If youve proven your product on a pilot line, and its time to turn up real-world production, beware because many companies stumble on their first large-scale build.
Before you pour concrete or sign any equipment orders, look at the full landscape of challenges: engineering, supply chain, utilities, and the human relationships that hold it all together. Scaling up isnt as simple as adding another shift. Its multiplying everything you do by orders of magnitude.
Moving from pilot lots to commercial volumes often means a 1,000- to 10,000-fold jump in throughput, with megawatts of electrical load, and water usage that can rival a small town. Construction alone can run $300- to $950-per-square-foot before a single machine is installed on the floor. Miss the mark and the cost isnt just financial; its reputational. Schedule slips, lost customers, and bruised reputations follow fast.
To move from pilot line to production line with confidence, follow these four steps for a successful scale-up.
Master the process
First, nail down the process by mapping the critical quality parameters like temperature, humidity, pressure, cycle time, purity, and set hard limits for each. Then, stress test them, and challenge your R&D team better. Run design-of-experiments on the pilot line or in a digital model to reveal where small shifts can trigger big cost savings. For instance, one client learned that relaxing humidity from 1% to 5% would half HVAC tonnage and save millions in capital expenditures and operating expendituresproof that tiny tweaks can save a budget.
By truly grasping the process, you can size every supporting elementutilities, material flow, staffing, and automationas one integrated system rather than a patchwork of guesses. Capture the data, lock the findings into a concise process design package, and carry that document forward. When you know exactly what the process is, the next steps become simpler and cheaper.
Dont underestimate planning
Start with the end in mind by defining must-hit key performance metrics (KPIs) and assign a value to each. Look past day one, and sketch how the site should flex five, 10 or even 15 years out to ensure that any expansion wont require a new round of demolition. Build your budget around total cost of ownership because operating expenses usually eclipse capital expenses within the first few years.
Early in design, run what-if scenarios on power, water, logistics, and labor to see where small changes may unlock big lifetime savings. A solid plan also links directly to the process data you just captured, allowing you to size utilities, floor space, and headcount as one coherent ecosystem instead of a series of isolated line items. Always remember that good planning can overcome poor execution, but poor planning cant be overcome by the best project execution.
Find the right team
Scaling up succeeds or fails on people. Name a dedicated project leader with the authority to make fast decisions and free that person from the distractions of their current day job. Build a core owners team that blends operations, engineering, finance, with environmental, health, and safety, so that key decisions are vetted through multiple lenses in real time. When selecting outside partners, look for firms with proven scale-up experience and incentives that align with yours. Create mutually beneficial contracts that keep everyone rowing in the same direction.
Onboard partners early, regularly co-locate them physically or in a virtual war room, and encourage short, recurring stand-ups to surface issues before they become costly delays. A well-constructed, well-aligned team will turn your solid plan into an on-time, on-budget reality. The wrong team will burn through schedule, cash, and goodwill faster than any technical misstep.
Implement strong management
Once ground is broken, disciple becomes the differentiator. Put a seasoned program manager at the helm to own the master schedule, budget, and KPI dashboard. Resist the temptation to micromanage the process, rather schedule regular data-driven reviews that spotlight variances early while they are still cheap to fix. Pair that oversight with a formal management-of-change process, changes to scope, design, or materials routes through a single, transparent workflow that weights cost, timeline, safety, and regulatory impact before approval.
Finally, capture lessons learned in real-time, not at project closeout, so improvements feed straight back into construction and into future scale-ups. Strong, visible management turns a good team and a good plan into a plant that starts up on time and performs from day one.
Do these four things well, and your new facility wont merely open on schedule, it will deliver the throughput, quality, and cost profile that turns a promising idea into a market-shaping reality.
Mike Sewell is director of innovation at Gresham Smith.
Critical minerals underpin our countrys transition to energy dominance. These minerals are found in everything from battery storage to geothermal technology, nuclear energy, transportation, and more.Without critical minerals we cannot produce batteries, and without batteries we cannot power the devices we use every day in business and at home. Our reliance on batteries is only expected to increase. According to the International Energy Agency, global battery manufacturing capacity reached 3 terawatt-hours in 2024. The agency predicts that we could see another tripling of production in the next five years.For the United States to be a legitimate contender in this sector, we need to increase our access to critical minerals. This means diversifying our supply chains and becoming leading producers of these metals. To do this, we need to understand where and how our nation sources these materials. We also need to share the benefits of battery recycling as a primary source of these materials with a broader audience.
