Category: 3. Business

  • Airbnb fined £56m by Spain for advertising unlicensed properties

    Airbnb fined £56m by Spain for advertising unlicensed properties

    The Spanish government has fined property rentals giant Airbnb €64m (£56m) for advertising unlicensed apartments.

    It also said that some of the properties advertised in the popular tourist destination were banned from being rented.

    The fine means that Airbnb has to withdraw the adverts promoting unlicensed properties. Although the Consumer Affairs Ministry said the fine cannot be appealed, Airbnb said it intends to challenge it in court.

    Spain, one of the most visited countries in the world, has a buoyant tourism economy but that has fuelled concerns about unaffordable housing, as high demand from visitors raises the price of housing, pushing local people out of the market.

    “There are thousands of families who are living on the edge due to housing, while a few get rich with business models that expel people from their homes,” said Spain’s consumer rights minister Pablo Bustinduy in a statement.

    But Airbnb said in a statement that it was “confident that the Ministry of Consumer Affairs’ actions are contrary to applicable regulations in Spain”.

    A spokesperson added that since short-term rental regulations in Spain changed in July, Airbnb was “closely collaborating with Spain’s Ministry of Housing to support the enforcement of the new national registration system”.

    Like many countries, Spain’s government is concerned about how short-term holiday lets can change a neighbourhood, fuelled by a transient population of holiday-goers.

    The country has been fighting a battle with thousands of Airbnb listings, banning them and clamping down on how many properties the firm can advertise. In May, there were demonstrations against the firm ahead of the busy summer season.

    Spain’s government said 65,122 adverts on Airbnb breached consumer rules, including promotion of properties that were not licensed to be rented, and properties whose licence number did not match with those on official registers.

    Writing on social network Bluesky, Mr Bustinduy said: “We’ll prove it as many times as necessary: no company, no matter how big or powerful, is above the law. Even less so when it comes to housing.”

    Globally, several popular tourist cities place heavy restriction on Airbnb, including Barcelona, New York, Berlin, Paris and even San Francisco, where Airbnb was founded.

    The tech firm started up in 2007 but became hugely popular around 2014, as tourists looked for cheap accommodation without the tax costs imposed on hotels.

    Users swelled as anybody could become a “host” and make some extra cash from renting out their spare room – though many major cities have since placed limits on these types of rentals, as complaints of noisy house parties and absent hosts became an issue.

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  • Africa Takes a Bold Step Towards Energy Efficiency at Inaugural Continental Conference in Addis Ababa

    The African Union (AU), through the African Energy Commission (AFREC), together with Ethiopia’s Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration and the Ministry of Water and Energy, successfully hosted the Inaugural African Energy Efficiency Conference (AfEEC) in Addis Ababa from 10-11 December, marking a historic milestone in Africa’s energy transition.

    Held under the framework of the African Energy Efficiency Alliance (AfEEA), the conference followed two days of specialised training sessions on 8-9 December, bringing together at least 400 policymakers, regulators, private sector leaders, experts, and development partners committed to advancing Africa’s energy transition.

    Continental Commitment and Strategic Targets

    H.E. Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, Chairperson of the African Union Commission, affirmed that energy efficiency is now recognised as a strategic pillar for Africa’s development, industrialisation, and regional integration. The Chairperson highlighted the continent’s target of improving energy productivity by 12% by 2030 and 50% by 2050, as set in the African Energy Efficiency Strategy and Action Plan (AfEES) adopted by AU Heads of State and Government in 2025.

    “Every kilowatt-hour wasted is a school not electrified, a vaccine not safely stored, a business not powered, or a job not created. Energy efficiency is an economic shield, an environmental safeguard, and a strategic pathway to securing Africa’s energy future,” said Chairperson Youssouf.

    In his keynote remarks, Mr Adam Farah, Deputy Prime Minister and Vice President of Prosperity Party underscored that the selection of Ethiopia to host the COP32 gives the continent impetus to champion African-led solutions, green growth, and climate justice on the world stage. 

    “Africa must scale regional power interconnections to enhance grid stability, reduce costs, and unlock cross-border electricity trade. To secure full energy sovereignty we must fundamentally rethink how we produce, distribute, and consume energy,” Said the Deputy Prime Minister.

    Energy Efficiency: Africa’s “First Fuel”

    Meanwhile, in her welcoming remarks, H.E. Lerato D. Mataboge, Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy of the African Union Commission (AUC), described energy efficiency as “Africa’s first fuel,” emphasising its potential to deliver immediate, affordable, and tangible benefits. She highlighted that Africa faces a rapidly growing energy demand, with more than 70% of the population still living in energy poverty and energy consumption productivity lagging global standards.

