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Clean-technology accelerator the Cleantech Open has awarded PowWow Energy (pictured) the Grand Prize Cleanie award worth $200,000 for the Top Cleantech Entrepreneur of the year. PowWow Energy has developed technology that enables farmers and ranchers to quickly detect water leaks that can destroy an entire crop or cause thousands of dollars of damage.

Cleantech company Mainstream Renewable Power will reportedly build and operate nearly 1 GW of wind power capacity in Chile by 2021. The 7 wind power projects have a combined investment value of more than $1.5 billion.

Cleantech company Nova Innovation has reportedly built the world's first fully operational, commercial, grid-connected array of underwater turbines that generate power from oceanic tides. The array is located northeast of Scotland in the Shetland Islands.

A sewage recycling system pioneered by Applied CleanTech (ACT) is reducing a Dutch water board's operational costs by around $1 million a year while reducing sludge by up to 30%. ACT's technology is designed to help industrial and agricultural wastewater treatment plants transform wastewater into raw materials for plastics, insulation, pulp and paper, construction, bio-fuels production, nano-cellulose, and other industries.

Taking plastics recycling to a whole new level, Procter & Gamble (P&G) has pioneered a new technology that restores used polypropylene plastic (PP) to 'virgin-like' quality. Developed in P&G labs, the patented technology is being licensed to PureCycle to deploy in a new recycling plant in Lawrence County, Ohio and will allow consumers to purchase more products made from recycled plastic.

The UK, Denmark and Germany are leading the clean energy transformation in Europe. Since 1990, the UK has reduced its CO2 emissions by 25 percent, while other wealthy countries such as the US and Norway have increased their emissions of greenhouse gases.

Apple seems to be embedding its renewable energy commitments into its corporate structure. The company recently created a new wholly-owned subsidiary known as Apple Energy LLC and filed an application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which regulates power companies, to be able to sell electricity and other power grid services to non-utility customers. The move is a strong sign that Apple will not only fulfill its plans to operate on 100 percent renewable energy through net-metering, but plans to generate and sell renewable energy back to the grid.

The energy sector accounts for around one-third of global CO2 emissions. Thus, countries' urgent need to combat climate change is strongly related to energy companies' ability to change from 'black' to 'green.' A Danish example is DONG Energy. The company says its cut in CO2 emissions from electricity and heat production accounts for more than half of the Denmark's total CO2 reduction from 2006 to 2014. But how can one single company cut more than half of a country's CO2?

Regularly scheduled United Airlines flights between Los Angeles and San Francisco will be fueled by a blend of 30 percent biofuel and 70 percent traditional fuel, reducing an estimated 60 percent of greenhouse gas emissions compared with regular fuel. United says it is "the first U.S. airline to begin use of commercial-scale volumes of sustainable aviation biofuel for regularly scheduled flights."

Volvo Construction Equipment's Braås site in southern Sweden has become its first carbon-neutral facility and is claimed to be the first construction equipment production plant in the world run entirely on renewables.

The Climate Group's RE100 initiative partnered with the China Renewable Energy Industries Association to encourage Chinese companies to procure their electricity from renewable sources.

In a creative attempt to protect California's waning water supply, Los Angeles released 20,000 "shade balls" into the LA Reservoir. According to researchers, shade balls could reduce surface evaporation by 85 to 90 percent, protect water quality by preventing chemical reactions triggered by sunlight, deter birds and other wildlife, and protect the water from rain and wind-blown dust. 

Ben & Jerry's, eBay, Gap, Levi Strauss & Co., and The North Face are among 24 companies that announced support of SB-350-a California bill to set benchmarks for increasing renewable energy and energy efficiency, while decreasing petroleum use by 2030.

NRG Energy, Inc. has announced ambitious sustainability goals as part of its continued corporate growth strategy. NRG says it estimates that its new carbon-reduction goals will avoid approximately 3 billion tons of CO2 emissions by 2050.

Royal Caribbean Cruises has announced it will retrofit 19 of its ships with advanced emissions purification (AEP) systems, also known as scrubbers, which will remove more than 97 percent of the sulfur dioxide emissions generated by the ships' diesel engines.

Tesla founder Elon Musk has announced a new project that could get millions of people off the grid. Musk's increased interest in the emerging energy storage market has led to plans for a giant lithium-ion battery factory. Home and businesses owners could buy these battery systems for backup power or for managing solar electricity generation and use

The nation's largest companies are rapidly embracing renewable energy sourcing and greenhouse gas emissions reduction efforts, according to a new report from Calvert Investments, Ceres, David Gardiner & Associates, and World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

The nation's largest companies are rapidly embracing renewable energy sourcing and greenhouse gas emissions reduction efforts, according to a new report from Calvert Investments, Ceres, David Gardiner & Associates, and World Wildlife Fund (WWF). 

Ford Motor Company has begun installing 25,000 new LED fixtures to replace traditional high-intensity discharge and fluorescent lights, at its manufacturing facilities across the globe. The new fixtures, valued at over $25 million, are expected to reduce Ford's energy use at manufacturing facilities by 56 million kilowatt-hours annually - enough to power more than 6,000 average-sized homes per year.

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.

The political outcomes of COP21, the UN climate conference, may still be unknown, but at least we can expect substantial investment in clean energy following two initiatives announced earlier this week: Mission Innovation, a commitment from 20 participating countries to double their governmental and/or state-directed clean energy research and development investment over five years; and the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, a global group of private investors who will support the commercialization of clean energy ideas