Container shipping rates for important global trade routes have spiked this week due to the combination of Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen, and the recent air strikes against Houthi bases, by the US and UK. There are now shipping industry fears of a prolonged disruption to Red Sea trade routes, one of the busiest [...]

  The World Bank forecasted that 5.2% annual growth for China in 2023 will slow to 4.5% in 2024, and down to 4.3% in 2025. China’s growth has fluctuated dramatically in recent years, ranged from 2.2% in 2020 to 8.4% in 2021 and 3% in 2022. China’s economy is feeling the drag following severe pandemic [...]

Many of the acquisitions in the lighting industry are driven by private equity firms. Over the 5.5 years between January 2018 and June 2023, private equity (PE) firms have acquired more lighting manufacturers in the US & Canada than either publicly traded companies or private companies that are not controlled by a PE firm. PE [...]

  For better and worse, the lighting industry is largely part of the construction industry. It’s that time of year to look at the residential and commercial construction forecasts for 2024. RESIDENTIAL: The National Association of Realtors (NAR) projects existing-home sales will rise by 13.5% to 4.71 million units sold in 2024, from a total [...]

National nonresidential construction spending ticked up 0.1% in October to a seasonally adjusted annualized basis of $1.1 trillion, according to a new Associated Builders and Contractors analysis.Manufacturing and infrastructure investments fueled a 0.1% uptick in October, but warehouse and distribution center spending declined. The small gain marks the 17th consecutive month of growth, primarily due to activity [...]

  According to US Census Bureau data, September national nonresidential construction spending grew 0.3% marketing the 16th consecutive month of growth. The growth is primarily attributed to publicly financed construction. Some private categories, including power, commercial, amusement, and recreation saw month-over-month increases, however, publicly financed construction accounted for more than 72% of September’s rise. Federal [...]

  The US Department of Transportation awarded $653 million in grants on November 3rd to upgrade 41 water-based ports around the country. The funding is through the Port Infrastructure Development Program, which provides planning support, capital funding and project management assistance, and comes from the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). The projects will boost [...]

  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 [...]