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The iPhone maker's master plan features extensive green space, aggressive water conservation and one of the largest corporate solar arrays in the world.

The ocean's value has been estimated as high as $24 trillion, yet despite its inherent connections to the health and well-being of wildlife, humans, and the global economy, it continues to be overexploited and polluted. Plastic pollution and shark killing are two major problems that could be - at least in part - alleviated by new materials: a seaweed-based biodegradable plastic packaging, and a sugarcane-based alternative to a widely used moisturizer normally derived from shark liver oil.

The problem of ocean waste, particularly the plastic variety, is a big one, and many creative people are working on ways to clean it up. Finding ways to repurpose the plastic debris collected from the ocean is one component of that, and the U.S.-based startup ByFusion has responded with technology that recycles ocean plastic into durable construction blocks. This way, the plastic waste can be repurposed permanently, rather than being used to create another disposable plastic item that might wind up right back in our precious waterways.

Technology that compresses plastic waste items turns them into blocks suitable for construction, providing a permanent way to remove discarded plastic from the environment. The RePlast system developed by New Zealand-based inventor Peter Lewis is said to be nearly 100% carbon neutral and doesn't require the plastic to be sorted or washed.

Costa Rica's left-wing opposition looks set to win next month's national elections, and party leaders say one of their first moves would be to cancel the country's pledge to achieve carbon neutrality by 2021. That goal, which is markedly more ambitious than any other country's carbon-reduction target, is no longer attainable, officials say. "We don't think it would be possible to reach carbon neutrality by 2021, because the most important tasks to reduce emissions in the country are yet to be done," said opposition environmental adviser Patricia Madrigal.

When Mexico City's new international airport is finished in four years, it will be one of the largest in the world, spanning over half a million square meters. It will also be the most sustainable airport ever built. Instead of a group of average warehouse-like terminals, the airport will use a single giant structure wrapped in a unique skin that lets in natural light and air, collects rainwater, and provides incredible views of planes circling the sky.

Wastewater treatment and renewable energy production can be costly endeavors. However, if valuable chemicals could be extracted from wastewater, or if algae could more easily be used to turn carbon dioxide from the air into biofuel, companies could profitably pursue such projects. Researchers from Arizona State University (ASU) and the Chinese Academy of Science & Technology are working to make this possible.

Humanity should stop pointing fingers and start finding solutions to climate change, writes astrophysicist Adam Frank. "While triggering climate change might not be our fault, not doing everything we can about it now that we know it's happening -- that would be our fault. Worse, it would be our failure as a species," he writes. 

Unilever has worked hard to be a sustainable, environmentally conscious business, but whether the $170 billion conglomerate can turn that into profits in today's competitive market remains to be seen, according to this analysis. "Too many companies are running their business into the ground, I would argue, by being myopically short-term focused on the shareholder," said CEO Paul Polman.

Potent, climate-warming gases are being emitted into the atmosphere but are not being recorded in official inventories, a BBC investigation has found. Air monitors in Switzerland have detected large quantities of one gas coming from a location in Italy. However, the Italian submission to the UN records just a tiny amount of the substance being emitted. Levels of some emissions from India and China are so uncertain that experts say their records are plus or minus 100%.

Developing coutnries are trying to defeat a policy that would require knowledge and consent to hazardous waste material being shipped into that country

"Climate Take Back," as the new mission has been named, is the successor to Mission Zero, the name given to a vision articulated in 1997 that, for most outside the company, seemed audacious at the time: "To be the first company that, by its deeds, shows the entire industrial world what sustainability is in all its dimensions: People, process, product, place and profits - by 2020 - and in doing so we will become restorative through the power of influence."

This year may be only half over, but 2016 is already on track to be the hottest year ever on record, with each of the first six months, from January to June, setting new temperature records, NASA officials announced this week.

Each year, Future 500 releases a report of what we predict will be the most critical social and environmental issues driving corporate-stakeholder engagement in the coming year. This year, we anticipate that corporations will be challenged to go even further than last year, using their economic influence on policy and politicians while being asked to take a bigger stand on global issues.

In 2016, we predict that stakeholders will continue to organize around issues like chemicals, water scarcity and local control of resources, challenging the private sector to drive change in their supply chains, make more time bound commitments and be more transparent. We anticipate increased focus on women impacting the global economy and concern around global ocean health, an issue moving to the forefront of our list.

