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Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) has been ranked as one of the greenest large companies in the world in the 2016 Newsweek Green Rankings, released today. LVS holds the #39 spot on the U.S. 500 list and the #74 position on the Global 500 list, while the company's subsidiary in Macao, Sands China Ltd., has been listed #62. This accomplishment makes Las Vegas Sands and Sands China Ltd. the highest ranked hospitality companies in the U.S., as well as in the world.

MGM Resorts is making water conservation a top priority in developing its Park promenade in Las Vegas -- even though there's a relative paucity of water-conservation technologies compared with the number of energy-efficiency technologies now available, says Chief Sustainability Officer Cindy Ortega. MGM also launched a social app to raise employee awareness about water conservation.

IKEA has installed a 1.14 MW rooftop solar PV system - comprised of more than 3,600 panels - at its new store in Las Vegas. The installation is the largest of its kind in Nevada.

Nevada utility NV Energy helped a Las Vegas school district save $2.25 million and avoid 21.4 million KW-h of electricity consumption per year by installing energy-efficient lighting at 152 schools. The project also enabled the school district to earn $790,000 in utility rebates during the 2012 fiscal year

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. 

Naturally occurring climate change lowered oxygen levels in the deep ocean, decimating a broad spectrum of seafloor life that took some 1,000 years to recover, according to a study that offers a potential window into the effects of modern warming.

2015 was Earth's hottest year on record, according to new data released Wednesday by NOAA and NASA. For the last 12 months the  average surface temperature across the globe was 58.47 Fahrenheit, a 0.23-degree increase from 2014's record-breaking average temperature of 58.24, the two agencies reported.

More than 200 million gallons of contaminated wastewater from a fertilizer plant in central Florida leaked into one of the state's main underground sources of drinking water after a massive sinkhole opened up beneath a storage pond, a phosphate company said Friday. The sinkhole, discovered by a worker on Aug. 27, is believed to reach down to the Floridan aquifer, the company said in a news release.

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.

BASF has joined a national effort to help monarch butterfly populations by building habitats at several of its chemical complexes in the US, and most recently in Geismar, La. "From our standpoint as a company, sustainability and environmental stewardship are at the core of our operations," said BASF Geismar External Communications Manager Blythe Lamonica.

The Heartland Institute held its annual gathering of climate skeptics in Las Vegas last week, with some participants touting "climate optimism" as an alternative to outright denial. Rather than arguing that climate change isn't happening, climate optimists argue that global warming will be a net positive, with elevated carbon levels boosting agricultural productivity

The California city is betting on new environmental targets and equitable economi development, along with new smart cities technology from vendors like Philips, as part of a first-of-its-kind sustainability framework.

Levi's is offering customers a 20% discount if they bring their old duds to the denim brand's retail locations for recycling -- even if the old clothes aren't Levi's brand. The take-back program is an attempt to further the company's "vision of a more circular economy or closed-loop system for our products," said sustainability chief Michael Kobori. 

President Barack Obama made a forceful call for climate action Monday, calling out "the cynics and the deniers" who stand in the way of carbon regulations and warning that the failure to act would "condemn our children to a world they will no longer have the capacity to repair." Obama said the price of inaction was intolerably high, while the cost of action would be less than critics claim. "On this issue, of all issues, there is such a thing as being too late. That moment is almost upon us," he said

California is pushing to make computers and monitors more energy-efficient, with the California Energy Commission proposing minimum power-consumption standards that could save 2,702 gigawatt hours of electricity per year. It's estimated that the rules would save consumers $430 million a year in energy costs.

Building the Keystone XL pipeline could lead to as much as four times more greenhouse gas emissions than the State Department has estimated for the controversial project, according to a new study published in Nature Climate Change that relies on different calculations about oil consumption. 

Wyndham Vacation Ownership was named Lodging Brand of the Year at the LODGING Green and Sustainability Conference & Expo in Las Vegas, NV. The Wyndham Worldwide-owned company was recognized for innovative sustainability practices and for creating the WVO Green Certification program, which reportedly saves the company about $2.4 million every year in energy cost savings.

LA-based Skysource/Skywater Alliance took first prize. Its range of deployable machines pull moisture from the air, condense it and then filter it into fresh water, with outputs ranging from 30 gal (113 L) to 300 gal (1,135 L) per day.

Panera Bread and Chipotle led the fast-food pack by earning A's on the new annual report card from a coalition of public interest groups that annually ranks corporate efforts to remove antibiotics from their poultry, beef and pork supplies. Twelve of the other 25 listed companies also made progress eliminating the drugs, but the report says they need to catch up with the A-listers and pay as much attention to beef and pork as to poultry.