 |
|
|
|||||
As the Western U.S. faces more damaging droughts, local governmentsas well as an increasing number of homeownershave been successfully promoting landscaping practices that eschew the stereotypical water-hungry grass lawn for more resilient choices. The average U.S. family uses roughly 50 gallons of water per day for outdoor plants and lawns, per statistics from the Environmental Protection Agency; a third of residential water use, or about 9 billion gallons per day, goes toward lawns, plants, and irrigation. Whether its called native planting, xeriscaping, or drought-tolerant landscaping, the push to use more local plants has gained significant momentum. But many landscape architects are finding that the plant industry is straining to keep up. Were trying to create designs with plants that use less water, have deeper root systems, and are more resilient, said Tyler Krob, a senior associate and landscape architect at Denver-based Superbloom. And the reality is, the nursery market just isnt capable of supplying those. The growth in demand for native plants has skyrocketed in recent years, as developers and landscapers have pushed to reduce water usage and promote local flora and fauna. But despite this significant growth in demand, supply remains lacking, and the growers who do specialize in these plants arent necessarily nearby; its becoming harder and harder to find native plants locally. Putting pressure on the plant industry Its causing many landscape architects to alter projects and even rethink the supply chain for flowers, bushes, and shrubbery for future projects. Its also putting pressure on the massive plant and nursery industry, a $13.8 billion-a-year sector of the economy that employs as many people as the clothing retail sector. [Photo: /Pexels] It’s a very concentrated and top-heavy industry consisting of a number of massive players making significant sales with popular, non-native species, along with a number of smaller, regional nurseries that face economic pressures such as high land prices and aging ownership. According to Garden Centers 2024 state of the industry report, only 42% of sellers focus on native plant species. Superbloom, which works primarily in cities throughout the West, said the supply of local native plants has become such a challenge that it’s forced to order plants from out-of-state nurseries and work directly with local nurseries to grow its own native species for its projects. Diane Lipovsky, cofounder and principal, said the shortage is forcing the company to swap out certain species and can even delay projects. Los Angeles-based landscape architecture firm Terremoto opened its own plant store to help expand the supply of local, native plants. I started that shop because I believed that there should be independently owned, mostly native plant shops sprinkled through all cities and communities, so that they’re easy, affordable, and accessible, said Terremoto principal/owner David Godshall. Superbloom has even persuaded clients to agree to grow their own plants at the onset of a large real estate project to avoid shortages later on. For the firms current work on city and county buildings in Denver, for instance, the city has agreed to grow native plants in its own greenhouse to avoid having to pay to import plants from nurseries in the Midwest. Much of this push comes from good faith efforts to cut water usage and conserve natural resources, as well as emerging legislation to cut down water usage. The Colorado Legislature already passed SB 24-005, a bill that prohibits local entities from using non-native plant species on commercial, institutional, industrial, and common-interest community properties, as well as public spaces and state facility projects. It goes into effect January 1, 2026, and will likely exacerbate the shortage. States including Illinois and Delaware have also passed legislation encouraging the use of native plants, and in 2022 the federal Native Plant Species Pilot Program Act, which establishes native planting pilots for federal land management, was signed into law. Superblooms Krob and Lipovsky said the real budget challenge in relation to using native plants is that designers often face delays and potential design compromises via substitution requests. Due to lack of availability, sourcing native or water-wise species might require a custom contract to grow, which can push a project out by a full season or more. Thats just not feasible for many public or developer-led timelines. Where do we get more native plants? There are significant challenges to ramping up native plant production, said Deryn Davidson, a sustainable landscape specialist at Colorado State University. Native plants havent been specially bred to grow in standard nursery-style containers, making it hard for larger contract growers to provide them to large commercial nurseries. You cant ask a manufacturer to crank out more products; plants need a lot of time and planning to grow. Lipovsky said shes seeing the industry gear up to expand, but its still far behind whats needed. The pressure coming from government land managers and others seeking to restore natural habitats has caused a native seed shortage across the country. A 2023 report from the Committee on an Assessment of Native Seeds and Capacities found the industry was small and uncertain, with demand fluctuating wildly, while a 2022 report from the National Academy of Sciences found that nationally the supply of native plant material was severely insufficient. Years with significat wildfire damage, for instance, can put sudden demands on dwindling seed stocks. In addition, many landscapers arent as familiar with the intricacies of watering and caring for native plants, making it crucial to educate more workers on maintenance. And theres also consumer perception, which has been altered by the ready-to-grow nature of plants found at stores like Home Depot. These native plants can be slower to shine, and people will see these plants, which can take a year to really grow, and its not what theyre used to, Davidson said. Theres a bit of managing expectations that needs to take place. Superbloom has found that specific species such as prairie dropseed, little bluestem, and pasqueflower have been particularly challenging to find on the current market. Krob found that even buying blue grama, Colorados state grass, for use in his own front yard meant importing from a nursery in Illinois or Oregon. There are other key market forces at play. Landscaping, especially on a large, commercial scale, is intimately tied to the construction and real estate development industries, which continue to see declining new business. The American Institute of Architects Billings Index remains in negative territory after years of slow and even negative business growth. Despite those issues, this supply-and-demand imbalance is in many ways a good problem to have, and a sign that the trend toward native plants that support pollinators and cut down on water usage are very much taking root. And in a market as volatile as construction, greater availability of diverse, drought-tolerant native species from local nurseries would benefit the entire industry, especially when factoring in increasing pressures around water use. It would help reduce costs, improve access, and support compliance with emerging policies and legislation. Demand is probably just going to continue to go up, said Davidson. Its industry growing pains, but it’s exciting that were at this point.
