Million Dollar Women 🚀
This Week in Review ☕️ : Mushroom handbags are the New Trend | Inflation hits your Local Pub | Apocalyptic Food Costs to come | The Largest Dam globally is being removed | The World wants more salmon
Quick Bites:
Finance📈 : Calling all the ladies!
HSBC just announced they will be investing $1bn exclusively to female-owned businesses. The fund aims to address challenges women entrepreneurs face.
#WhoRunTheWorld 💃
"The level of funding received over time by female-led businesses is significantly lower than male counterparts, while the recent impacts of the pandemic have seen these same businesses disproportionately affected."
-HSBC
It is now common knowledge that female founders get only 2% of the total annual investment in start-ups globally.
Let's be honest💡: that's probably put off a massive number of women to start businesses in the first place!
Our Thoughts💡: Entrepreneurs don't give a damn about Covid, you, me & the rest of the world.. They just move forward, relentlessly.
Which tbh, is great unless you're the overworked & underpaid female employee making it happen.
Especially with Covid churning out a new variant by the minute.
So, to see funds like this focusing solely on women-led startups makes it seem like the tide is finally turning!
Still a long way to go but definitely in the right direction! 🙌🏻
Inflation 🍺 : Pubs in the UK shoot up prices as inflation hits 40-year high of 9%.
Folks already have to deal with higher food prices, a choppy stock market, unchecked illegal immigration, sky-high electricity bills and a proxy war in Europe. And to top it off, a glass of Chardonnay is now gonna cost 3x ?!
Thanks, Boris 👋
9% inflation is the highest level since Margeret Thatcher was Prime Minister 4 decades ago, and way above the Bank of England’s 2% target.
It is also the highest inflation rate in the G7.
Manufacturers are under pressure to pass the rising cost of raw materials onto consumers.
It comes days after the Bank of England Governor warned of ‘apocalyptic’ food costs and that food, fuel and energy prices would continue to rise.
Damn..seems like the living crisis has only just begun. FML
Our Thoughts💡: We're curious if any of you have noticed your favorite products get smaller and smaller?
Beware of SHRINKflation guys! Businesses are passing their rising costs on to consumers by reducing the contents in their packaged goods, WSJ reports.
Global examples include Mars shrinking Malteasers and M&Ms by up to 15%.
For those who aren't aware of the rising inflation globally, stay alert. Most supermarkets hide the increased prices.. unless you pay attention. Rather than charge more, they shrink the size of the product. 500g of bread soon becomes 450g, 400g, 350g, 300g.
Price stays the same but manipulation increases 🙄
Fashion 👛 : 'Mushroom handbags' are the new trend this year.
Global brands like Stella McCartney, Balenciaga and Hermès are bringing sustainable vegan leather handbags made from mushrooms to the market.
Stella McCartney debuted the 'The Frayme Mylo' recently- a bag made from Mylo, a vegan leather made from fast-growing mycelium (mushroom root systems).
It takes 1,700 liters (approximately 4,500 gallons) of water to make one kg of animal leather.
Mylo is environmentally superior via reduced greenhouse gas emissions and lowered water and land use. It is also made without animal cruelty, Vegan News reports.
According to Business of Fashion:
💡After years of development- not only bags but also shoes and coats are hitting the market for the first time.
💡It’s an early test to see if the innovation can compete with traditional leather and other alternatives.
💡For these materials to go mainstream, more work is needed to continue product development, scale up volumes and bring down prices
Climate Change 🌊 : California is about to begin the nation's largest dam removal project- a big win for wildlife.
"At its heart, this is really a fish-restoration project" as many biologists have complained the decline of salmon in the basin.
Key Highlights by San Francisco Chronicle:
💡The dam removal will happen at the Klamath River
💡Currently, fish swim upriver but are stopped at the dams
💡The dam removal will not only boost fish numbers but increase biodiversity. This can harden fish to drought, rising temperatures and the challenges posed by the climate crisis
Our Thoughts💡: With any luck, we can get the Mossyrock Dam in Washington removed and restore the salmon runs to central Idaho.
Quicker Bites:
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard defamation trial enters sixth and final week.
Biden says US would intervene militarily if China invaded Taiwan.
Biden makes first trip to Asia as president.
Australia elects Anthony Albanese as its next prime minister.
The 75th annual Cannes Film Festival is underway.
Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker say "I Do" in Italy.
Pete Davidson ends his eight-year run on Saturday Night Live.