    Energy efficiency represents the fastest and most affordable tool at our disposal to expand access, stabilise power systems, and unlock sustainable growth in Africa,” said Commissioner Mataboge. “Across our power systems, transport networks, industries, buildings, agriculture, and appliances, energy efficiency measures can unlock billions in savings, strengthen African economies, and cut carbon emissions while enabling universal access to modern energy.”

    The Commissioner also welcomed the operationalisation of the African Energy Efficiency Alliance (AfEEA), first launched at COP29, as a platform to foster knowledge sharing, policy advocacy, research, and investment for energy efficiency programmes across Africa.

    H.E. Kassahun Gofe Balami, Minister of Trade and Regional Integration of Ethiopia, underscored the role of energy efficiency in advancing Africa’s economic integration and renewable energy transition. He noted Ethiopia’s flagship projects, including the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and regional interconnections supplying power to neighbouring countries, as part of its commitment to a climate-resilient energy transition.

    “Africa has immense, untapped potential. Sustainable energy must be taken as a serious project to enable seamless trade, investment, and regional integration across the continent,” said Minister Balami.

    High-Level Ministerial Panel and the African Energy Efficiency Facility

    The conference featured a ministerial panel with representatives from South Africa, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Togo, Liberia, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, and Seychelles, who shared national experiences, innovative policies, and immediate needs to scale energy efficiency across sectors.

    In addition, the African Energy Efficiency Facility (AfEEF) was presented as a key tool to mobilise finance, harmonise policies, and strengthen capacity for implementation of energy efficiency measures.

    Launch of the African Energy Transition Strategy

    The conference also saw the launch of the  African Energy Transition Strategy and Action Plan (ETSAP), a continental roadmap to advance a just and inclusive energy transition. The strategy emphasizes clean cooking, cross-border energy trading, energy efficiency, innovation, and capacity development, setting the foundation for multi-billion-dollar investments across Member States.

    The AfEEC concluded with a delivery of a communique reaffirming a collective commitment to advancing energy efficiency initiatives across the electricity, industry, buildings, transport, agriculture and household appliances sub-sectors. The conference reiterated Africa’s target set out in the AfEES to increase the continent’s energy productivity by 50% by 2050 and 70% by 2063 as part of the global pledge to double energy efficiency improvements by 2030.

     

    Notes to Editors:

    The African Energy Commission (AFREC) is a specialized agency of the African Union responsible for coordinating and harmonizing energy policy development and implementation across the continent. AFREC’s mission is to work with AU member states to promote sustainable energy development through capacity building, data systems, and strategic partnerships.

    The African Energy Efficiency Conference follows the adoption of the African Energy Efficiency Strategy and Action Plan (AfEES), endorsed by the African Union Executive Council earlier this year. AfEES outlines over 100 actions across the power, industry, transport, buildings, and agriculture sectors, setting Africa on track to improve energy productivity by 50% by 2050 and 70% by 2063.

     

    For Media Inquiries: 

    Mr. George Sichinga | Communication Officer | African Energy Commission | African Union Commission E-mail: SichingaG@africanunion.org

    Ms. Bezayit Eyoel | Information Analyst | Department of Infrastructure and Energy | African Union Commission E-mail: BezayitE@africanunion.org

    Mr. Gamal A. Karrar | Senior Communication Officer | Information and Communication Directorate | African Union Commission E-mail: GamalK@africanunion.org

     

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  • NVIDIA Debuts Nemotron 3 Family of Open Models

    NVIDIA Debuts Nemotron 3 Family of Open Models

    News Summary:

    • The Nemotron 3 family of open models — in Nano, Super and Ultra sizes — introduces the most efficient family of open models with leading accuracy for building agentic AI applications.
    • Nemotron 3 Nano delivers 4x higher throughput than Nemotron 2 Nano and delivers the most tokens per second for multi-agent systems at scale through a breakthrough hybrid mixture-of-experts architecture.
    • Nemotron achieves superior accuracy from advanced reinforcement learning techniques with concurrent multi-environment post-training at scale.
    • NVIDIA is the first to release a collection of state-of-the-art open models, training datasets and reinforcement learning environments and libraries for building highly accurate, efficient, specialized AI agents.

     

    NVIDIA today announced the NVIDIA Nemotron™ 3 family of open models, data and libraries designed to power transparent, efficient and specialized agentic AI development across industries.

    The Nemotron 3 models — with Nano, Super and Ultra sizes — introduce a breakthrough hybrid latent mixture-of-experts (MoE) architecture that helps developers build and deploy reliable multi-agent systems at scale.