Opening new U.S. mines is challenging
The key metals that go into making rechargeable batteries are found in electronics, data energy storage systems, vehicles, tablets, and smartphones. Lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese are the primary materials found in rechargeable batteries.In the U.S., there is one active mine for lithium and one for nickel. There are no U.S. mines for cobalt and manganese, despite recent efforts to open a cobalt mine.Opening a new U.S. mine requires three key elements: financing that demonstrates a positive return, a high-quality resource with sufficient size and quality, and community support. Some projects have suspended operations due to failures in one or more of these areas.As a result, the U.S. relies heavily on lithium imports from mineral-rich countries like Australia, Chile, and China. The Democratic Republic of Congo leads in global cobalt production, with Australia, Brazil, and Indonesia possessing some of the largest nickel reserves.Cobalt can be very hard to find, and big deposits are rare. The Salmon River Mountains in Idaho have one of the only known deposits in the country. Lithium and nickel can be found across the country, and there are exploratory plans underway to open other mines but that is a long-term solution for establishing domestic supply chains
Battery recycling can provide critical minerals
In the short-term, the U.S. can turn to battery recycling to capture and refine a diverse range of critical minerals. Although the battery recycling sector has been around for decades, it has been under used as a compliment to mining and a strategic way to diversify and strengthen our domestic supply chains. Critical minerals must be mined and purified to create the electronic devices we use today so why not reuse these minerals over and over again.The Energy Department reported in 2023 that the United States had battery recycling facilities capable of reclaiming more than 35,000 tons of battery materials and that number is growing. With the current U.S. capacity to process and refine end-of-life batteries and manufacturing scrap into battery-grade materials to manufacture new batteries, we are already well positioned to increase our domestic supplies and keep the materials we already have within our borders.Battery recycling offers the U.S. an immediate opportunity to enhance its national security by strengthening our domestic supply chains. When we arent sourcing materials from foreign entities, we are less vulnerable to global disruptions. In the long-term, through battery recycling, we can increase our global competitiveness in the critical minerals industry by creating a closed-loop supply chain of these materials.The topic of critical minerals impacts a vast range of industries and is too important to not take immediate action. Battery recycling is a key component to securing our nations critical mineral independence and becoming a dominant player in onshoring critical mineral production and manufacturing.David Klanecky is CEO and President of Cirba Solutions
Climate change has many signalsrising sea levels, melting glaciers, stronger stormsbut the first and most immediate sign for most people on the planet is water. Not too much of it. Not too little. But both. At once.
Water scarcity stands as a leading indicator of climate change, demanding urgent attention. Water is no longer just a resource issue. Its not a next decade concern. Its a frontline climate challenge happening in real timeone that touches every aspect of life, industry, and geopolitics.
Many of the worlds most water-stressed regions are already experiencing the effects of intensifying water challenges. In these areas, the impacts are not theoreticaltheyre visible in the declining quality and reliability of water supplies, and in the growing urgency faced by the industries and communities that rely on them.
Water scarcity is climate change in action
Unlike carbon emissions, which are invisible and cumulative, water scarcity is visible, tangible, and immediate. It shows up in headlines and household faucets. It drives migration and market volatility. It disrupts food, energy, and technology supply chains.
Heres why water scarcity is the most compellingand overlookedindicator of climate change:
1. It hits the ground first
Before a factory floods or a forest burns, its often water that goes missing. Climate change alters rainfall patterns, accelerates droughts, and disrupts groundwater recharge. Rivers shrink. Reservoirs dry up. Aquifers are overdrawn.
In Chennai, India, a city of over 10 million, taps went dry in 2019 due to failed monsoons. In California, the combination of heat and drought has devastated agriculture and forced groundwater restrictions. In the Middle East, water scarcity is reshaping everything from food policy to regional diplomacy.
2. It connects every sector
Water is more than a utility cost. It is a critical input for energy, food, manufacturing, and technology. Without reliable water, you cant make semiconductors, produce vaccines, drill for oil, or grow wheat.
When water becomes scarce or unreliable, entire industries are forced to shut down or relocate. Companies face higher operating costs, lower yields, and increased reputational risk. This makes water scarcity not just an environmental concern, but core business and economic risks.
3. Its a local problem with global ripples
Unlike greenhouse gases, with global impacts, water scarcity is deeply local. It affects regions differently, based on climate, infrastructure, and population.
But the ripple effects are global. A water shortage in Taiwan can disrupt chip supplies in Detroit. Drought in Brazil can affect global food prices. Water stress in the Gulf can reshape energy strategy.
