Six months of sales forecasts
If the research into climatic change is correct – even for as far off as 2090 – it is also fairly easy to predict consumer habits for the next six months, according to Harilaos Loukos, head of the French firm Climpact, which for the past two years has been successfully converting climatic forecasts into sales predictions. Loukos has studied the conclusions of the MICE program and is a participant in the Ensembles program which predicts the climatic changes expected for the end of this century. «We collect forecasts from meteorological institutes in the EU, we process them and arrive at conclusions on climate with considerable geographical accuracy,» he told Kathimerini during a recent visit to Greece for a conference on the European Union’s new meteorology program. «We know that if the average temperature rises, beer consumption in certain cities in the south will rise radically, but remain unchanged in the north, since people living in Paris, for example, already drink large quantities of beer.» However, he added, if the average temperature in France rises from 29 to 31C, the consumption of ice cream will rise by about 2 million liters. In the same way it was concluded that in Strasbourg, consumption of cola drinks reaches its highest point as soon as the thermometer passes the 20C mark; for the same thing to happen in Marseilles, the temperature must go over 28C. «We have found that we have improved on private forecasts by an average 30 percent. After the hot summer of 2003, many people expected 2004 to be just as hot. We said that not only would this not happen, but that the weather would be cooler than usual. We were found to be right,» said Loukos.
