Planet Business

Image of the week: Bringing in the trash

They say there’s plenty more fish in the sea, but even if that’s true there’s even more plastic – or at least there will be by 2050. A report called the New Plastics Economy published by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation made the forecast at the World Economic Forum last month, though it has since been counter-claimed that the predicted ratio per tonne is more like 1:1 and it’s pretty hard to count fish anyway. Still, the main point stands that there’s an unsettling volume of nasty pollution in our seas as evidenced by these litter heaps brought into the London docklands this week by high tides. The always ultra-clean Canary Wharf business district, with its HSBC, Barclays and Citi towers, decorates /pollutes the skyline.

Photograph: Dan Kitwood / Getty Images

In Numbers: Victoria’s loot

3,005

Number of stores operated by US retailer L Brands under its five retail chains, Victoria's Secret, PINK, Bath & Body Works, La Senza and Henri Bendel.

$7.7 billion

Sales at Victoria’s Secret in the year to the end of January out of a total of about $12 billion in annual revenues at L Brands. The lingerie chain is in talks to replace BT2 in a prominent outlet on Grafton Street.

6.6 million

US television viewers who watched last December’s Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, a festival of underwear and sheepish celebrities broadcast each year by the CBS Network.

The lexicon: Tubby

News from the world of assortative mating and a brief insight into the language of Grazia here with "Tubby", aka a "tech-hubby". This is what happens, the magazine says, when an A-list start (female) hooks up with a Silicon Valley type (male), with cited examples of "tubbies" including tech entrepreneur William "Mack" Knight (who steps out with actor Emma Watson), Snapchat chief executive Evan Spiegel (who does the same with model Miranda Kerr) and Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey (who once dated model-turned-actor-turned-entrepreneur Lily Cole).Tech men, Grazia suggests on this evidence, are simply more in fashion than musicians or footballers. As for what you call the male A-list partner of a female entrepreneur, it doesn't specify, but trophy boyfriend would probably cover it.

Getting to know: Cinque Terre

Picturesque trails. Medieval villages. Terraced vineyards that smell of money. Alas it may now be more difficult than ever to get to know Cinque Terre in Liguria in Italy’s northwest, described by Lonely Planet as “pastel-hued perfection”.

The Unesco World Heritage Site has become so overrun with tourists that the national park authority with responsibility for it has decided to impose a daily quota on the number of tourists allowed to walk the vertiginous cliff-top paths that link the settlements, the overall aim being to slash the visitor tally from 2.5 million a year to a more manageable 1.5 million.

So it’s good news for tourist-weary locals and bad news for fans of pesto, cruise ships and spontaneity.

The list: Anti-Brexit bosses

The UK is now hurtling inexorably towards its oft-postponed in-out referendum on membership of the EU, and this lot are among the business executives to be vocal in favour of staying.

1 Martin Sorrell "I don't think anyone has actually worked out what the implications would be if we came out..." says the CEO of advertising giant WPP. But they're unlikely to be much good, he believes.

2 Ben van Beurden The CEO of Anglo-Dutch oil group Shell says a Brexit would cause suffering "for companies like ours that thrive by there being no barriers". Indeed.

3 Michael O’Leary He doesn’t want to be “adopting French social policies – they don’t work in France”, he says, but he is campaigning for the UK to stick with the EU’s economic union.

4 Carolyn McCall O'Leary's equivalent at EasyJet predicts flight costs in and out of the UK would soar were Brexit to happen. Indeed, it might even bring back the bad old days when flying was "reserved for the elite".

5 Karren Brady The vice-chair of West Ham football club says that if the UK were to leave the EU there would be "devastating consequences" for the game. As arguments go, it's a vote-winner.The UK is now hurtling inexorably towards its oft-postponed in-out referendum on membership of the EU, and this lot are among the business executives to be vocal in favour of staying.