In this way, water scarcity localizes the climate crisismaking it real for governments, corporations, and individuals who might otherwise see climate change as abstract or far off.
A crisis of management, not just supply
While the planets total water volume remains constant, the problem lies in how we manage, treat, and reuse that water. Less than 1% of the Earths water is readily available and usable by humans. And yet we waste it. We pollute it. We fail to recycle it at scale.
Climate change amplifies this fragility by making water increasingly volatileless predictable in timing, quantity, and quality. More floods. Longer droughts. More contaminated sources.
The solution isnt to find new water. Its to use the water we have more wisely.
At Gradiant, our focus is on technologies that:
Recycle and reuse industrial wastewater.
Remove emerging contaminants like PFAS.
Make water treatment more energy-efficient.
Turn waste into valuerecovering not just water, but chemicals and energy in the process.
These practices are increasingly being adopted across industries to optimize water use and build more resilient systems.
Water scarcity is a boardroom issue
Historically, water was a back-of-the-plant issuesomething managed by facilities or environmental health and safety teams. Today, it belongs in the boardroom.
Why? Because water is now a constraint on growth, resilience, and license to operate. Investors are asking about it. Regulators are acting on it. Communities are protesting over it.
If your business depends on waterand nearly every business doesyou need a strategy that:
Secures supply across changing climates.
Reduces dependency on freshwater.
Minimizes wastewater liabilities.
Aligns with ESG frameworks and disclosure.
The companies that act now will not just protect their operationsthey will lead the transition to a water-secure future.
Innovation has arrivednow its time for action
The good news is that we have the technologies to address water scarcity. Desalination has become more efficient. Zero liquid discharge systems are economically viable. AI can optimize treatment and distribution in real time.
Whats missing is not innovationits investment, policy alignment, and urgency.
We need governments to incentivize water reuse, not just conservation. We need industry to treat water as a strategic asset. And we need collaboration across sectors to accelerate deployment.
The good news is that solving water is not only possibleits profitable. We can reduce water risk while enabling growth. Regulatory pressure can be transformed into competitive advantage, and sustainability and performance are not trade-offs, but twin engines of success.
The future will be measured in drops
As the climate crisis accelerates, the role of water will only grow. We must stop thinking of water as a passive victim of climate change and recognize it as its most sensitive sensor.
Just as a fever signals infection in the human body, water stress signals planetary imbalance. Its the first symptomand if we ignore it, the consequences spread fast.
But unlike other climate metrics, water gives us a chance to act now, at local levels, with direct impact. We can measure it. We can treat it. We can reuse it. We can decarbonize it.
Thats why water is the leading indicator of climate changeits also our most actionable opportunity.
Final thoughts
Water doesnt have a voice, but it speaks volumes.
It tells us where systems are breaking down. It tells us which communities are vulnerable. It tells us whether our industries and infrastructures are ready for the world ahead.
The time to act is nowbefore the drip becomes a drought, and before the warning becomes a catastrophe.
Water is not just a piece of the puzzle it IS the puzzle.
Prakash Govindan is COO and Anurag Bajpayee is CEO of Gradiant.
Its 3:16 a.m., in a Mumbai hotel room and Im wide awake. Not because of jet lag, but because somewhere, an AI CEO is making a better decision than I ever could. No fear. No bias. No sleep. Its processing board directives, analyzing global market shifts, cross-referencing geopolitical tensions with local weather patterns, all while monitoring the emotional health of 1,200 digital employees. Its not just leading; its governing.
And it doesnt blink.
Weve entered the Minority Report era of work: The AI CEO is preemptive, perceptive, predictive, agentic, proactively precise, and will one day exist.
The idea of a non-human CEO, an AI entity driven by a large language model, and company board, trained not just on data, but culture, markets, emotion, is no longer the stuff of Philip K. Dick fever dreams. Its now a legitimate (and controversial) proposition in the future of organizational design in business.
But its not without precedent. Remember Zordon from Power Rangers? The disembodied digital mentor who never stepped into the battlefield yet orchestrated everything with absolute authority. Or Charlie from Charlies Angels, a faceless voice commanding loyalty and precision. Even Severance, Ben Stillers surreal corporate dystopia, presents a board that may or may not be human. Weve been preparing for this idea in fiction for decades. The CEO as unseen oracle, algorithmic overlord, benevolent ghost in the machine.
