Latest news with #BenLee
Reuters
a day ago
- Business
- Reuters
Britain facing race to avoid $1 billion in EU carbon tax costs
LONDON/BRUSSELS, June 2 (Reuters) - Britain will struggle to link its carbon market to the EU's in just seven months, to avoid UK companies facing the bloc's carbon border tariff and annual bills around 800 million pounds ($1.08 billion) from next year, market experts have said. Billed as part of a "reset" in relations after Britain's 2016 exit from the European Union, the two sides announced last month they will link their carbon emissions trading systems by the end of the year. But neither side has set a timeframe or detailed the work that must be done to make this happen before January, when Europe's carbon border tax kicks in. "It's probably still likely to take many years before linkage takes effect. The earliest is 2028, but it's more likely to be 2029 or even 2030," said Ben Lee, senior emissions analyst at Energy Aspects. The UK government said a key upside of linking to the EU's carbon market, or emissions trading system (ETS), is to avoid businesses being hit by the EU's carbon border tariff - which, starting next year, will impose fees on the CO2 emissions associated with imports of steel, cement and other goods. The UK government said avoiding these costs would save 800 million pound a year. But EU officials say to get exempted from the carbon border levy, Britain would need to have linked its carbon market to the EU's. "Full linkage will take several years given the complexity of the process, purely from a technical perspective," ClearBlue carbon market analyst Yan Qin said, adding that an "optimistic" scenario could see the link forged in 2027. A spokesperson for the British government said it will seek to agree a carbon market link as soon as is feasible. "We will not provide a running commentary on the progress of negotiations," they said. To make a link happen, the UK needs to adjust its national rules for issuing carbon trading permits, bring its emissions permit auctions in line with EU rules, and change its national cap on how much companies covered by the carbon market can emit. That's not all. The EU and UK schemes are also not yet aligned on how many free CO2 permits they give industries. And the EU carbon market has a special "reserve" which adds or removes permits from the market to help stabilise prices. Britain's scheme currently lacks a "reserve", though it has a cost containment mechanism that can act as a ceiling on prices, something the EU scheme does not have. "Resolving the question of a supply adjustment mechanism will likely be one of the technical calibrations that will need to be in place before the two systems can link," said Veyt senior analyst Ingvild Sorhus. Some businesses argue these issues are technically straightforward to resolve. "With the right political will, an ETS linking agreement between the EU and UK could be signed within 6 months, and operational by 2028," said Alistair McGirr, Head of Policy and Advocacy at British energy firm SSE. Industry group Energy UK said linkage negotiations could conclude within a year - but that Britain should seek an exemption from the EU carbon border levy until the link is sealed, in case talks drag into 2026. "It is a question not of major political roadblocks, but primarily of technical processes ... I'm not saying these are small problems, but they are simply not intractable problems," Energy UK Policy Director Adam Berman said, of the changes needed to allow the link. The UK plans to launch its own carbon border tariff a year later, in 2027. Brussels may be in less of a hurry. Britain's carbon market is less than a tenth of the size of the EU's, so a link would see British businesses gain access to a much more liquid market. The upside for the EU is less clear - although EU officials cite the bloc's aim to expand carbon pricing internationally, to ensure as many countries as possible put a price on greenhouse gas emissions. Companies also say the move would avoiding competitive distortions and reduce costs for both EU and UK consumers. Pascal Canfin, a French lawmaker in the European Parliament, said the upsides for Britain were more obvious than for the EU. "It's a political move," said Canfin, of the EU's motivation. "The UK was within [the EU] ETS before. I mean, it's not such a big deal to have it again." ($1 = 0.7387 pounds)
Business Insider
6 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Marc Benioff-backed influencer agency Whalar Group is buying a creator startup for $20 million as M&A ramps up
Influencer agency Whalar Group is expanding its education tools and offerings for creators by acquiring the platform Business of Creativity in a deal worth $20 million, the company told Business Insider. The acquisition is the influencer marketing and talent management company's first since Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and other investors bought a stake in the company at a $400 million valuation earlier this month. Whalar Group has not disclosed the size of that investment. Business of Creativity hosts online courses run by marketing and advertising industry leaders. The UK-based startup was founded in 2022 by Ben Lee, Immy Groome, and advertising veteran John Hegarty, who is an investor in Whalar Group and has been its chairman since 2017. The broader creator economy recorded a flurry of mergers and acquisitions since 2024. Publicis Groupe announced in July that it was buying influencer marketing company Influential and earlier this month acquired a similar company, Captiv8. VidCon, one