    As organizations shift from single-model chatbots to collaborative multi-agent AI systems, developers face mounting challenges, including communication overhead, context drift and high inference costs. In addition, developers require transparency to trust the models that will automate their complex workflows. Nemotron 3 directly addresses these challenges, delivering the performance and openness customers need to build specialized, agentic AI.

    “Open innovation is the foundation of AI progress,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “With Nemotron, we’re transforming advanced AI into an open platform that gives developers the transparency and efficiency they need to build agentic systems at scale.”

    NVIDIA Nemotron supports NVIDIA’s broader sovereign AI efforts, with organizations from Europe to South Korea adopting open, transparent and efficient models that allow them to build AI systems aligned to their own data, regulations and values.

    Early adopters, including Accenture, Cadence, CrowdStrike, Cursor, Deloitte, EY, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Palantir, Perplexity, ServiceNow, Siemens, Synopsys and Zoom, are integrating models from the Nemotron family to power AI workflows across manufacturing, cybersecurity, software development, media, communications and other industries.

    “NVIDIA and ServiceNow have been shaping the future of AI for years, and the best is yet to come,” Bill McDermott, chairman and CEO of ServiceNow. “Today, we’re taking a major step forward in empowering leaders across all industries to fast-track their agentic AI strategy. ServiceNow’s intelligent workflow automation combined with NVIDIA Nemotron 3 will continue to define the standard with unmatched efficiency, speed and accuracy.”

    As multi-agent AI systems expand, developers are increasingly relying on proprietary models for state-of-the-art reasoning while using more efficient and customizable open models to drive down costs. Routing tasks between frontier-level models and Nemotron in a single workflow gives agents the most intelligence while optimizing tokenomics.

    “Perplexity is built on the idea that human curiosity will be amplified by accurate AI built into exceptional tools, like AI assistants,” said Aravind Srinivas, CEO of Perplexity. “With our agent router, we can direct workloads to the best fine-tuned open models, like Nemotron 3 Ultra, or leverage leading proprietary models when tasks benefit from their unique capabilities — ensuring our AI assistants operate with exceptional speed, efficiency and scale.”

    The open Nemotron 3 models enable startups to build and iterate faster on AI agents and accelerate innovation from prototype to enterprise deployment. General Catalyst and Mayfield’s portfolio companies are exploring Nemotron 3 to build AI teammates that support human-AI collaboration.

    “NVIDIA’s open model stack and the NVIDIA Inception program give early-stage companies the models, tools and a cost-effective infrastructure to experiment, differentiate and scale fast,” said Navin Chaddha, managing partner at Mayfield. “Nemotron 3 gives founders a running start on building agentic AI applications and AI teammates, and helps them tap into NVIDIA’s massive installed base.”

    Nemotron 3 Reinvents Multi-Agent AI With Efficiency and Accuracy

    The Nemotron 3 family of MoE models includes three sizes:

    • Nemotron 3 Nano, a small, 30-billion-parameter model that activates up to 3 billion parameters at a time for targeted, highly efficient tasks.
    • Nemotron 3 Super, a high-accuracy reasoning model with approximately 100 billion parameters and up to 10 billion active per token, for multi-agent applications.
    • Nemotron 3 Ultra, a large reasoning engine with about 500 billion parameters and up to 50 billion active per token, for complex AI applications.

    Available today, Nemotron 3 Nano is the most compute-cost-efficient model, optimized for tasks such as software debugging, content summarization, AI assistant workflows and information retrieval at low inference costs. The model uses a unique hybrid MoE architecture to deliver gains in efficiency and scalability.

    This design achieves up to 4x higher token throughput compared with Nemotron 2 Nano and reduces reasoning-token generation by up to 60%, significantly lowering inference costs. With a 1-million-token context window, Nemotron 3 Nano remembers more, making it more accurate and better capable of connecting information over long, multistep tasks.

    Artificial Analysis, an independent organization that benchmarks AI, ranked the model as the most open and efficient among models of the same size, with leading accuracy.

    Nemotron 3 Super excels at applications that require many collaborating agents to achieve complex tasks with low latency. Nemotron 3 Ultra serves as an advanced reasoning engine for AI workflows that demand deep research and strategic planning.

    Nemotron 3 Super and Ultra use NVIDIA’s ultraefficient 4-bit NVFP4 training format on the NVIDIA Blackwell architecture, significantly cutting memory requirements and speeding up training. This efficiency allows larger models to be trained on existing infrastructure without compromising accuracy relative to higher-precision formats.

