Today I had my third TWC lesson in SMU. The session is as resourceful as always. The first half of the session we talked about technology and industrial growth and its sustainability. In the second half of the session, we were taught about technology and innovation management.
Through this session, I have a better understanding about sustainable development. I think reading one is a very good reading that well illustrates the policies European Union is adopting in order to achieve sustainable development. In my conclusion, the biggest obstacle on the journey to sustainable development is the environmental issue. Environmental damage is often considered as trade off for economic growth. However, after reading through the article, I realized that if the country wanted to achieve a sustainable growth, she must find a way to solve these environmental issues. The negative effects may not be shown immediately however, after a period of time the negative impacts will start to surface and incur huge costs to the country. For example, if a country did not post any form of carbon control, air pollution will be a big problem. After sometimes the people living in the country will start to fall sick. Cost will be incurred to the country in the form of medical treatment as well as insufficient labour force to maintain the economic growth due to the poor health condition. Although it may seem that economic development and environmental protection will never co-exist, with innovation and technological advancement it is possible.
Also from reading one, I find that the idea of carbon trading provides good incentives. In EU this carbon trading policy is conducted in company level and each company is given a limit to how much carbon it is allowed to emit. The companies have to buy from other company if they exceed the limit given and likewise companies, which have excess limit, can sell it to other companies to increase revenue. This idea is linked to Kyoto Protocol which is a statement signed by many country to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. Personally I think that this policy is able to motivate companies to invest on carbon-free technology and hence reduce the negative externalities of industrial development. Prof also mentioned in class that china is a good example of a country that willing to invest money to solve its environmental issue. Prof said that China has spent the most amount of money in green technology and environment protection compared to the rest of the world.
Another thing that really interests me is the picture painted by Prof Shahi using windows paint.
The valley represents valley opportunities; the summit represents opportunities and the cloud represent cloud opportunities. I think in order to achieve sustainable growth, companies have to be able to grab the cloud opportunities even though big risks are involved. However, most companies nowadays are stagnant at the summit. It is a dangerous point because if the company remains at summit, it will gradually slide to the valley when there is a lack of innovation.
In today’s session, one of the presenters talked about Apple, which I think is a very good example of company that is able to grab the cloud opportunities. The success of Apple is obvious and the downfall of Microsoft proves the point that if a company remains at the summit and not grabbing the cloud opportunities it will start to slide to the valley.
During the presentation, one speaker mentioned about P&G and one key point the prof mentioned was that a company must have the courage to take failure in order to grow. However my question is that what about those firms that do not have much capital and cant afford to make a failure? How are these small firms able to grow rapidly?
Overall I think today’s lesson is 8/10 as I feel that some of the discussion questions from the speakers are not well phrased and hence affect the quality of the discussions.
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