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A new short film featured by National Geographic highlights the plight of the Sargasso Sea - a diverse ecosystem of free-floating seaweed and unique wildlife - that is threatened by plastic waste. From microplastics to bioaccumulation, Care About the Ocean? Think Twice About Your Coffee Lid walks viewers through the dangers of plastic pollution in the Sargasso Sea (and other parts of the ocean) - and for human health.

The BIOcultivator is just one of seven nature-inspired food system innovations participating in the Biomimicry Global Design Challenge Accelerator, a program designed to help budding sustainable entrepreneurs bring their biomimicry design solutions from concept to the marketplace. Over the past year, these teams have been working to test and prototype their designs, and this month, at the National Bioneers Conference in CA, will be vying for the $100,000 Ray C. Anderson Foundation Ray of Hope Prize

Levi's Stadium, the home of the National Football League's San Francisco 49ers, features an urban farm that will produce as much as 150 pounds of produce weekly. The garden encompasses 4,000 square feet of the 27,000-square-foot green roof that also has solar panels.

A partnership of 12 organization is set to launch an online hub for information and solutions to reduce food waste, "Further With Food: Center for Food Loss and Waste Solutions," at FurtherWithFood.org. The site is intended to help realize the national goal to halve food waste by 2030, announced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in September 2015.

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.

Deforestation in the world's largest rainforest jumped 29 percent over last year, representing a sharp increase over the historically low deforestation rate seen just five years ago and the highest level recorded in the region since 2008, reports the Brazilian government. The numbers, released by Brazil's National Space Research Institute INPE on Monday, show that 7,989 square kilometers of rainforest were destroyed between August 2015 and July 2016. The loss is equivalent to an area 135 times the size of Manhattan or the combined land mass of the American states of Connecticut and Delaware.

Agribusiness giant Olam International has for the first time published a list of the firms it buys palm oil from, part of the company's response to allegations that it is driving forest destruction in Southeast Asia and, more dangerously, perhaps, in West Africa. Almost all of the world's palm oil comes from Indonesia and Malaysia, but as those countries run out of available land, companies like Olam are turning to Africa to expand. In defending itself against the NGOs' allegations, Olam points to the "right to develop" of nations like Gabon, where a third of people live below the poverty line and a fifth are unemployed.

The euphoria over rise in world tiger population early this year may have been misplaced for India as the official data placed before Parliament shows that 98 tigers died in the country by November 16, 2016, a steep 25 per cent rise over last year when 78 deaths were reported. There are many anti-poaching measures initiated by NTCA which coordinate with state forest departments, but to little avail. In fact, poaching cases increased by more than 100 per cent this year. The figures attribute nearly 30 tiger deaths to poaching this year, which is more than double of last year's figure of 14. Top forest officials that Mail Today spoke with expressed helplessness in their fight against poachers and at times cited "political pressures'' leading to more frequent man-tiger conflict.

Rising incomes and high demand for electric and electronic equipment (EEE) in East and South-East Asian countries have resulted in e-waste generation increasing by two thirds during 2010-2015, says a new study published by the United Nations University (UNU). The average increase in e-waste across 12 countries analysed - Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam - was over 60 per cent during the five-year period totalling 12.3 million tonnes.

China's 13th Five-Year-Plan on Energy Development (Energy 13FYP) might be one of the most anticipated energy blueprints in the world for its far-reaching implications for the carbon trajectory of the planet's largest emitter. On Jan 5, 2017, the National Energy Administration finally unveiled the plan to reporters, with a set of 2020 targets covering everything from total energy consumption to installed wind energy capacity. Before we delve into details of the plan, one thing is worth noting: with the Energy 13FYP, China might have once again raised ambitions for its low-carbon future, highlighting the urgency that this smog-ridden country attaches to moving away from fossil fuels. This time round, policymakers seem even more determined to squeeze out coal's share in the country's energy mix, lowering its 2020 percentage in primary energy consumption from 62% to 58%. The country is also aiming higher for renewables: installed capacity of wind energy and solar energy should reach "more than 210GW" and "more than 110GW", respectively, by 2020; higher than what was declared at the end of 2014.

The Rockefeller Foundation will collaborate with the USDA, EPA, and 10 private sector and non-profit organizations to create "Further With Food: Center for Food Loss and Waste Solutions," an online information exchange that aims to provide best practices for preventing, recovering, and recycling food loss and waste. The website will officially launch later this month (January 2017).

Nepal had its first zero poaching year in 2011 and has had three 365-day stretches with no poaching since then, giving its 645 rhinos some breathing room. Last year, the herd grew by 21 percent. It's a bright spot in the bleak world of rhino conservation: In 2015 Africa lost a record 1,338 rhinos to poachers and in India's Kaziranga National Park, which is one of the last strongholds of rhinos on the subcontinent, poaching is still common.

A new PepsiCo ad encouraging people to recycle is the latest in the company's ongoing efforts to increase national recycling rates. PepsiCo has gathered more than 125.7 million beverage containers since 2010, reusing the materials for packaging.

Companies including SABMiller, Dow, Novozymes, and many others have begun to align their corporate responsibility targets with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) since the United Nations (UN) launched them in September. Indeed, aligning corporate strategy with the SDGs demonstrates the relevancy of social and environmental efforts, and private sector contributions are essential if we hope to achieve the 17 ambitious targets by 2030.

. As is the case with many companies who tout the magic year 2020, Hershey promises it will buy 100 percent responsible and sustainable cacao by the end of that year, and boasts it is ahead of schedule of that goal by having already met it halfway. Hershey also showcases a program that it says helped 31,000 farmers in nations such as Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria, without divulging how - while saying they are learning "information on best practices in sustainable cacao farming." Such a vague disclosure is not going to mollify critics who have long said the global chocolate industry is one that provides indulgences for wealthy citizens at the expense of some of the world's

A company created by Stanford University is developing a self-sustaining community in the Netherlands. The 25-home neighborhood will produce its own energy from biogas, solar and geothermal sources and will grow its own food. ReGen Villages describes its focus as "[d]esirable, off-grid-capable neighborhoods comprised of power positive homes, renewable energy, water management, and waste-to-resource systems that are based upon on-going resiliency research -- for thriving families and reduced burdens on local and national governments."

Unhappy with how regional authorities have failed to protect fish stocks in the Western Pacific, Palau has launched its own bold initiatives - creating a vast marine sanctuary and conducting an experiment designed to reduce bycatch in its once-thriving tuna fishery.

Developing nations invested $37.6 billion on renewable energy development in 2015, according to the World Bank. That renewables expenditure added up to 63% of all energy infrastructure spending in such countries last year, up from a five-year average of 44% and a 10-year average of 37%.

As signs emerge that the global energy sector is beginning to rein in what once had been unbridled levels of climate-changing pollution, new United Nations figures show pollution from farming is continuing to get worse.

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.