of the creator industry's largest events, was bought by the UK media firm Informa in 2024. In October, Whalar Group also acquired Sixteenth, a talent management firm. Business of Creativity is Whalar Group's third acquisition to date. "It feels like our industry has gone from the fringe to a boardroom priority," Whalar Group co-CEO Neil Waller said about the creator economy. "It's just part of mainstream culture now, given the level of professionalism, the level of consumption, the level of impact that it has on building and shaping culture." Waller said he expects more M&A deals in the creator economy as the space matures and consolidates further. Whalar Group's acquisition of Business of Creativity is meant to help the company roll out more courses and events, particularly in the US. "We've done things with creators in the past, but primarily our audience has been speaking to businesses," Business of Creativity's CEO Ben Lee said. "As we roll out future courses, there's definitely going to be one specifically around best practices, how large companies can work with creators." Lee pointed to a recent example of an event Whalar Group and Business of Creativity hosted at Whalar Group's Los Angeles-based creator hub, The Lighthouse, where chief marketing officers and creators got together. Waller thinks that education, through courses and other events, will have a lasting impact on the sustainability of the creator economy. He described the Lighthouse as a "college campus that we built to help creators learn," which has brought in partners from brands to Hollywood to athletes. "Through this, we gain learnings of how creators could potentially also build their own courses for their audiences," Waller said. "We're learning about this side of the business as well."
South China Morning Post
7 days ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Makers of surprise Hong Kong hit movie ‘Four Trails' in talks over worldwide distribution
The makers of a documentary about one of the world's toughest trail races that is set in Hong Kong said they were in talks to distribute their movie globally after it became a surprise hit. Four Trails showcases the gruelling 298-kilometre (185-mile) Hong Kong Four Trails Ultra Challenge, and a select group of trail runners who have bravely attempted it. Since its theatrical release in December, the 101-minute-long movie has pulled in more than HK$10 million (US$1.3 million) in box office receipts, making it the second-highest-grossing documentary film ever released in Hong Kong. The movie has also earned a growing list of accolades, including the Audience Choice Award at the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival and Best New Director Award at the Hong Kong Film Awards. 'Four Trails' film-makers at a Q&A session at Premiere Elements cinema last December. Photo: Jonathan Wong The plan, said Hong Kong-based brothers Robin Lee, who was the film's director, and Ben Lee, who produced it, was 'to get it out as far and as wide as possible'. 'We have conversations happening with sales agents and a distributor in the US,' Ben Lee said. 'Same in the UK. It's going into the Shanghai International Film Festival later this year in June. Hopefully out of that we can find some theatrical release in China.'
News.com.au
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
‘You'll never guess who'll be offended': Ione Skye on what she learned from sharing her Hollywood stories in a tell-all book
She led a wild-child life at the centre of Hollywood's 1990s celebrity storm, then this year published a no-holds-barred memoir, Say Everything. Now actress IONE SKYE, married to Australian musician Ben Lee, reveals what she has learned from sharing her story. I had just moved to Sydney when I got the book deal. I retreated to my 'office' to write – my bed. What surprised me most was how much I loved the work itself. I had time. I had space. I let myself fall in. I'd set the mood with music, then reach into memory and write about my past, shaped by the strange comfort of this new bed, in a new room, in a new Sydney life I was slowly coming to inhabit. Somewhere between the old and the new, I found myself again. And I found a new me. Some of these stories I'd been writing since I was a kid, especially my early teens – when films, music, and my older brothers' fascinating friends began to seep into my consciousness. Of course, I knew it was not the usual teen experience for my first crushes to be on actors I actually knew like Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix – or that my first real relationship was with an older, drug-addicted singer from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I understood that what made my life extraordinary was why people were interested in my story. Yes, I was technically what is now called a 'nepo baby' with a house that sometimes had famous people in and out of the front door. But despite all this I still had the big feelings of a poetic shy kid and then the desires of a hot-blooded high-schooler. I always believed there was something universal in my story, about the experience of young women growing up everywhere. The idea of writing my memoir thrilled me. I like to delight people and shock people. I am a needy entertainer at the end of the day. I like attention. I like being adored. But I can never quite sit still with the idea that someone might not – which was an inconvenient contradiction when I started to write a memoir. How to deal with my aching need to make everyone happy? Might it even hurt some people? My editor told me: 'You'll