Politics

Daniel Bowen, via Flickr by Rona Fried, via Sustainable Business Having a green certified home adds 9% to its appraised sales value in California, finds a new study. The study is the first rigorous, large-scale economic analysis of the value of green home labels in California and was conducted by state university professors. Researchers conducted a pricing analysis of all 1.6 million single-family home sales in California from 2007-2012, controlling for all other variables that typically influence selling price, such as location, size, age and amenities. They documented that homes labeled with Energy Star, LEED or Greenpoint Rated (California’s label) sell for a premium of 9% compared to average similar homes. The average sales price of a non-certified California home is $400,000. Green certification raises the price by more than $34,800. Interesting that the sales premium is greater than the cost of the green features people are paying for and it’s greater than resulting utility sav...

Ingrid is a reporter for TechCrunch, joining February 2012, based out of London. She comes from paidContent.org, where she was a staff writer, and has in the past also written freelance regularly for other publications such as the Financial Times. Ingrid covers mobile, digital media, advertising and the spaces where these intersect. When it comes to work, she feels most... ? Learn More Apple often gets a lot of love in Europe, but in the last quarter that wasn’t enough to help it against the tide of economic woe hitting the region. In today’s Q3 earnings call, CEO Tim Cook described sales in the region as “essentially flat to slightly positive” — and, not unlike the wider macro-economy, “that really hampered our total results.” Specifically, he noted that France, Greece and Italy were “particularly poor”, and Germany saw “only single digital positive growth.” Interestingly, the UK seemed immune to this situation and posted a “solid” 13 percent growth rate. Overall, though, the perfor...

Ingrid is a reporter for TechCrunch, joining February 2012, based out of London. She comes from paidContent.org, where she was a staff writer, and has in the past also written freelance regularly for other publications such as the Financial Times. Ingrid covers mobile, digital media, advertising and the spaces where these intersect. When it comes to work, she feels most... ? Learn More Apple today noted in its earnings call for Q3 that two-thirds of its Asia Pacific revenue is coming from Greater China at the moment. CEO Tim Cook noted that revenues in the country were $5.7 billion for the quarter, 48 percent increase on last year, and still growing at an “incredible rate.” To date Apple’s revenues in China for the year now total $12.4 billion. To compare, in 2011 the company made $13.3 billion in China. Nevertheless, Asia Pacific was actually the only region where Apple saw declines in hardware sales in Macs. These were down to 593,000 units, four percent year on year in terms of Ma...

Ingrid is a reporter for TechCrunch, joining February 2012, based out of London. She comes from paidContent.org, where she was a staff writer, and has in the past also written freelance regularly for other publications such as the Financial Times. Ingrid covers mobile, digital media, advertising and the spaces where these intersect. When it comes to work, she feels most... ? Learn More In today’s Q3 earnings, Apple noted some strong increases in its retail operations, amid some other pressures in overall sales and numbers. Retail sales were up three percent in terms of Mac units, to 791,000 units, and $4.084 billion in revenue. That was a rise of three percent in terms of units, and 17 percent in revenue compared to the same quarter a year ago. In the conference call, CFO Peter Oppenheimer noted that half of the sales in retail were to people who had never owned a mac before. Apple now has 372 stores, 123 outside the U.S., Oppenheimer said. Those stores saw foot traffic of 813 millio...

Ingrid is a reporter for TechCrunch, joining February 2012, based out of London. She comes from paidContent.org, where she was a staff writer, and has in the past also written freelance regularly for other publications such as the Financial Times. Ingrid covers mobile, digital media, advertising and the spaces where these intersect. When it comes to work, she feels most... ? Learn More ARM Holdings — supplier of microchips for Apple’s iPhone and iPad products, Samsung’s Galaxy line and soon technology for Microsoft’s Windows 8 devices — continues to report strong results while riding the wireless device boom and expanding to newer areas. The company reported Q2 earnings (ended June 30) of £135.5 million ($213 million), beating analyst estimates of $206 million. Net profit was up by 48 percent, to £39.4 million compared to £26.6 million for the same quarter a year ago. Pointedly, the company is gearing up for continuing good fortune, at least for the next quarter: It says it has a “re...