    With the Nemotron 3 family of models, developers can choose the open model that is right-sized for their specific workloads, scaling from dozens to hundreds of agents while benefiting from faster, more accurate long-horizon reasoning for complex workflows.

    New Open Tools and Data for AI Agent Customization

    NVIDIA also released a collection of training datasets and state-of-the-art reinforcement learning libraries available to anyone building specialized AI agents.

    Three trillion tokens of new Nemotron pretraining, post-training and reinforcement learning datasets supply the rich reasoning, coding and multistep workflow examples needed to create highly capable, domain-specialized agents. The Nemotron Agentic Safety Dataset provides real-world telemetry to help teams evaluate and strengthen the safety of complex agent systems.

    To accelerate development, NVIDIA released the NeMo Gym and NeMo RL open-source libraries, which provide the training environments and post-training foundation for Nemotron models, along with NeMo Evaluator to validate model safety and performance. All tools and datasets are now available on GitHub and Hugging Face.

    Nemotron 3 is supported by LM Studio, llama.cpp, SGLang and vLLM. In addition, Prime Intellect and Unsloth are integrating NeMo Gym’s ready-to-use training environments directly into their workflows, giving teams faster, easier access to powerful reinforcement learning training.

    Get Started With NVIDIA Open Models

    Nemotron 3 Nano is available today on Hugging Face and through inference service providers including Baseten, DeepInfra, Fireworks, FriendliAI, OpenRouter and Together AI.

    Nemotron is offered on enterprise AI and data infrastructure platforms, including Couchbase, DataRobot, H2O.ai, JFrog, Lambda and UiPath. For customers on public clouds, Nemotron 3 Nano will be available on AWS via Amazon Bedrock (serverless) as well as supported on Google Cloud, CoreWeave, Crusoe, Microsoft Foundry, Nebius, Nscale and Yotta soon.

    Nemotron 3 Nano is available as an NVIDIA NIM™ microservice for secure, scalable deployment anywhere on NVIDIA-accelerated infrastructure for maximum privacy and control.

    Nemotron 3 Super and Ultra are expected to be available in the first half of 2026.

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  • Sucden and Mars announce five-year collaboration for advancing low-carbon, climate-resilient cocoa production

    Sucden and Mars announce five-year collaboration for advancing low-carbon, climate-resilient cocoa production

    Sucden and Mars announce five-year collaboration for advancing low-carbon, climate-resilient cocoa production on participating farms in the Dominican Republic and Ecuador 

    Aligned to Mars 2030 ambition to cut emissions across the entire business by 50% and to achieve Net Zero by 2050 (against a 2015 baseline), Mars’ new collaborations with suppliers target reducing the carbon footprint for cocoa whilst increasing productivity.  

    December 15, 2025 — Sucden (General Cocoa) and Mars, Incorporated are pleased to announce the launch of a five-year collaboration (2025-2029) aimed at advancing low-carbon, climate-resilient cocoa production in participating farms in the Dominican Republic and Ecuador. The project aims to bring together innovation, science-based reductions and farmer-centered approaches to drive meaningful greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions across the participating farms in the cocoa supply chain.  

    Collaboration on this project builds on a shared commitment between the companies to help minimize the environmental footprint of cocoa production while helping farmers improve their yields. The program activities will encourage participating farmers to adopt climate-smart agricultural practices such as use of improved planting materials, low carbon fertilizers, aerobic composting and other agroforestry practices which are aimed at helping enhance productivity and soil health, reduce GHG emissions and increase yields for cocoa farmers.

    Sucden’s technical partners will support the project’s design and monitoring through advanced modeling tools and field-based assessments to quantify emission reductions and measure long-term environmental impact.

    Over the next five years, the program aims to help hundreds of farmers across priority regions in the Dominican Republic and Ecuador produce cocoa on 5,250 of hectares using improved agroforestry practices that align with Mars’ GHG reduction targets and Sucden’s commitment to regenerative supply chains.

    “The world we want tomorrow starts with how we do business today, and we can only achieve our sustainability ambitions by working with like-minded value-chain partners. That’s why Mars is working with suppliers to help build a deforestation and conversion-free cocoa supply chain. This collaboration with Sucden aims to encourage farmers to implement practices in Latin America that can help increase their yields while reducing our supply chain emissions—helping deliver mutual benefits for farmers, suppliers and Mars,” said Pedro Amaral, Associate Director, Head of Cocoa Climate Sustainability. “Taking action to embed sustainability efforts through collaborations with suppliers like this one aligns with our vision to help create a more modern, inclusive and sustainable cocoa ecosystem.”