Category:
E-Commerce
The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday raised its global growth forecasts for 2025 and 2026 slightly, citing stronger-than-expected purchases ahead of an August 1 jump in U.S. tariffs and a drop in the effective U.S. tariff rate to 17.3%, from 24.4%. It warned, however, that the global economy faced major risks, including a potential rebound in tariff rates, geopolitical tensions, and larger fiscal deficits that could drive up interest rates and tighten global financial conditions. “The world economy is still hurting, and it’s going to continue hurting with tariffs at that level, even though it’s not as bad as it could have been,” said Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, IMF chief economist. In an update to its World Economic Outlook from April, the IMF raised its global growth forecast by 0.2 percentage point, to 3%, for 2025, and by 0.1 percentage point, to 3.1%, for 2026. However, that is still below the 3.3% growth it had projected for both years in January and the pre-pandemic historical average of 3.7%. It said global headline inflation was expected to fall to 4.2% in 2025 and to 3.6% in 2026, but noted that inflation would likely remain above target in the U.S. as tariffs passed through to U.S. consumers in the second half of the year. The U.S. effective tariff ratemeasured by import duty revenue as a proportion of goods importshas dropped since April, but it remains far higher than its estimated level of 2.5% in early January. The corresponding tariff rate for the rest of the world is 3.5%, compared with 4.1% in April, the IMF said. U.S. President Donald Trump has upended global trade by imposing a universal tariff of 10% on nearly all countries in April and by threatening even higher duties to kick in on Friday. Far higher tit-for-tat tariffs imposed by the U.S. and China were put on hold until August 12, with talks in Stockholm this week potentially leading to a further extension. The U.S. has also announced steep duties ranging from 25% to 50% on automobiles, steel, and other metals, with higher duties soon to be announced on pharmaceuticals, lumber, and semiconductor chips. Such future tariff increases are not reflected in the IMF numbers and could raise effective tariff rates further, creating bottlenecks and amplifying the effect of higher tariffs, the IMF said. Shifting tariffs Gourinchas said the IMF was evaluating new 15% tariff deals reached by the U.S. with the European Union and Japan over the past week, which came too late to factor into the July forecast, but he said the tariff rates were similar to the 17.3% rate underlying the IMF’s forecast. “Right now, we are not seeing a major change compared to the effective tariff rate that the U.S. is imposing on other countries,” he said, adding it was not yet clear if these agreements would last. “We’ll have to see whether these deals are sticking, whether they’re unraveled, whether they’re followed by other changes in trade policy,” Gourinchas said. Staff simulations showed that global growth in 2025 would be roughly 0.2 of a percentage point lower if the maximum tariff rates announced in April and July were implemented, the IMF said. The IMF said the global economy was proving resilient for now, but uncertainty remained high and current economic activity suggested “distortions from trade, rather than underlying robustness.” Gourinchas said the 2025 outlook had been helped by what he called “a tremendous amount” of front-loading as businesses tried to get ahead of the tariffs, but he warned that the stockpiling boost would not last. “That is going to fade away,” he said, adding: “That’s going to be a drag on economic activity in the second half of the year and into 2026. There is going to be payback for that front-loading, and that’s one of the risks we face.” Tariffs were expected to remain high, he said, pointing to signs that U.S. consumer prices were starting to edge higher. “The underlying tariff is much higher than it was back in January, February. If that stays . . . that will weigh on growth going forward, contributing to a really lackluster global performance.” One unusual factor has been a depreciation of the dollar, not seen during previous trade tensions, Gourinchas said, noting that the lower dollar was adding to the tariff shock for other countries while also helping ease financial conditions. U.S. growth was expected to reach 1.9% in 2025, up 0.1 percentage point from April’s outlook, and edge up to 2% in 2026. A new U.S. tax cut and spending law was expected to increase the U.S. fiscal deficit by 1.5 percentage points, with tariff revenues offsetting that by about half, the IMF said. The IMF lifted its forecast for the euro area by 0.2 of a percentage point, to 1%, in 2025, and left the 2026 forecast unchanged at 1.2%. It said the upward revision reflected a historically large surge in Irish pharmaceutical exports to the U.S.; without it, the revision would have been half as big. China’s outlook got a bigger upgrade of 0.8 of a percentage point, reflecting stronger-than-expected activity in the first half of the year, and the significant reduction in U.S.-China tariffs after Washington and Beijing declared a temporary truce. The IMF increased its forecast for Chinese growth in 2026 by 0.2 of a percentage point, to 4.2%. Overall, growth is expected to reach 4.1% in emerging markets and developing economies in 2025, edging lower to 4% in 2026, it said. The IMF upped its forecast for world trade by 0.9 of a percentage point, to 2.6%, but cut its forecast for 2026 by 0.6 of a percentage point, to 1.9%. By Andrea Shalal, Reuters
