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EDF is focused on cleaning up consumer product supply chains in three key areas: deforestation, fertilizer pollution and hazardous chemicals.

Cargill, McDonald's, Tyson Foods, and Walmart are among 42 founding members of the new U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef-a multi-stakeholder initiative to advance sustainable practices in the global beef value chain.

After prioritizing their own strategies for years, the giant retailers are advocating industry-driven leadership group for sustainable cosmetics and personal care products. 

Walmart entered a 10-year agreement to purchase 58% of the expected output from renewable energy developer Pattern Energy Group's 200 MW wind farm in Texas.

After new chemistry policies from the like of Target, Walmart and Kaiser Permanente, the economics of green alternatives are increasingly favorable.

Over the past few years, so-called ugly fruit and vegetables have been gaining a host of admirers. Now, Wal-Mart has officially joined the bandwagon. Starting this week, America's largest grocer says it is piloting sales of weather-dented apples at a discount in 300 of its stores in Florida.

But the fact is that the blockchain is building some serious credibility within the world's biggest banks and financial services firms - they helped fuel more than $1 billion in investments between 2014 and 2016. That visibility has given both established and emerging companies the confidence to experiment. In mid-October, for example, Walmart announced a collaboration with IBM and Tsinghua University in Beijing focused on using the blockchain as a mechanism for authenticating food sources and keeping tabs on all sorts of related data - including the originating farm, batch numbers, processing plant information, expiration dates and storage temperatures.

Some of the world's biggest companies are seeing waste reduction and energy efficiency as opportunities to help the bottom line. Wal-Mart is changing its sell-by labeling to reduce food waste, while IKEA is running furniture-recycling and clean-energy initiatives to reduce its costs. "We've taken power from a cost to profit center," says IKEA Chief Sustainability Officer Steve Howard.

On Tuesday, Whole Foods WFM -1.91% said that it planned a huge project to cover nearly one-fourth of its stores with solar panels. After construction is complete, Whole Foods says it could be among the top 25 biggest commercial U.S. solar suppliers alongside Walmart WMT -0.08% , Walgreens WBA -0.41% , and Target TGT 0.59% .

Walmart, Disney and General Motors are among the powerful companies putting a price tag on environmental impacts

Switching to LED fixtures will reduce energy use by more than 5 percent per store in the U.S. alone and will save an expected 340,000 kWh per store. That equals $34,000 in savings per year in each store - or removing 327,360 metric tons of carbon emissions from the atmosphere. The LED fixtures are expected to save a total of 620 million kWh over the next 10 years.

This month, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control announced its first three "priority products" under the Safer Consumer Product Regulations:

FedEx, Walmart, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and UPS - five of the country's biggest trucking fleets - could cut their fuel use by 500 million gallons a year under the new heavy duty truck fuel efficiency standard, saving $1.7 billion on fuel, according to a Union of Concerned Scientists study.

Big companies can get big results by leveraging their supply chains, says Kathleen McLaughlin, president of the Walmart Foundation. "Our goal to sell more sustainable products really means making the entire supply chain more sustainable for people and planet, end-to-end," she explains

the Closed Loop Fund, a budding $100 million effort by a group of large companies to invest in recycling infrastructure and, in the process, put more recycled materials into manufacturing supply chains. Along the way, it aims to give a boost to recycling in the United States at a time when rates are leveling off but the demand for recycled feedstocks is picking up.

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). 

Transportation is one of the biggest sources of carbon emissions in the United States and globally, and shipping goods, or freight, is a big contributor. How can companies keep up with growing consumer demand for home and in-store delivery, while also cutting their greenhouse gas emissions?

Major established companies from AT&T to Walmart are finding financial gain in offering eco-friendly products. "Consumers are looking for companies to be more and more environmentally and socially conscious," said Roman Smith, AT&T's director of sustainability integration.

It started as a dialogue about "ingredients of concern" in cosmetics and other personal care products, orchestrated by rival retailers Target and Walmart. Three years later, that ongoing conversation - facilitated by the Sustainability Consortium and Forum for the Future, and representing 18 industry stakeholders - has produced an ambitious series of recommendations that guide principles of sustainability for this class of consumer goods and how these metrics should be disclosed.