    “Addressing the climate challenges facing cocoa today demands coordinated action and specialized capabilities. Sucden brings deep on-the-ground experience in cocoa production systems, farmer engagement and sustainability program delivery – capabilities that are essential to implementing complex, multi-year climate initiatives,” said Charlotte Demuijnck, Sucden Global Cocoa Program Manager. “Through our strategic partnership with Mars, we aim to deliver robust, science-based interventions that support farmers, reduce emissions and strengthen the long-term resilience of the cocoa supply chain in Ecuador and the Dominican Republic.”

    Raw ingredients account for 65% of the total GHG emissions from Mars’ snacking portfolio. The collaboration on this project aims to drive measurable reductions in GHG emissions in the participating farms in the cocoa supply chain. If the agroforestry techniques on this project prove to be effective and scalable across the wider cocoa supply chain, they may play a meaningful role in helping Mars achieve its larger sustainability targets, outlined in the Mars Net Zero Roadmap, to cut GHG emissions by 50% and to achieve net zero GHG emissions across the company’s full value chain by 2050 (as measured in each case against a 2015 baseline).  

    Contact:
    Caitlyn Camacho
    caitlyn.camacho@effem.com 

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  • CrowdStrike Announces GA of Falcon AIDR to Secure AI Attack Surface

    CrowdStrike Announces GA of Falcon AIDR to Secure AI Attack Surface

    With unified AI prompt-layer protection, CrowdStrike secures enterprise AI everywhere it happens – from development through workforce usage

    AUSTIN, Texas – December 15, 2025 – CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD) today announced the general availability of Falcon® AI Detection and Response (AIDR), extending the Falcon® platform to secure the fastest-growing attack surface in the AI era: the AI prompt and agent interaction layer. With Falcon AIDR, CrowdStrike delivers the industry’s first unified platform that secures every layer of enterprise AI – data, models, agents, identities, infrastructure, and interactions – from development through workforce usage. 

    “Prompt injection is a frontier security problem. Adversaries are injecting hidden instructions into GenAI tools to weaponize the very systems transforming how work gets done,” said Michael Sentonas, president of CrowdStrike. “Falcon AIDR secures every prompt, response, and agent action in real time, extending the power of the Falcon platform to the interaction layer and delivering complete protection across our customers’ AI infrastructure.”

    Securing AI Development and Use Across the Enterprise

    CrowdStrike pioneered modern endpoint security with EDR and brings the same architectural advantage to AI with AIDR, protecting the interaction layer where AI systems reason, decide, and take action. Adversaries are targeting this layer, using hidden instructions to hijack agents, manipulate outcomes, and access sensitive data. Today, the AI interaction layer is the new attack surface and prompts are the new malware. Falcon AIDR delivers unified, real-time protection across development workflows and workforce AI usage, securing prompts, responses, and agent actions at enterprise scale.

    Falcon AIDR delivers unified visibility, governance, and enforcement across enterprise AI development and workforce usage through the following capabilities:

    • See AI Everywhere: Gain deep visibility into how employees use AI and how agents operate with runtime logs for compliance and investigations.
    • Block Prompt Injection Attacks: Stop prompt injection, jailbreaks, and unsafe content in real time, powered by intelligence from deep research on adversarial prompt datasets and 180+ known prompt injection techniques.
    • Stop Risky AI Use in Real Time: Block unsafe interactions, contain malicious agent actions, and enforce policy controls in real time.
    • Protect Sensitive Data: Automatically detect and block credentials, regulated data, and other sensitive information before it can reach models, agents, or external AI systems.
    • Accelerate Secure AI Innovation: Build secure applications and agents with built-in safeguards for developers, bringing AI innovation to market faster while reducing risk.



    Unified AI Security on the Falcon Platform


    With Falcon AIDR as part of the Falcon platform, CrowdStrike delivers a unified security model for AI, protecting everything from the environments where AI runs to the interaction layer where prompts and agents operate. Falcon provides end-to-end security for AI development and workforce use, giving organizations a single, unified approach to protecting AI at enterprise scale.

    Additional Resources

    • To learn more about Falcon AIDR, read our blog and visit here. 
    • To learn more about how CrowdStrike secures AI across the enterprise, visit here.
    • To register for the virtual AI Summit: Accelerating Secure AI Adoption and Development on January 21, 2026 (AMER), January 22 (APJ), or January 27 (EMEA), visit here.



    About CrowdStrike


    CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD), a global cybersecurity leader, has redefined modern security with the world’s most advanced cloud-native platform for protecting critical areas of enterprise risk – endpoints and cloud workloads, identity and data.