Masdar City, founded in 2008, is a dynamic new Middle-Eastern city being built in a desert environment. Its aim is to be the most sustainable city in the world and offers an exciting opportunity to provide unique insights into the application of different innovative technologies as 'new-build' within an urban environment. Birmingham is a well-established post-industrial city that has evolved over fourteen hundred years. It was one of the fastest growing cities in 19th century England (Popp and Wilson, 2009) [1].

We may suspect that low-flow toilets and showerheads and thermostats that let the room get a little chilly or stuffy while you're gone are really just ways to reduce the hotel's utility bills.We may believe it's always and forever about the bottom line. Snyder's title is vice president of corporate responsibility at IHG, whose hotel brands include Holiday Inn, InterContinental, Hotel Indigo, Kimpton and more. His unofficial title is chief sustainability officer for the company. Whatever title he may go by, he is committed to being green, noting that saving money and saving the environment do not have to be mutually exclusive.

Brazil's conservative National Congress has rushed to pass a wave of legislative initiatives, which taken all together, would dismantle much of the nation's body of law protecting the environment and indigenous people - an effort likely to escalate in 2017. The latest attempt occurred last week, just before the parliamentary recess. The agricultural lobby unexpectedly put forward three bills, known as Decretos Legislativos (PDCs), which are laws promulgated by the President of the Senate over which the country's President does not have the right of veto. If eventually passed, as seems likely, the bills will allow industrial waterways (requiring many dozens of new dams) to be built without the proper assessment of environmental and social impacts. The waterways would be used by agribusiness as a cheap means of exporting soy and other commodities.

With carbon dioxide emissions continuing to rise, an increasing number of experts believe major technological breakthroughs - such as CO2 air capture - will be necessary to slow global warming. But without the societal will to decarbonize, even the best technologies won't be enough.

Protection of the natural world has been an integral part of Indian culture and heritage. The Constitution of India places responsibilities on the State as well as citizens for protection of nature and the living beings therein. The following two Articles of the Indian Constitution are noteworthy: Article 48A: The State shall endeavour to protect and improve the environment and safeguard the forests and wildlife of the country; and Article 51A (g): Fundamental duty of every citizen to protect and improve the natural environment, including forests, lakes, rivers and wildlife and to have compassion for living creatures. In the face of rapid industrial development, the environmental effects were not given much importance. However, with environmental impacts becoming detrimental for wildlife, biodiversity and people, the Indian Parliament has passed legislation to keep pace with changing demands. The British had passed the Indian Forest Act, 1927, mainly to regulate timber extraction for construction purposes. From production forestry, protection forestry principles were also considered. Later, wildlife (both flora and fauna) were considered essential for sustainable forest management. The Wildlife Act was passed in 1972. The Environment Protection Act was passed in 1986 as an umbrella act to consider environment in its totality. Since then, biological wealth started to be considered as an asset of the country just as other productive assets.

Serious labour rights violations have taken place at Brazilian farms linked to some of the largest international coffee certification systems, including Rainforest Alliance and UTZ, according to an investigation by Repórter Brasil. Brazil is the largest coffee producer in the world, with about one-third of all coffee consumed planted in the country. These violations include workers' pay packets being falsely docked resulting in some receiving less than half Brazil's minimum wage, and workers being hired informally and without mandatory medical tests. One farm even promoted its output with a Fairtrade certificate it was not entitled to use.

Global trade has made it easier to buy things. But our consumption habits often fuel threats to biodiversity - such as deforestation, overhunting and overfishing - thousands of miles away. Now, scientists have mapped how major consuming countries drive threats to endangered species elsewhere. Such maps could be useful for finding the most efficient ways to protect critical areas important for biodiversity, the researchers suggest in a new study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. For example, the maps show that commodities used in the United States and the European Union exert several threats on marine species in Southeast Asia, mainly due to overfishing, pollution and aquaculture. The U.S. also exerts pressure on hotspots off the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and at the mouth of the Orinoco around Trinidad and Tobago. European Union's impacts extend to the islands around Madagascar: Réunion, Mauritius and the Seychelles. The maps also revealed some unexpected linkages. For instance, the impact of U.S. consumption in Brazil appears to be much greater in southern Brazil (in the Brazilian Highlands where agriculture and grazing are extensive) than inside the Amazon basin, which receives a larger chunk of the attention. The U.S. also has high biodiversity footprint in southern Spain and Portugal, due to their impacts on threatened fish and bird species. These countries are rarely perceived as threat hotspots.