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Activists are planning a rally at Kellogg Co. headquarters in Battle Creek to urge the cereal giant to stop using palm oil in its products.

Greenpeace is struggling to make the public impression it once did, in part because companies have realized that fighting back against activists -- by using high-pressure hoses to repel oil-rig invasions, for instance -- tends to backfire. Companies such as Royal Dutch Shell and Procter & Gamble are now taking a nonconfrontational approach to dealing with activists' stunts. "To try and keep people's attention and keep them interested and engaged ... can be very challenging," admits campaigner Laura Kenyon

The Rainforest Action Network claims that PepsiCo's Palm Oil Action Plan Progress Report, released last week, is basically a sham. PepsiCo must begin enforcing environmental violations throughout its supply chain, or RAN intends to continue negative PR efforts against the company and its financial supporters.

British shoppers could be unknowingly buying wooden furniture, flooring and even food items that are byproducts of destructive illegal logging in the Amazon, environmental campaigners are warning. Friends of the Earth is calling on ministers to make companies reveal the source of their products in order to stop the black market trade. Last week human rights watchdog Global Witness revealed that 185 environmental activists were killed in 2015, many of whom had been trying to stop illegal logging in the Amazon. An estimated 80% of Brazilian hardwood is illegally logged.

Cotton is planted on 2.4 percent of the world's crop land and yet it accounts for 24 percent and 11 percent of the global sales of insecticide and pesticides, respectively. Organic cotton represents less than 1 percent of the global total annual crop, but National Geographic, international clothing brand C&A, and activist and filmmaker Alexandra Cousteau believe that needs to change. A new 60-minute documentary, For the Love of Fashion, emphasizes "the need for a paradigm shift in the cotton value chain."

A successful campaign led by chef-turned-activist Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall drew attention to a big problem: In the UK, less than 6 million takeaway hot beverage cups are recycled each year, while 7 million are thrown out each day. The attention led to an increased discount for Starbucks customers who bring their own coffee cups, as well as a call from a British natural plastics manufacturer for an increased focus on bio-based and biodegradable materials. 

GreenBiz NGO report assed 30 of the largets environmental NGOs on tehir credibility and influenced. More than 200 companies and their sustainability exccutives reviewed the NGOs.

At Milan Fashion Week, Greenpeace activists opened the show by unfurling an enormous banner calling for an end to the toxic luxury industry. 

European lawmakers are poised to sign off on a law that would allow airlines to avoid paying carbon fees for long-haul flights terminating in Europe. The move disappointed greens, who said lawmakers had secured little beyond vague promises of future action in exchange for the move. "European governments have conceded again to international pressure without getting anything meaningful in return," said transport activist Bill Hemmings

Chipotle is under pressure from shareholder activists who want the company to publish an annual report on its food sourcing, energy use, waste and labor standards. The proposal, due for a vote at Chipotle's shareholder meeting in May, is important given the brand's focus on green marketing, explains Adam Kanzer, managing director at Domini Social Investments. "They've really put their brand behind this message of sustainability and better farming techniques and cleaner agriculture," he says. "We want to understand: Is it true? How is it done? How do you manage it?"

activists with Rainforest Action Network (RAN) delivered a set of demands to local food giant PepsiCo, Inc. regarding the company's use of the controversial food additive palm oil in its products. RAN recently announced a new national campaign to remove "Conflict Palm Oil" responsible for rainforest destruction, human rights violations and carbon pollution from America's snack foods.

The protests included 20 activists displaying a giant banner from the top floor of P&G's Indonesian headquarters in Jakarta and dressing like tigers. Other protests were in the Philippines, India, Belgium and the United Kingdom.

Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey is ending more than a century where elephant acts were a defining mark of the circus. It is a smart business and political move, one that reflects a deeper change in cultural preferences. Even if animal rights activists motivated the change, in the long run it will likely attract more people more frequently to the circus, and reduce political and reputational risks to the company.

A Dutch court has ordered the government to cut the country's greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25 percent by 2020 in a groundbreaking climate case that activists hope will set a worldwide precedent.

Texas ranchers have forged an unlikely partnership with environmental activists to protest the 143-mile Trans-Pecos pipeline, which if completed would carry natural gas from West Texas to the Mexican border. "We all agree that the land needs to be regarded a little more highly," said Joel Nelson, manager of the Anchor cattle ranch

General Mills has stopped using genetically modified ingredients to make original Cheerios, following a yearlong effort by a consumer activist group to pressure the company to drop GMOs from its iconic breakfast cereal.

the biggest clash between activists and corporations this year is on climate change, the survey says. Nine of the 11 experts in the MGO survey named climate change the lead issue in the 2014 proxy voting season.

Each year, Future 500 releases a Top 10 list of what we view are the most pressing and timely stakeholder issues of the year ahead. Check out our video this year to learn more about these key stakeholder concerns that impact both the corporate sector and activist community.

The environmental activist group SumOfUs has stolen some of the thunder from PepsiCo's crowdsourced "Crash the Super Bowl" campaign by launching a parody Doritos ad criticizing PepsiCo's palm-oil policies. PepsiCo said the ad, which racked up almost a million views on YouTube, was "focused on fiction rather than facts."

Shell is set to confront the risk that climate change may pose to its future, after backing a resolution from activist shareholders. The move came on the same day it announced $15bn (£10bn) in cost cutting due to plummeting oil prices and said it wanted to resume drilling for oil in the Arctic.