    Powered by the CrowdStrike Security Cloud and world-class AI, the CrowdStrike Falcon® platform leverages real-time indicators of attack, threat intelligence, evolving adversary tradecraft and enriched telemetry from across the enterprise to deliver hyper-accurate detections, automated protection and remediation, elite threat hunting and prioritized observability of vulnerabilities.

    Purpose-built in the cloud with a single lightweight-agent architecture, the Falcon platform delivers rapid and scalable deployment, superior protection and performance, reduced complexity and immediate time-to-value.

    CrowdStrike: We stop breaches.

    Learn more: https://www.crowdstrike.com/

    Follow us: Blog | X | LinkedIn | Instagram

    Start a free trial today: https://www.crowdstrike.com/trial

    © 2025 CrowdStrike, Inc. All rights reserved. CrowdStrike and CrowdStrike Falcon are marks owned by CrowdStrike, Inc. and are registered in the United States and other countries. CrowdStrike owns other trademarks and service marks and may use the brands of third parties to identify their products and services.

    Media Contact

    Jake Schuster

    CrowdStrike Corporate Communications

    press@crowdstrike.com

     



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  • The Global Success of SAP Business One

    The Global Success of SAP Business One

    In the business world, scale shapes every decision. For smaller companies, the path to growth is rarely paved with the same stones as their larger counterparts. Their requirements are distinct and often more immediate; they need solutions that are nimble and adaptable.

    Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, the SAP Business One solution was designed to empower small businesses and the lower midmarket with an ERP solution that can grow with them and meet their evolving needs as they grow and prosper.

    Introducing SAP Business One

    Today, more than 83,000 customers and 1.2 million users across more than 170 countries rely on SAP Business One, supported by a global network of 850 partners and over 500 industry and country-specific extensions.

    Experience a single, affordable ERP solution for managing your entire company

    “It’s designed to be easy to start with,” said Darius Heydarian, head of Partner Solution Enablement SAP Business One. “Organizations can begin with just a single user and scale up as their needs grow, whether that means adding more people, locations, or subsidiaries.” The solution can adapt to how smaller organizations work, offering both quick setups for remote sites and coordinated rollouts across regions. It helps provide a modern, browser-based experience and can integrate smoothly with SAP’s analytic solutions and automation tools.

    The role of partners

    SAP recently reaffirmed the strategic importance of SAP Business One within the SAP solution portfolio. SAP Chief Partner Officer Karl Fahrbach emphasized SAP’s continued commitment to SAP Business One, highlighting the crucial role of the partner ecosystem: “SAP continues to invest in the future of SAP Business One. Our partner ecosystem remains at the heart of this success—driving autonomy, resilience, growth, and winning new customers every day.”

    Partners play a central role in the SAP Business One ecosystem. SAP works closely with a vast network of partners that are experts in implementing and supporting SAP Business One. These partners have the expertise to tailor solutions to each customer’s specific requirements, whether it’s industry functionality, localization, or regulatory compliance.

    “Partners also contribute to the extensibility of SAP Business One, developing extensions and industry solutions that help customers address unique challenges,” Heydarian said. The collaboration between SAP and its partners helps ensure that customers benefit from both SAP’s technology and the specialized knowledge of local experts.

    Customers in scope

    “Recently, one of our partners shared a customer example with me that perfectly reflects the nature of companies in the market segment we are targeting with SAP Business One,” Heydarian said. “The business had three employees when they started using the solution. Over the years, they expanded and employ 250 people today—without outgrowing their software platform.”

    A typical SAP Business One customer is a small or midsize company looking for an affordable, flexible, and scalable ERP solution. These organizations often need to manage a range of business functions—from accounting and financials to purchasing, inventory, sales, customer relationships, and reporting—all in one place. SAP Business One helps them gain control, streamline processes, and make strategic decisions based on real-time information.

    The solution is customizable to meet evolving business needs and supports international expansion with 28 languages and 50 country-specific localizations. Local support is provided by over 850 partners, helping to ensure that customers can get help tailored to their specific requirements.

    “We are proud of the fact that SAP Business One is part of SAP’s solution portfolio,” Heydarian said. “Three thousand net-new customers choose SAP Business One every year. On average, 10 customers select SAP Business One every day.”


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  • New Site Agreement signed for BASF SE at the Ludwigshafen Site

    The management and employee representatives of BASF SE have today concluded a new site agreement with the title “Shaping the Future for a Strong Site.” The agreement is intended to run for five years. It will initially apply for three years, from January 1, 2026, to December 31, 2028, for employees of BASF SE at the Ludwigshafen site. It will automatically be extended by a further two years if the agreed targets for restoring profitability are achieved.