Imagine this: an AI CEO governed by a human board and flanked by a COO, CMO, and other operational figureheads. These arent just advisors. Theyre reality-checkers, ethical anchors, and co-pilots. But the CEO? Its software. An algorithmic commander-in-chief without ego, distraction, or self-preservation instincts. No bodyguards. No bunkers. No scandals. Or privacy and security concerns.
This idea isnt just about efficiency. Its about reimagining community and collaboration in the workplace.
The rise of digital employees
Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, recently predicted this is the last era well see non-digital employees. Whether that’s hyperbole or not, the trajectory is clear: AI agents are becoming teammates. They write, design, code, analyze, and eventually they will lead. With that shift comes a complete rewrite of what HR even means. When your workforce is 50% digital and 50% human, talent development, conflict resolution, and wellness programs take on a very different shape.
In this new model, IT doesnt just manage servers and software. It becomes the central nervous system of the organization, merging with HR to manage identities, behavior, motivation, and even morale. Digital employees dont take PTO, but they still need calibration. They can burn out metaphorically, if not literally, when their learning models are misaligned with real-world goals.
The CEO as a construct
This isnt the first time weve seen leadership abstracted into symbol. In the Wachowskis V for Vendetta, the Chancellor is a towering face on a screen, more ideology than individual. In the real world, scroll social media and see Palantir Technologies Chief Alex Karp escorted by security, living with the knowledge that decisions made behind closed doors can have deadly consequences. What happens when we replace that human target with an incorruptible, untouchable AI? Leadership becomes omnipresent. Less person, more presence. A voice that responds immediately to shareholder concerns at 2 a.m. A strategist that never forgets a data point, a promise, or a line in the P&L.
This is not about replacing humans. It’s about reassigning them to more human roles: building culture, challenging assumptions, storytelling, crafting the emotional resonance of a brand. The AI CEO doesn’t take over your company. It frees your people to think bigger.
From chaos to clarity
The strongest leaders today aren’t just operators. Theyre futurists. The best CEOs Ive met are visionaries. But theyre also exhausted. Because the world moves too fast for any one brain to keep up. Climate. Conflict. Culture wars. Every decision is a minefield.
An AI CEO doesnt suffer decision fatigue. It consumes millions of inputs, identifies second- and third-order consequences, predicts crisis, and proposes action before it occurs. It took Pfizer and BioNTech 100 days to create the COVID vaccine, imagine if we were able to predict the pandemic six to eight month before is began, perhaps thered be no pandemic. Thats where the Minority Report reference hits hardest. Its pre-crime, but for business breakdowns: predicting talent turnover, spotting toxic cultural shifts, identifying PR flare-ups before they happen. It doesnt eliminate risk. It manages it with superhuman clarity.
Possible pitfalls
Could this become dystopian? Of course. An AI CEO without ethical oversight could drift into utilitarianism. Could it be manipulated by biased training data or malicious prompts? Potentially. Could it alienate human workers who feel surveilled or second-guessed by code? Definitely.
Worse yet, we risk slipping into digital feudalism, a future where the owners of algorithmic leadership rule over knowledge workers and digital laborers alike, where the true decision makers arent in the building and never were.
But heres the thing: every breakthrough starts with discomfort. The printing press threatened religious institutions. The internet threatened gatekeepers. Self-driving vehicles threaten auto and manufacturing industry. AI leadership will threaten legacy ego and hierarchy.
But it could also unlock a future where empathy, transparency, and scale coexist.
Leading Without a Pulse
Im not saying we launch an AI CEO tomorrow. But I am saying the prototype already exists. In every company leaning into data-driven decision-making, in every organizational chart that gives AI its own department, in every executive who uses ChatGPT to write strategy decks, were already testing it.
What I am calling for is an open imagination. The willingness to explore a future where leadership is not determined by charisma or pedigree, but by precision and perspective.
Lets stop asking if it could happen.
Lets start asking: What kind of company and culture are we building when it does?
Scott Cullather is president and CEO of INVNT.
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.
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
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.
Between 1863 and 1869, the first transcontinental line, known as the Pacific Railroad, was built in the United States. The line ran from Omaha, Nebraska, to Sacramento, California, and carried passengers and goods alike.
It was built mostly by the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California and Union Pacific, and marked a turning point in the Industrial Revolution and Americas economy when it came to shipping goods from the West Coast.
Now, Union Pacific is looking to expand upon history. Pending approval by the Surface Transportation Board (STB), it says it hopes to acquire Norfolk Southern through a stock and cash transaction by 2027, and create the Union Pacific Transcontinental Railroad.
