landscape. Economising consumers have been pleasantly, surprised by the savings generated by spreading their business among multiple channels, as well as by the variety and product quality they find. The result has been greater demand for more products and brands, with different size, packaging and sales methods. At most CPG companies, SKUs are proliferating despite there being little increase in overall consumption. A better outcome can be seen at smaller food and beverage suppliers, which are benefiting from consumer demand for variety and authenticity. A recent report found that in the U.S., small manufacturers (with revenues of less than US$1 billion) grew at twice the compound annual rate of large manufacturers (with revenues of more than $3 billion) between 2009 and 2012).
Consumers media usage has also fragmented with the rise of digital content and the proliferation of online devices. Each channel-from the Web, Mobile and social sites to readio, TV, and print- has its own requirements, audience the same time, media campaigns need to be closely co-ordinated for effective consumer messaging.
Collectively, these shifts challenge the way CPG companies manage their band and business portfolios and call for a rethinking of their go-to-market approach, with an emphasis on analytics. Our work with INSEAD shows that among business leaders, applying analytics – especially for tracking consumer behaviour and product and promotional performance-is considered one of the most effective ways to improve results and outpace the competition. But it’s not improve results and outpace the competition. But it’s not just about insight. It’s also about using the insight wisely to determine how to manage costs. The more knowledgeable about customer needs and preference a company is, the smarter and more focused it must be in managing its own economics to cost-effectively deliver both variety and value to the squeezed consumer.