    The new site agreement addresses the current challenges facing the chemical industry. In an economically and geopolitically challenging environment, the agreement focuses on the competitiveness and adaptability of the site. It lays the foundation for structural changes, protects employees from compulsory redundancies, and sends a strong signal for investment and partnership-based cooperation. Ludwigshafen remains central to BASF’s long-term success as its largest Verbund site.

    Key contents of the agreement: 

    • Job Security: BASF will refrain from compulsory redundancies for the duration of the agreement.
    • Investments: BASF will continue to invest in the Ludwigshafen site and further develop it to be Europe’s leading sustainable chemical site. BASF intends to invest around 2 billion euros annually in Ludwigshafen (at least 1.5 billion euros) to enable modernization and expansion of infrastructure, capacities, and the sustainable transformation of the site.
    • Transformation and Flexibility: The sustainable transformation and safeguarding of the site’s competitiveness will bring changes for all employees. This includes simplifying the organization, increasing flexibility, using digitalization and artificial intelligence for continuous productivity gains, and consistently focusing on sustainable cost optimization.
    • Modern Working Time Management: Working time management will be further developed, and digital tools will support personnel deployment.
    • Promotion of Performance and Development: The agreement promotes a performance culture and specifically focuses on the qualification and further development of employees. A shared understanding of learning as part of everyday work, modern learning formats and targeted qualification offerings ensure employability and the innovative strength of the workforce.
    • Health and Quality of Life: BASF invests in health programs and promotes individual preventive healthcare as well as mental health. BASF creates sustainable mobility solutions, such as expanding e-charging infrastructure and promoting the use of public transport. The company is also committed to education, equal opportunities and social cohesion in the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region.
    • Reliable Framework and transparent Communication: The agreement creates clear framework conditions for implementing the transformation and provides for regular reviews of its implementation. Management and the works council are committed to a solution-oriented dialogue.

    Katja Scharpwinkel, Member of the Board of Executive Directors and Industrial Relations Director, BASF SE:
    “The new site agreement is the result of constructive negotiations between management and employee representatives. It enables necessary changes and flexibility and supports the return to competitiveness at the Ludwigshafen site. At the same time, it provides guidance and reliability in an environment characterized by change. A period of at least three years without compulsory redundancies creates reliability for implementing our transformation projects.

    We will also continue to invest in Ludwigshafen – this shows that the site has a future, and our employees make a decisive contribution with their expertise and experience.”

    Sinischa Horvat, Chairman of the Works Council, BASF SE:
    “The tough negotiations were worth it: The central importance of the Ludwigshafen site with production, research and development, marketing, specialist departments, infrastructure and services is ensured by concrete investments, and employees are protected from compulsory redundancies during the term of the agreement. Given the persistent structural and economic challenges, this outcome was is by no means a foregone conclusion. But in the end, it is a clear commitment to the site, to the employees – who are the key to success – and an expression of confidence that together we can get BASF SE back on track for success. When we start 2026, our minds will again be able to focus on the major structural challenges we need to tackle.”

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  • The store that sells your lost luggage

    The store that sells your lost luggage

    Inside, racks of clothes – divided by category, size and gender – extended out of sight across the store’s football field-sized expanse. A cornucopia of other peoples’ dresses, shorts, suits, gowns, belts, hats, skirts, scarves, jeans, puffy coats, activewear, T-shirts and silk pyjamas surrounded display cases of rings, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, watches, sunglasses, perfume and cufflinks. The mezzanine was dedicated to lost phones, headphones, chargers, gaming systems, e-readers, tablets, laptops and cameras. Elsewhere, shelves were stuffed with sneakers, wingtips, boots, pumps, slippers and flip-flops.

    Oh, and the brands. Unlike thrift stores, which are filled with items their owners no longer want, Unclaimed Baggage’s merchandise comes from travellers who – according to Jennifer Kritner, the company’s vice president of retail and company culture – often pack their trendiest belongings for their holiday. Consequently, hunters dug through rows filled with Patagonia, Burberry, Rolex, Apple, Cartier, Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Bulgari items. 

    Kritner joined me as I wandered through the store. When we found ourselves in front of a wall of wedding dresses, I asked her about the emotions and personal connections associated with the inventory surrounding us.