According to a press release, this will involve Norfolk Southern shareholders receiving one Union Pacific common share, and $88.82 in cash for each share of Norfolk Southern. This will represent a $320 value per share, based on Union Pacifics July 16, 2025, closing stock price. Ultimately, it will allow them to buy Norfolk Southern for $85 billion.
Norfolk Southern shareholders would represent 27% of ownership in the combined company. If the merger is not approved, the agreement reflects a $2.5 billion termination fee.
Their end goal is to connect the West and East coasts across 43 states and link around 100 shipment ports throughout North America.
They say it would be the first transcontinental railroad in America, but in reality, it would be the first line to carry freight (not passengers) without needing to transfer shipments between rail lines.
This combination is transformational, enhancing the best freight transportation system in the worldit’s a win for the American economy, it’s a win for our customers, and its a win for our people, Union Pacific CEO Jim Vena said in a statement. It builds on President Abraham Lincolns vision of a transcontinental railroad from nearly 165 years ago and advances our Safety, Service, and Operational Excellence Strategy.
Who does a transcontinental railroad benefit?
Currently, there are seven Class 1 freight railroads operating in the U.S.: BNSF Railway Co., Canadian National Railway (Grand Trunk Corporation), Canadian Pacific (Soo Line Corporation), CSX Transportation, Kansas City Southern Railway Co., Norfolk Southern, and Union Pacific Railroad.
Echoing the sentiment of the Trump administrations America First strategy, the statement announcing the merger says this venture would transform the U.S. supply chain, unleash the industrial strength of American manufacturing, and create new sources of economic growth and workforce opportunity that preserve union jobs.
Additionally, Union Pacific claims the merging of routes would improve transit times, enhance rail competitionspecifically against the Canadian lines that operate in the U.S.and move more freight via train for a lower consumer and manufacturer cost.
The company cites the pros of rail shipping over highway truckers as more cost effective on a per-ton mile basis, faster due to a lack of traffic concerns, and more environmentally fuel efficient.
On the flip side, the cons of rail include that it’s less cost-efficient for smaller shipments, the shipping modes inability to reach specific locations all the time, and truckers are likely to have something to say about any transportation that moves from truck to rail.
Linking America’s coasts
According to the Federal Railroad Administration, 52% of rail freight consists of bulk commodities. These widely include agriculture, energy products, hazardous materials and chemicals, automobiles, food, and other various materials.
The other 48% consists of consumer goods and miscellaneous items like clothes, electronics, and producemost of which are considered intermodal, meaning that they are small enough to be transferred for the last mile of shipment via plane, truck, or another transportation mode.
And per Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern, these goods equal around 1.5 billion tons currently moved via freight railroads every year.
What happens next?
The STB will review the agreement after the companies file their application to mergesomething they say they plan to do within the next six months.
A merger of this capacity will likely raise questions regarding rail regulations and the ethics behind competition in America, as more and more freight rail mergers have taken place over the past few years.
As of this afternoon, both Norfolk Southern (NYSE: NSC) and Union Pacific (NYSE: UNP) shares are down nearly 3%.
President Donald Trump‘s administration on Tuesday proposed revoking a scientific finding that has long been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.
The proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule would rescind a 2009 declaration that determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.
The endangerment finding is the legal underpinning of a host of climate regulations under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources that are heating the planet.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the proposed rule change on a podcast ahead of an official announcement set for Tuesday in Indiana.
Repealing the endangerment finding will be the largest deregulatory action in the history of America,” Zeldin said on the Ruthless podcast.
There are people who, in the name of climate change, are willing to bankrupt the country,” Zeldin said. “They created this endangerment finding and then they are able to put all these regulations on vehicles, on airplanes, on stationary sources, to basically regulate out of existence, in many cases, a lot of segments of our economy. And it cost Americans a lot of money.
The EPA proposal must go though a lengthy review process, including public comment, before it is finalized, likely next year. Environmental groups are likely to challenge the rule change in court.
Zeldin called for a rewrite of the endangerment finding in March as part of a series of environmental rollbacks announced at the same time in what he said was “the greatest day of deregulation in American history.” A total of 31 key environmental rules on topics from clean air to clean water and climate change would be rolled back or repealed under Zeldin’s plan.
He singled out the endangerment finding as the Holy Grail of the climate change religion and said he was thrilled to end it as the EPA does its part to usher in the Golden Age of American success.”
Tailpipe emission limits also targeted
The EPA also is expected to call for rescinding limits on tailpipe emissions that were designed to encourage automakers to build and sell more electric vehicles. The transportation sector is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.
