Kickstart: A song for sustainability

Musicians at the top of the pop charts are increasingly embracing sustainability during their tours, meaning that if you're headed to an arena show, you should expect everything from spots to refill water bottles to contacts for local environmental efforts.

Harry Styles has done it, there's a Billie Eilish Eco-Village at her shows, Coldplay put touring on pause to look for ways to cut its carbon footprint during global tours.

This summer, Shawn Mendes' Wonder: World Tour "will be reducing our environmental impact and emissions, as well as offsetting our unavoidable carbon footprint, to become a fully climate positive tour."

Like many other musicians, Mendes is working with Reverb, a nonprofit focused on sustainable music tours. The tour website has set targets to cut single-use plastic backstage at all possible venues, eliminate plastic bags at artist merchandise sales sites, increase recycling programs, have reusable utensils and foodservice ware backstage and on buses and have hydration stations at the show for fans.

Mendes is also encouraging fans to walk, cycle, take public transportation or car pool to concerts.

We all know that it's been hard to be an automaker or auto supplier the past few years because microchip shortages and other supply chain issues have disrupted production.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has only added fuel to the fire for the auto industry's struggles. With automakers halting production in Russia and interruptions of manufacturing for parts sourced from suppliers in Eastern Europe, things are looking grim.

Here's an example from one (albeit one very large) supplier. Magna International Inc. said April 29 that its net income fell 41 percent in the first quarter.

And CEO Swamy Kotagiri said Magna does not foresee global automakers producing any vehicles in Russia this year.

"It's a pretty complex matter with so many elements, in terms of government requirements and limitations and how we honor sanctions that are in place," Kotagiri said on a call with analysts.

Canada-based Magna makes interior and exterior plastic parts as well as electronics, mirrors and powertrain systems.

Ineos, the United Kingdom-based chemical company, already has a lot of successful sports teams bearing its name (or, in the case of the professional cycling team previously called Ineos — and Sky prior to Ineos' purchase — Grenadier for the car company Ineos owner Jim Ratliffe is creating) on its uniforms.

Now it's making a bid to buy one of the most storied names in professional soccer: Chelsea FC.

Chelsea became available because the U.K. forced Russian businessman Roman Abramovich, an associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin, to relinquish ownership when he and six other Russian oligarchs were sanctioned following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Ineos doesn't have the inside track, though. As PN correspondent Stephen Downer writes, the company is up against other big investors.