Business Daily

The recycling of lead acid batteries poses a growing health hazard in many developing countries. Vivienne Nunis looks at the case of Bangladesh, where a cottage industry has sprung up all over the country, with old car and auto-rickshaw batteries being burned in unsafe conditions, poisoning the surrounding land, animals, plants and people. Researcher Bret Ericson says that hundreds of millions of...

Why plans for a European Super League won't go away. Ed Butler speaks to James Montague, author of the book The Billionaires Club: The Unstoppable Rise of Football’s Super-rich Owners, about why creating a Europe-wide league of the richest clubs made so much sense to football club owners with backgrounds in US sport. Spanish football journalist Semra Hunter explains why for Spanish clubs, the ESL...

Paying extra to offset your carbon emissions may sound like a good idea. But does planting trees or paying to save a rainforest actually reduce your carbon footprint? Travel writer Manchán Magan and climate scientist Thales West explain why they're sceptical. We also hear from one of America's leading airlines, United, which is increasing the number of flights powered by waste products and old coo...

On this edition of Business Weekly, we look at the battle between the makers of one of the world’s biggest computer games, Fortnite, and the world’s biggest tech company, Apple. The court case could have implications for how app stores and payment models are run in the future. We also take a look at the jewellery sector and hear two different tales of sustainability - from those selling diamonds m...

Scientists, artists and some of the world’s biggest companies are carving up the visual spectrum, and claiming certain colours as their own, so who does have a right to use the colours of the rainbow? We explore the ongoing rift over the worlds “blackest black” Vantablack, which was created by engineering firm Surrey Nanosystems, and can only be used by the artist Anish Kapoor. Contemporary Britis...

What next for China's giant tech companies? Ed Butler speaks to China watcher Richard McGregor at the Lowy Institute in Sydney about why China's leaders have clipped the wings of Jack Ma, the country's most famous business leader and founder of the tech giant Alibaba. Chinese tech sector analyst Rui Ma argues that closer regulation of China's giant tech companies will be good for competition, whil...

The car industry is preparing to go fully electric sooner than you might imagine - and not just because of the climate crisis. Justin Rowlatt speaks to Bjorn Annwall, head of Volvo Cars in Europe, about why his company is one of a string of major carmakers to rush out plans in recent months to electrify their business. They intend to stop selling internal combustion engine cars as soon as 2030. Wh...

Millions of Indians risk being knocked back into poverty by the current explosion in coronavirus infections. Rahul Tandon hears from Radhika, who abruptly lost her job in Mumbai when India went into lockdown last year, and has since struggled with thoughts of suicide. Newspaper columnist Sandip Roy discusses how Covid threatens to strip many self-identifying middle class of their sense of comfort...

It could be the biggest shake-up of corporate taxation in history. But can President Biden's push for a minimum global rate succeed? He wants multinational companies to pay a rate of at least 21%. The proposal is likely to face opposition from smaller economies. Tech consultant Pamela Newenham explains how Ireland's low tax regime has helped to transform the country's capital. Others say the propo...

A “once in a generation investment” is what Joe Biden offered the American people this week. He presented his American Jobs plan and American Families Plan to Congress to mark his first 100 days in office. Can he deliver? Also, will business travel resume once the pandemic has ended? Airlines and hotels are dependent on business travel - but now that so many people have adapted to virtual meetings...

More men have considered cosmetic treatments during the pandemic. Has spending more time at home staring at ourselves in video conferencing made us more worried about our appearance, and have the pressures of ageism in the workplace also had an impact. Ed Butler speaks to psychologist Helena Lewis Smith, and Past President of the American Association of Plastic Surgeons Dr Alan Matarasso about jus...

The US president announces a massive spending plan for the US economy, with trillions of dollars earmarked for jobs and infrastructure. But is it too ambitious for Republicans to support? Ed Butler speaks to Ryan Heath, senior editor at Politico, and Gordon Hanson, professor of urban policy at Harvard Kennedy School. Hundreds of billions of dollars are also planned for the US's creaking healthcare...