Category:
E-Commerce
A big American brand partners with a young, beautiful celebrity in what it thinks is a clever and iconic piece of advertising. But as soon as the ad drops, the reaction is exactly the opposite of what the brand was hoping for. There is an immediate backlash against how the ad has casually, and ignorantly, waded into issues like identity politics, societal divisions, and systemic racism. Sound familiar? Of course, it sounds a helluva lot like the swamp of hot takes American Eagle and Sydney Sweeney currently find themselves wandering waist-deep in. But I was actually talking about the infamous Pepsi and Kendall Jenner ad from 2017. So much has changed since then, but oh, how any given brands lack of cultural awareness can remain constant. Sydney Sweeney x American Eagle, oh my god. pic.twitter.com/tDkeGT9R7G— Sydney Sweeney Daily (@sweeneydailyx) July 24, 2025 Last week, American Eagle dropped a new campaign of ads featuring Sweeney. One has her sensually sliding into a pair of jeans while explaining what genes are. Jeans are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color, she said. My jeans are blue. Cut to a male voice-over and tagline: Sydney Sweeney has great jeans. That double entendre between denim and genetic traits immediately raised the ire of the internet, with many pointing to the very blond hair and blue eyes of the campaigns star as a complicated and divisive ideal to be touting in 2025. Accusations hurled at the brand ranged from plain ignorance to full-on Nazi propaganda. On the other end are those finding fresh fodder for their screams against the woke mind virus. Wherever you stand on that spectrum, there is no denying the fact that the campaign has gone much bigger than it ever would have as a result of this outsize negative reaction. No matter what anyone says, this was certainly not the brands intention. Defining moment This was no one-off social post, but a full-throated brand extravaganza. American Eagle chief marketing officer Craig Brommers was hyping its scale on LinkedIn last week, about how it would hit the Sphere in Las Vegas, 3D billboards in Times Square and L.A., a Euphoria partnership with HBO Max, and more. A massive thank-you and CONGRATULATIONS to our internal teams and external partnersand SYDNEY herselffor this defining moment, Brommers wrote. Ashley Schapiro, American Eagles vice president of marketing, media, performance, and engagement, wrote a LinkedIn post outlining part of the process. She said that on a Zoom call with Sweeney, they asked her, How far do you want to push it? Without hesitation, she smirked and said, Lets push it. Im game. Our response? Challenge Accepted, Schapiro wrote. From that moment on, Syds sentiment guided every frame, every stitch and every unexpected twist of the Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeanscampaign. Infusing our own personal cheeky energy and making us as we envisioned how the world would experience the launch. The star power of Sydney and the double meaning behind the campaign has a culture-shaping power beyond anything I could have ever imagined being a part ofjust check your social feeds. There are any number of ways to talk about this ad and campaign overallfrom whether it intentionally or not promotes outdated genetic ideals to whether the intended audience is people who buy jeans or those buying meme stocks. But let’s look at these spots as creative advertising ideas. Reheated ideas The spot featuring Sweeney squeezing into a pair of jeans while lying down and doling out a genetics lesson is a remarkable facsimile of Calvin Kleins 1980 spot with Brooke Shields giving her own breakdown of genetics while … you guessed it … squeezing into a pair of jeans while lying down. Another Sweeney spot has her going all meta, insisting that shes not trying to get you to buy American Eagle jeans at all. This hews incredibly close to a 2017 Sprite ad starring LeBron James, in which the NBA star insists that hes not here to convince you to drink the soda at all. Just like the controversy itself, the ideas here arent new. But there was a very simple way to feature the exact same work without all the negative baggage. Meaning over intent Marcus Collins, a consultant, author, and University of Michigan marketing professor, often writes about brands as vessels for meaning. Meaning is subjective, not objective, and that is something all brand marketers need to keep in mind. On Instagram, Collins said: Despite whatever the intentions the brand had in making this ad, what it communicates to people is that there is a prototypical standard for good genes: white, blonde hair, blue eyes. And of course, especially considering the political and social cultural backdrop that we’re in right now, that could seem like some pretty bad dog whistling. Collins goes on to outline how American Eagle could have done this campaign without the whistle. Why not feature other people, who may still be objectively beautiful, to illustrate a variety of good jeans? Collins points to stars like Idris Elba or Halle Berry, but American Eagle neednt even have looked outside their own brand roster. Last year, the brand launched a collab collection with tennis star Coco Gauff, as well as her second ad campaign for the slogan Live Your Life. The 21-year-old is not only in the brand’s ideal age bracket, she’s also smart, stylish, beautiful, and just happens to have a collection of 19 professional tennis trophies, including the 2023 U.S. Open and 2025 French Open titles. Now, those are some pretty damn good jeans, too.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||