Hey folks!

Scientists at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) are turning up at work with wrinkled clothes every Monday!

And no, it’s not because of Monday blues.

These folks want to make a statement about ironing out climate change without ironing their clothes. Here’s what we mean.

Look, ironing a piece of clothing can take 5-7 minutes. And that emits about 200 grams of CO2. This means that the entire Indian population emits 2.5 lakh kilograms of CO2 everyday just to iron their clothes. But if you skip ironing your clothes, you can actually do your bit to prevent emmissions. And that’s something CSIR cares about.

It has also recently kicked off an initiative to cut down electricity consumption by 10% across its laboratories. So its director general, Dr. N Kalaiselvi has come up with some very innovative ideas. Like installing India's largest climate clock (a clock that counts down the time to reach zero emissions) on its building. And the WAH (Wrinkles Achhe Hain or wrinkles are good) campaign where CSIR employees can wear unironed clothes on Mondays.

Does that make you want to walk into the office with crumpled clothes tomorrow? You can just tell your boss that you’re doing it for the planet. But to be honest, it can save your time too!

Here’s a soundtrack to put you in the mood 🎵

Kya Karoon? by Zaeden

Thanks for the rec, Nitika Garg!

What caught our eye this week 👀

Is Bengaluru running out of beer?

Even before the summer turned up, breweries were optimistic about the rising demand for beer in India. And that meant that most breweries stepped up their beer manufacturing capacities.

However, it seems we have a problem!

Beer producers just can't keep up.

Let us explain.

You see, Bengaluru has over 70 breweries. This is because people generally want to avoid long commutes and prefer hanging out at a chill place close by. As a consequence microbreweries made their way into most localities, giving Bengaluru the status of India’s beer capital.

But the beer capital is in a sort of crisis right now.

The city’s maximum temperature recorded during the summer months has increased over the past 5 years.

And this scorching heat has gotten beer sales soaring. For context, Karnataka’s excise department recorded 38.6 lakh boxes of beer sales last April. But in the same month this year, sales have already surpassed 60% of that figure in just the first two weeks.

But it’s not just the rising mercury that’s to blame. Some breweries have even witnessed a 40-45% rise in beer sales since February even on weekdays. Thanks to the election and the IPL season.

During elections, there's a lull because many outlets can't sell beer especially during polling dates. But in the days leading up to the elections, people consume more beer to make up for these dry days.

Then there’s the IPL season which raises up Bengaluru’s spirits especially when its favourite team RCB takes the field. Breweries are also likely to offer discounts or BOGOs (buy one get one) on these dates.

Subpar fruit production is also adding fuel to the fire. Because here's the thing. People generally love fruit flavoured beers during the summer months. But since fruits like mangoes and pineapples haven’t turned out great at the moment, people are turning to regular beers.

Put all this together and you’ll see why the demand for beer has unusually spiked up in Bengaluru.

Breweries aren’t able to restock to meet demands either. And the sweltering heat isn’t making it any easier for them to maintain cool fermentation temperatures that beer production requires.

So yeah, that’s exactly why great sales aren’t a reason to cheer for the country’s beer capital. Will it be able to keep up?

Jargon of the day ✏️

This didn’t make the cut ✂️

In Monday’s newsletter we told you why the UK High Court declared the government’s climate plan unlawful. And in it, we mentioned that the country's non passenger vans are struggling to transition to electric vehicles.

But here’s an interesting thing we bumped into, that didn’t fit into the story.

EV sales in the UK have been flatlining. To put things in perspective, in 2023 the market share for EVs fell for the first time since they first hit showrooms. They were just about 16% of new sales. And that’s nearly 17% lower than last year.

And guess one of the reasons for this slow uptake?

Rowan Atkinson!

Yeah, the same chap you know as Mr. Bean or Johnny English.

The logic behind this is simple. Atkinson had written a column for The Guardian in June 2023. And despite being a self proclaimed motor car enthusiast, this is what he said “Electric vehicles may be a bit soulless, but they’re wonderful mechanisms: fast, quiet and, until recently, very cheap to run. But increasingly, I feel a little duped. When you start to drill into the facts, electric motoring doesn’t seem to be quite the environmental panacea it is claimed to be.”

Now, when a public figure makes comments like that, it could affect public perception no? That’s what an independent think tank called The Green Alliance thought too.

But hey, high EV prices and regulatory roadblocks are also a reason why people are averse to EVs in the UK. So blaming Atkinson, could be a bit of a stretch no?

This Day in Financial History 📜

8th of May, 1886 ― Coca-Cola starts off as a patent medicine

Coca-Cola began its global business in the 1920s. Today it has reached over 200 countries, produces more than 450 brands and is worth over $270 billion.

But the beverage that you recognise today didn’t start off as a beverage at all. Rather it started off as a patent medicine. Think of it as medicines that weren’t really patented, but had the protection of the government and secret recipes. They’d have high alcohol content and would normally be made using drugs like morphine, cocaine or opium. And they’d also be dubiously publicised as cures for diseases like tuberculosis or colic in infants which doctors couldn’t cure at the time and even cancer!

Now, John Stith Pemberton, a pharmacist from Georgia was also looking for a cure for his morphine addiction which he’d developed after being injured in a civil war. And while digging into old pharmacy archives, he was convinced that cocaine could actually cure it. Weird, we know.

So he sort of copied Vin Mariani, a cocaine and wine beverage from Paris which was popularly sold as a medicine and made his own version of it. He called it Pemberton’s French Wine Coca. And do you know how he marketed it?

Well, he claimed it to be a brain tonic that could cure nervous problems and bring in other mental health benefits! It was only thanks to temperance laws in Atlanta, Georgia which prohibited the sale of alcohol and forced Pemberton to change Coca-Cola’s formula.

But that didn’t stop him from advertising the non-alcoholic version fancily too. No sooner had the beverage become popular as a 'Delicious and Refreshing' drink than he sold this brand to The Coca-Cola Company. That's when it phased out the cocaine and tread out on a path to make this beverage the world’s most popular soft drink you know of today.

Readers Recommend 🗒️

This week our reader Gautham Patel recommends reading Diamonds in the Dust, a book by Saurabh Mukherjea and 2 other authors. It’s a book that uses case studies and charts to help readers understand the art of investing in the Indian stock market, while also debunking misguided investment theories that may seem to work for the Western markets, but don’t fit in the Indian context.

Thanks for the rec, Gautham!

Finshots Weekly Quiz 🧩

It’s time to announce the winner of our previous weekly quiz. And the winner is…🥁

Vivek Mamidi! Congratulations. Keep an eye on your inbox and we’ll get in touch with you soon to send over your Finshots merch. And for the rest of you, we’ve moved the quiz to our weekly wrapup. So make sure you answer all the questions correctly and tune in here next week to check if you got lucky.

That’s it from us this week. We’ll see you next Sunday.

Until then, don’t forget to tell us what you thought of today’s newsletter. And send us your book, music, business movies, documentaries or podcast recommendations. We’ll feature them in the newsletter! Just hit reply to this email (or if you’re reading this on the web, drop us a message: morning@finshots.in).

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