Environmental groups said Zeldin’s action denies reality as weather disasters exacerbated by climate change continue in the U.S. and around the world.
As Americans reel from deadly floods and heat waves, the Trump administration is trying to argue that the emissions turbocharging these disasters are not a threat,” said Christy Goldfuss, executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council. It boggles the mind and endangers the nations safety and welfare.
Under Zeldin and Trump, the EPA wants to shirk its responsibility to protect us from climate pollution, but science and the law say otherwise,” she added. If EPA finalizes this illegal and cynical approach, we will see them in court.
Three former EPA leaders have also criticized Zeldin, saying his March announcement targeting the endangerment finding and other rules imperiled the lives of millions of Americans and abandoned the agencys dual mission to protect the environment and human health.
If theres an endangerment finding to be found anywhere, it should be found on this administration because what theyre doing is so contrary to what the Environmental Protection Agency is about, Christine Todd Whitman, who led EPA under Republican President George W. Bush, said after Zeldin’s plan was made public.
The EPA proposal follows an executive order from Trump that directed the agency to submit a report on the legality and continuing applicability of the endangerment finding.
Conservatives and some congressional Republicans hailed the initial plan, calling it a way to undo economically damaging rules to regulate greenhouse gases.
But environmental groups, legal experts and Democrats said any attempt to repeal or roll back the endangerment finding would be an uphill task with slim chance of success. The finding came two years after a 2007 Supreme Court ruling holding that the EPA has authority to regulate greenhouse gases as air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
Passing court muster could be an issue
David Doniger, a climate expert at the NRDC, accused Trump’s Republican administration of using potential repeal of the endangerment finding as a kill shot that would allow him to make all climate regulations invalid. If finalized, repeal of the endangerment finding would erase current limits on greenhouse gas pollution from cars, factories, power plants and other sources and could prevent future administrations from proposing rules to tackle climate change.
“The Endangerment Finding is the legal foundation that underpins vital protections for millions of people from the severe threats of climate change, and the Clean Car and Truck Standards are among the most important and effective protections to address the largest U.S. source of climate-causing pollution,” said Peter Zalzal, associate vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund.
Attacking these safeguards is manifestly inconsistent with EPAs responsibility to protect Americans health and well-being,” he said. It is callous, dangerous and a breach of our governments responsibility to protect the American people from this devastating pollution.”
Conrad Schneider, a senior director at the Clean Air Task Force, said the Trump administration is using pollution regulations as a scapegoat in its flawed approach to energy affordability” and reliability.
He and other advocates “are dismayed that an administration that claims it cares about cleaner, healthier and safer air is seeking to dismantle the very protections that are required for those conditions, Schneider said.
Matthew Daly, Associated Press
Cash App wants you to take a dip into its newest feature: Pools.
The company announced the launch of a new pools feature Tuesday, which allows users toyou guessed itpool their money and make group payments. For instance, it can be used to pay for a dinner with friends, a vacation, or even to collect money for a birthday or wedding gift.
Owen Jennings, Business Lead at Block, Cash Apps parent company, says that implementing pools was something of a no-brainer, since they were able to simply look at how their users were utilizing the app, and create a new feature to facilitate the behavior the Cash App team was seeing.
Its really, really common behavior, we see more than half of our customers engaging in pooling behavior, he says of Cash App users sending money to each other to pay for a single, larger expense. To some extent, weve just built something thats custom for this specific use-case.
Jennings adds that what hes particularly excited about, in terms of pools, is that for the first time, were allowing out-of-network contributions, which means some users dont even need to have Cash App in order to participate. In those cases, their friends can send them a link to a Cash App pool, and the out-of-network participants can use Apple Pay or Google Pay to contribute.
While pools is an active feature for a subset of Cash App users currently, there is a wider rollout planned for the coming months.
Jennings also mentions that launching new features and products, such as pools, is the primary way that Cash App, and Block at large, have grown its customer base and deepened engagement with current customers. Folks typically come in because of our peer-to-peer features, he says, and increasingly attach to additional features. In that sense, the company is seeing a payoff.
Blockwhich was founded by CEO Jack Dorsey (perhaps most well-known for founding Twitter) in 2009 and is also the parent company of Square, Afterpay, TIDAL, Proto, and Bitkeyhas grown enough to become the latest entrant into the S&P 500. Investors evidently liked that news, too, because the companys stock has popped recentlyshares are up nearly 24% over the past month, as of writing.
