Search CORE

27 research outputs found

Structured financial solutions for green affordable housing projects

Author: Subramanian Shwetha
Publication venue
Publication date: 01/01/2005
Field of study

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2005.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Includes bibliographical references (p. 63).Environmentally responsible buildings are increasing gaining recognition in the building industry because they address objectives such as conserving natural resources, improving energy efficiency and indoor air quality and they make more economic sense. Affordable housing and Green buildings in particular combine well together as the goals of both overlap. A joint team comprising of New Ecology Initiatives, the Tellus Institute, LISC Boston and the Green CDC's Initiative is currently investigating the Costs and Benefits of Green Affordable Housing. This thesis builds on the research in progress, by focusing on the financial challenges and opportunities faced by green affordable housing. In an attempt to incentivize green affordable housing, this thesis investigates the capital sources that are available at key stages of the development process and how they can best be allocated to meet the costs and needs that arise at each developmental stage. Specifically, the fiscal sources utilized on two representative projects- one rental project and one homeownership project, were analyzed and solutions were found to restructure these resources to pay for green premiums. Several viable solutions emerged to offset the incremental costs of greening in the early phases of the two projects.(cont.) But the most significant finding of this thesis was the opportunity for cost savings and enhancement of economic value of Green Affordable housing by capitalizing savings from lowered operating costs. This is a powerful mechanism that has the ability to service more debt on the project and cover costs incurred during the interim stages. This thesis demonstrates that there are several ways of structuring successful financing solutions to meet the objectives of all the participants involved, thereby making Green Affordable housing a financially sustainable proposition.by Shwetha Subramanian.S.M

DSpace@MIT

Relative performance transparency : effects on sustainable purchase and consumption behavior

Author: Mariadassou Shwetha Paramananda
Publication venue
Publication date: 01/01/2017
Field of study

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Operations Research Center, 2017.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (pages 55-60).We build on existing operations and marketing research focusing on the effect of information transparency on consumers by studying how transparency into the levels and changes of relative sustainability performance affects consumer behavior. Our work considers two forms of transparency: process transparency and customer transparency. We operationalize process transparency, in which information about the company's sustainability performance relative to competitors is revealed to the customer, in the product purchase domain. We operationalize customer transparency, in which the customer receives information about their own sustainability performance relative to other customers, in the energy consumption domain. In a series of online consumer choice experiments, we find that within the product purchase domain, transparency into the company's current levels of sustainability performance has a more powerful effect on influencing consumer purchase behavior than transparency into the company's changes in relative sustainability performance over time. Conversely, in the energy consumption domain, we find that transparency into the customer's changes in sustainability performance over time, relative to other customers, has a more dominant effect in motivating energy conservation than transparency into the customer's relative levels of sustainability performance. We employ structural equation models to identify the underlying mechanisms that drive these results.by Shwetha Paramananda Mariadassou.S.M

DSpace@MIT

Studies on micropropagation of Decalepis hamiltoni and Stevia rebaudiana and biotransformation of Ferulic Acid to Vanilla flavour metabolites in Decalepis hamiltoni

Author: Shwetha S.
Publication venue
Publication date: 01/01/2006
Field of study

This Dissertation / Report is the outcome of investigation carried out by the creator(s) / author(s) at the department/division of Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI), Mysore mentioned below in this page

Central Food Technological Research Institute, New Delhi: ePrints@CFTRI