ZÅ«m Services, Inc., a children-focused transportation company, was looking to expand into Coronado, an island community near San Diego. The company's initial model in the San Francisco Bay area was to offer families trusted transportation options for their children, but ZÅ«m had since expanded in several U.S. markets by contracting directly with school districts to provide supplemental or alternative transportation for students. By 2019, ZÅ«m operated in more than 140 school districts, and had transported more than 750,000 students. Bidding for a contract with the Coronado Unified School District, ZÅ«m found itself in competition with Care A Van, which had been the district's sole transport provider for special needs students. The next step was to convince the School Board to sign a contract with ZÅ«m. The case invites in-depth discussion of strategies to convince local officials, and asks business students to consider the strategy ZÅ«m and Care A Van should pursue in dealing with the local school board, which will make a determination.
This case presents the challenges facing BMW and Toyota in choosing how to address the divergence between the Trump administration and the State of California's standards over U.S. Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. The case provides relevant information about the two firms and recent developments in the auto industry. The case leads the students to consider the political causes for the higher international pressure on automakers to reduce carbon dioxide emissions relative to the stance of the U.S. government; and the domestic legislative showdown between the state of California and the federal government on vehicular emissions. Students are asked to develop a detailed integrated market and lobbying strategy for BMW and Toyota based on a range of concepts, data, and frameworks germane to courses in business, policy, and society. At the heart of the case study are the constantly evolving challenges facing two global automakers and their operations in the United States. The case begins by presenting the international landscape, particularly in Europe, with respect to climate change. It then provides relevant information about the two firms and recent developments in the auto industry. It also presents the broader political and economic landscape surrounding the auto industry, particularly with the advent of electric vehicles and changing consumer preferences. To do so, the case lays down the current political climate in the United States; the threat of climate change and mounting international pressure on automakers to reduce carbon dioxide emissions; and the domestic legislative showdown between the state of California and the federal government on vehicular emissions.
In 1985, M.C. Mehta, a lawyer and head of his own environmental NGO, filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Supreme Court of India to enforce the 1981 Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act in the environs of India's National Capital Region (NCR). In 1988, World Bank experts had advised the Indian government that given the extent to which air pollution in the National Capital Region came from an increasingly large fleet of passenger vehicles, an effective policy would be to mandate relatively clean compressed natural gas (CNG) in public transportation vehicles. Although the government had actively considered a series of policies, it had failed to implement any. By the early 1990s, New Delhi was the fourth-most polluted city in the world. By June 1998, the sub-particulate matter concentration in Delhi's air was three times higher than the standards set by India's Central Pollution Control Board. This case follows India's Supreme Court ruling in 1998 that all buses, taxis, and auto-rickshaws in Delhi be switched to clean fuels by March 31, 2001. Public transportation operators, the regional government, and Delhi residents all had interests at stake and were not necessarily supportive of the changes. The case is divided into 3 parts-A, B, and C-and sets up an analysis of how the Supreme Court ultimately achieved its mandate.