Construction + Economy

  Big box retailers are increasingly opening smaller format stores. Historically, the largest retailers have been continually increasing the size of stores, in some cases as large as 500,000 square feet. However, many of the largest retailers are increasingly testing smaller footprint locations. This includes Walmart, Target, Macy’s, Kohl’s, and others. In the case of [...]

  In the lighting world, we usually think of reducing carbon by increasing efficiency of energy use. However, there is a new push to reduce the carbon used to create construction materials, known as embodied carbon. This matters in the fight against climate change. Building materials and construction comprise about 11% of global energy carbon [...]

I’ve written previous articles about the gradual shift in US imports away from China toward Mexico, India, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, here and here. The above chart is courtesy of DigiTimes Research. It projects India’s production value of LED lighting to rise from $2.2 Billion USD in 2020 to $16.2 Billion in 2025. That’s [...]

For a variety of reasons, Taiwanese businesses are reducing their investments in mainland China. One reason is the difficulties China faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the extreme challenges that were specific to China, including their unprecedented extended shutdowns of large commercial cities such as Shanghai, among others. Many larger, Taiwanese companies have been relocating [...]

  The number of existing homes sold, from January through August of this year, dropped 21% compared with the same period last year. And that’s on top of an 18% decline last year from two years ago. The data is from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). For the month of August, home sales fell [...]

  I’ve previously written several posts on the reduction of trade between the US and China. This is largely caused by the escalating and evolving trade war. Companies in a growing number of industries are managing Chinese sourcing risk by adopting the stragegy of diversifying their supply chain to include China plus another source outside [...]

  The economic rebound from the pandemic created a chaotic freight nightmare. Those days are behind us, but new factors are beginning to drive freight costs back up again, both for bringing goods in from Asia to the US, as well as sending freight within the US. Here are some causes: Labor – The feared [...]

  2023 has already seen quite a few lighting manufacturer shut downs. I’m not talking about Chapter 11 restructurings nor acquisitions. Here are seven lighting manufacturers that shuttered operations so far in 2023: Universal-Douglas – Shut down March 22nd. More details here. Pathway Lighting – Shut down June 9th. Asset auction closes September 13th. More [...]

  In mid-July, Mexico passed China to become the U.S.’s largest trading partner. Experts say Mexico’s gains are due to the U.S. strategy of gradual economic decoupling from China. This trend has is also named “Friendshoring,” where trade moves from China to countries like Mexico, India, Vietnam, and other trade partners with less contentious relationships [...]