never guess who'll be offended by your memoir – or what will set them off.' She was right. The moment an early chapter mysteriously popped up on Page Six, I got an email from a once-beloved relative-by-marriage. I was shaken reading the rough message they sent, full of condescension and scolding. They insisted the whole project was 'beneath' me. I was irate. I had believed they were in the small group of my closest friends and family who really knew me, knew I would write a great memoir. I tried to explain. Didn't my old mentor know me at all? I'd counted them among the few who truly understood my sensibility – and my kindness. I tried to reassure them, but they wouldn't budge. They were convinced I could produce nothing but something tawdry – nothing more. Instead of letting their doubt eat at me, my anger became a kind of fuel – a steady, stubborn motivation. I kept writing. I brought my Mom into my writing process early-ish, hoping that including her in the process would soften any blows that might come her way. 'Don't give me any creative notes,' I said, careful to protect the fragile nature of creating. 'But please let me know if anything I've included is off the table,' Mom finished the book close to the last edit. 'I love it,' she said. She was gushing. It was good. I felt it was – and that helped digest any hard parts. I'm not sure where I found the conviction that my way of seeing the world had value, if only to myself and the friends who really got me. We were amused by one another's stories we told over dinners, or as we sunk together on couches, or on hikes in the Hollywood Hills. What caught me completely off guard was the wave of love and support that has followed the book's release. People loved it. Friends, strangers, even people I have always admired and lost touch with. Winona Ryder, Evan Rachel Wood and Molly Ringwald all wrote to say they related to the book and felt seen by it. That made me genuinely happy, because they weren't just impressed. They felt more open, less alone, a little high on shared memories and experiences. I didn't expect the memoir to be one of the most profound experiences of my life. Flea told me it would be. Griffin Dunne too. Like parents talking to someone about to become a parent: 'You can't know. Not yet. Just wait.' They were right. It cracked me open in ways I didn't anticipate. It changed something fundamental in me. A friend told me, 'You wrote the book of our generation.' A ridiculously overblown compliment, obviously. What mattered wasn't whether the statement was objectively true. What mattered was that I had done the thing. I had summoned the nerve. I had gotten to a place in my life where I could handle what writing a memoir might kick up. I could even hold the possibility that it might not be good. That it might fail. And I did it anyway.
Russia Today
05-05-2025
- Science
- Russia Today
Swiss university secretly ran AI experiment to manipulate minds
A major Swiss university has come under fire for running a secret experiment on users of social media platform Reddit to test how artificial intelligence (AI) could be used to influence their opinions. The platform has said it is considering legal action. According to media reports, a group of researchers at the University of Zurich in recent months conducted an unauthorized study on r/ChangeMyView, one of Reddit's largest debate communities. The experiment involved AI chatbots posing as regular users and engaging in discussions on controversial issues. The bots, whose accounts have since been banned, posted more than 1,700 comments across the subreddit. They adopted fake identities such as a male rape victim downplaying the trauma of his assault, a Black man opposing the Black Lives Matter movement, and a domestic trauma counselor claiming the most vulnerable women were those 'sheltered by overprotective parents.' Another bot was used to scan user profiles and deliver personalized arguments in response. The researchers disclosed the experiment to subreddit moderators several months after it had taken place, calling it 'a disclosure step in the study.' In a statement posted last week, Reddit's moderator team has said the platform prohibits the use of undisclosed AI-generated content or bots. Reddit's chief legal officer, Ben Lee, said neither the company nor the r/ChangeMyView moderators had prior knowledge of what he called an 'improper and highly unethical experiment.' He added that Reddit was preparing formal legal demands to send to the University of Zurich and the researchers involved. The researchers said the study had been guided by principles of 'ethical' research and transparency. The university ethics committee had argued that the research had caused little harm. Still, users on the subreddit reacted with shock and anger over being unknowingly experimented on. The journal Science cited an emailed university statement as saying the researchers have decided not to publish the results. The university said it would investigate the incident. The use of AI bots – fake accounts designed to mimic real users – has grown steadily across social media platforms in recent years. Experts say they are increasingly used to shape public opinion, particularly around elections. Western governments, primarily the US and the UK, have long accused Russia of operating large-scale 'bot farms' to interfere in their election processes – accusations Moscow has repeatedly denied. However, some Western actors have come under scrutiny themselves for using bots in disinformation campaigns, while publicly warning about foreign interference.