What’s in a name? It’s something that Shakespeare’s Juliet pondered. But what’s in the name of a city? And what are the economic and social costs for a city which opts to change it’s name? Lots have done so down the years – New Amsterdam became New York City and Istanbul became Contantinople. Last year, the residents of Asbestos in Canada choose a new name for their city. And back in February, the...

Why fly when you can videoconference? After a year of Covid lockdowns, that's the question many business executives are asking themselves. Manuela Saragosa speaks to one frequent flyer, Juliette Kayyem, who says that after a year of being grounded, she now thinks more about time with her kids, not to mention the carbon footprint of all her air miles. And she's not the only one - business travel co...

How are small island tourist destinations like the Caribbean island state of Antigua and Barbuda coping with the shutdown of global travel? Manuela Saragosa speaks to the Antiguan Minister of Tourism Charles Fernandez about the innovative steps his country took to continue welcoming holidaymakers from North America and Europe last year, while keeping them safely contained within their own beachsid...

As India battles a surge in Covid cases and hospital beds become scarce, Business Weekly hears how social media is helping connect patients with medical help. Several areas of the country have gone back into lockdown. We get reaction from businesses. In Denmark, the authorities have introduced a Corona Pass, which lets the vaccinated attend various events. Our reporter looks at how well it’s worki...

Filmmaker Adam Curtis questions the value of Big Data in society. In his latest BBC series, 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head', Curtis explores "Love, power, money, ghosts of empire, conspiracies, artificial intelligence – and You." Curtis spoke to Business Daily's Ed Butler about how the rise of artificial intelligence, Big Data and targeted advertising have come to shape the way we see our world and...

Large companies have slashed their digital marketing budget. Airbnb and Procter & Gamble made such a cut in recent years, after coming to believe the cost doesn’t necessarily translate to increased sales. They follow in the footsteps of eBay who, in 2013, announced it would cease paying for ad sponsorship on Google. Economics professor Steve Tadelis, who led eBay’s research into this, explains...

President Biden hosts a virtual summit this week as the US seeks global climate action. But can he convince the rest of the world to go further and faster on cutting carbon emissions when the country has been out of the game for the past four years? Justin Rowlatt asks former US climate envoy Todd Stern and Isabel Hilton, founder of China dialogue. And, in a world where some countries are rolling...

In 2016 when producer Georgia first met him, Demille was a cycle courier in his early twenties, taking his company to a tribunal over better working conditions. He was fired-up, political, and excited about a case he would go on to win. For the past five years, Georgia and Demille have been meeting and recording. Demille’s story is one of being young and trying to stay afloat in the gig economy; o...

Every day 55 million meetings take place in the United States. But just how effective are they at actually getting stuff done? British comedian David Mitchell has been investigating how the meeting evolved and the "meeting-isation" of society. (Picture: a man boring colleagues during a meeting. Credit: Getty Images.)

The US is making overtures to China about working together to save the planet. On Business Weekly, we hear what concessions each side would like the other to make as they try to put aside their diplomatic differences for the sake of the environment. We also hear from climate activist Greta Thunberg, who tells us what her vision for the future is and what she’d like to see politicians doing. As the...

A hybrid model mixing home working with office time is being favoured by major companies. But critics worry it will create divisions in the workplace. Small business owner and columnist Gene Marks explains why managing remote workers presents such a challenge, and Darren Murph from GitLab, a tech firm of 1,300 employees and no office, tells us why having a mix of home and office work could be the...

Will the US President continue with an increasingly hostile attitude towards China? Or does economic common sense demand that Washington should back off from Beijing? Ed Butler asks Diana Choyleva of Enodo Economics, and he chairs a debate between David Sacks of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington DC and Kishore Mahbubani, a distinguished fellow at the National University of Singapore....

During the Coronavirus pandemic, people have been spending more time at home, and online, than ever before. This has given online scammers a golden opportunity to find new victims. And it’s worked. We’ll hear from Danielle in Illinois, who was caught up in just such a scam and lost thousands of dollars from her savings. And she’s not the only one. Craig Jones, Director of Cyber Crime at Interpol,...