    Jessica Parrillo Unclaimed Baggage is kind of like the opposite of a thrift store (Credit: Jessica Parrillo)Jessica Parrillo
    Unclaimed Baggage is kind of like the opposite of a thrift store (Credit: Jessica Parrillo)

    “We all lose [things] sometimes,” said Kritner, who is also director of the company’s Reclaimed for Good Foundation, which gives about one-third of incoming items to charitable organisations. “Our goal is to do the best with what comes in… some [items] are sold, some are donated to those in need and some are recycled. But they all receive a second life. The question, really, is: ‘What is on the other side of loss?’.” She paused. “Being found.” 

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  • Council on Sustainability Transformation calls for businesses to integrate transition planning into corporate strategy or risk missing commercial opportunities

    Council on Sustainability Transformation calls for businesses to integrate transition planning into corporate strategy or risk missing commercial opportunities

    The Council on Sustainability Transformation, a group of leaders from corporations, governments, and academia convened by ERM, has launched a new white paper warning that without integrated climate-and nature-focused transition plans, companies risk undermining long-term value, while missing opportunities to build resilience and unlock new sources of commercial growth.

    Aligning Climate, Nature, and Markets outlines how today’s business leaders can move beyond siloed, short-term operating models by embedding climate and nature considerations into strategic decision-making, capital allocation, and day-to-day operations.

    It underscores the urgency for corporates to act, noting how accelerating climate and nature degradation is already resulting in supply-chain disruption, widening insurance gaps, and rising capital costs across sectors. At the same time, it shows that companies that move early to integrate climate and nature into core strategy can address these market risks to protect enterprise value and drive competitive advantage.

    The paper’s key recommendations to help companies move decisively from ambition to action include:

    • Identify and quantify material impacts, risks, and opportunities across climate and nature with CFO-grade rigor, using tools such as scenario analysis, natural capital accounting, and true cost accounting to inform investment decisions and strengthen business resilience.
    • Prioritize local action informed by global goals, ensuring that corporate climate and nature ambitions translate into targeted strategies grounded in robust local data. This approach should be guided in the short-term by particular pressure points facing businesses such as water scarcity, land use, and biodiversity loss.
    • Complement internal action with external momentum building. Actions include forging partnerships and coalitions to amplify impact, reduce risks, and unlock new sources of value across sectors, while also educating investors and engaging policymakers to help shape an environment that harnesses climate and nature opportunities for long-term value creation.

    Sabine Hoefnagel, ERM’s Global Leader of Sustainability & Risk, said: “We are now at a point where climate and nature risks are material, accelerating, and already reshaping markets. However, this white paper sets out how those companies taking action to integrate climate and nature into their core strategies are not only mitigating risk, they are capturing new value while building the foundations for long-term growth.

    “Leaders that invest in robust transition planning, align global ambition with local action, and work collectively with investors, policymakers, and peers will be far better positioned for the volatility ahead. As the paper makes clear, delay isn’t a neutral act—it’s  a gamble that companies can’t afford to lose”.

    This paper is the third in a series of white papers from the Council, with the first paper providing recommendations to business leaders on company-investor engagement as a catalyst for climate action, and the second helping business leaders rethink their sustainability strategies to build resilience and drive growth in the face of geopolitical, economic, and societal turbulence. All Council white papers are available for download here.

    About the Council on Sustainability Transformation

    Convened by ERM, the Council marshals the extensive experience of its members across industries to provide C-suite executives and board members with practical guidance on how to tackle obstacles to progress on ambitious sustainability targets, while preserving and growing financial value.

    The Council members are:

    • Peter Agnefjäll, former CEO of IKEA Group, former Chair of Ahold Delhaize
    • Mark Cutifani, former CEO of Anglo American
    • Connie Hedegaard, former EU Commissioner for Climate Action
    • Naoko Ishii, former CEO and Chairperson, Global Environment Facility
    • Hixonia Nyasulu, former Chair of Sasol, current board member of Anglo American
    • Feike Sijbesma, former CEO of Royal DSM, current Chair of Philips
    • Johannes Teyssen, former CEO of E.ON

    About ERM

    Sustainability is our business.

    As the world’s largest specialist sustainability consultancy, ERM partners with clients to operationalize sustainability at pace and scale, deploying a unique combination of strategic transformation and technical delivery capabilities. This approach helps clients to accelerate the integration of sustainability at every level of their business.

    With more than 50 years of experience, ERM’s diverse team of 8000+ experts in 40 countries and territories helps clients create innovative solutions to their sustainability challenges, unlocking commercial opportunities that meet the needs of today while preserving opportunity for future generations.  Learn more here.   

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  • Teneo Vision 2026 | CEO and Investor Outlook Survey

    Teneo Vision 2026 | CEO and Investor Outlook Survey

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