A marketplace for waste

South African start-up Kudoti has launched a marketplace for waste. It links up waste producers, collectors and recyclers on a platform where people can buy and sell waste. South Africa generates 108m tonnes of waste a year of which almost 80pc ends up in landfill. The country relies on around 60,000 informal waste collectors who sift through mixed waste for recyclable materials. Kudoti is Zulu for ‘in the trash’. The platform also empowers brands by helping them keep track of their waste. It enables recyclers to trace the origins of their materials and supports better decision-making through the use of real-time data. Through it, businesses can embrace the circular economy and get a full picture of their waste streams, while generating extra income. Kudoti is a member of the Circulars Accelerator programme led by Accenture, in partnership with UpLink, Ecolab and Anglo American.

(Adapted from “Kudoti helps brands track their waste and embrace the circular economy,” by the World Economic Forum, published in May 2022)

India’s moment — will Modi blow it?

A novel confluence of forces stands to transform India’s economy over the next decade. As the cost of technology has dropped, the country has rolled out a “tech stack”: a set of national, state-sponsored digital services that link ordinary Indians with an electronic identity, payments and tax systems, and bank accounts. The rapid adoption of these platforms has turbocharged the world’s third-largest startup scene after America’s and China’s. It also uses a direct, real-time, digital welfare system to pay $200bn over three years to about 950m people who would otherwise have missed out. Behind this stands the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) whose dominance is both a source of stability and a threat. One risk is the BJP’s abhorrent hostility towards Muslims, which it uses to rally its political base. It also indulges cronies and is prickly and vindictive towards his critics, co-opting the bureaucracy to bully the press and the courts.

(Adapted from “The Indian Economy Is Being Rewired. The Opportunity Is Immense,” by The Economist, published on May 13, 2022)

Adult children moving in with parents

Many adult children are returning home lately because they need help. Some adult children have addiction or mental-health disorders, while others are emotionally and financially distressed after a divorce, broken relationship or job loss. The pandemic accelerated and helped to normalize the trend of adult children living at home. For parents, this often means shelving retirement plans and new worries about their child’s emotional and mental health, as well as their grandchildren’s well-being. They have to figure out how to be supportive but not enabling and set boundaries and expectations.

“Parents are always in the parent role,” says Karen Fingerman, a professor of human development and family sciences at the University of Texas at Austin.

Dr Fingerman, who researched the pandemic’s impact on psychological well-being, says young adults had more stress, more life changes and more isolation during the Covid-19 pandemic than older adults.

(Adapted from “Parents Are Always In The Parent Role: When Adult Children Move Home in Crisis,” by Clare Ansberry, published on May 15, 2022, by the Wall Street Journal)

Is inflation Netflix’s next problem?

Last month, the streaming service revealed it had lost subscribers for the first time in a decade. While rival services, such as Disney Plus and HBO Max have posed a threat to Netflix, data suggest that the biggest drag for the company is actually coming from the pressure on consumers’ wallets. A combination of higher inflation and a weakening stock market prompted consumers to tighten their budgets, Ampere Analysis has found. Many of those who left Netflix were from households with an annual income of less than $15,000. About 49pc of the lower-income households surveyed said they had a Netflix subscription in the first quarter, down from about 56.2pc in the previous year.

(Adapted from “Cost-conscious consumers are the problem for Netflix,” by Patrick Mathurin and Anna Nicolaou, published on May 14, 2022, by the Financial Times)

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, May 30th, 2022