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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."

Mars has supported recommendations that suggest people should limit the consumption of added sugars to no more than 10% of their daily caloric intake. The company also voiced support of a government proposal to include an added sugars declaration in the Nutritional Facts on all applicable food packaging.

The Environmental Defense Fund launched an advertising campaign to protest the proposed cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency's budget. The ad warns that cutting EPA funding could lead to increased health issues, more pollution and increased levels of lead in drinking water.

The Carton Council of North America says that just over one million households had cartons added to their recycling programs between January and March. That brings the total of US households with access to 56,970,294.

GE and Siemens have become two of the top wind energy developers in the US, writes analyst Scott Levine. GE turbines accounted for about 60% of the installed wind capacity added in the US last year, and in the first half of 2015, GE secured orders for more than 1,264 turbines. Last year, Siemens added 1,241 MW of installed capacity, or more than a quarter of the US market. Siemens and GE will likely continue to be key players in the US as the cost of wind continues to decline, Levine writes

Budweiser will tout its commitment to sustainable energy in its Super Bowl spot. The beer giant has brought back its famous Clydesdales-they only appeared in a bumper spot last year-for the ad, which uses Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" to illustrate the brand's point about renewable energy sourced from wind farms.

Renewable energy projects surpassed all other sources of new electricity added to the global supply last year, says a new report released this week by the International Energy Agency. In 2015, renewables made up more than half of all new installed capacity, with the greatest gains seen in onshore wind and solar. It's a development that speaks to a "transformation of global power markets,"

Microbeads are bad news, but fortunately most of us know that by now. There has been growing resistance to the miniscule pieces of plastic, added to personal care products for their ability to exfoliate skin, or sometimes just to look pretty in a see-through bottle. These microbeads, however, wreak environmental havoc as soon as they're washed down the drain. The outcome is described here by campaign group 'Beat the Microbead':

London's Heathrow Airport has saved more than 130 million liters of water annually using General Electric's water treatment technologies, GE says, adding that its technologies also saved the UK's largest airport $310,000 in a year.

Since Google declared its 100 percent commitment to renewables back in 2012, it has signed contracts that will help add almost 2.6 gigawatts of wind- and solar-generated electricity to the grid by the time all the projects are completely. While each of those installations has its own timetable for completion, at least 900 megawatts of those projects should come online within the next four to six weeks alone, according to one of Google's energy strategy executives. Over the course of next year, all the clean power that Google is adding to the grid will offset what it's using in aggregate. And moving forward, Google wants to ensure that more of the electricity it actually uses can be traced to renewable generating sources.

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.

Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee rejected an amendment on Tuesday that would allow the federal government to allocate funds toward the UN Green Climate Fund. "The Green Climate Fund is the only multilateral institution that supports clean, resilient development around the world," said Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., adding that the US should be leading the initiative.

Sea level rise is caused primarily by two factors related to global warming: the added water from melting land ice and the expansion of sea water as it warms. The first chart tracks the change in sea level since 1993 as observed by satellites. The second chart, derived from coastal tide gauge data, shows how much sea level changed from about 1870 to 2000.

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%.

China could use wind to create more than 25% of its electricity by 2030, according to new Nature Energy study. China added 145 gigawatts of installed wind capacity in 2015 -- more than anywhere else, including the US and Europe.

Consolidated Edison, the utility that provides New York City's electricity, faces higher demand for power than its existing infrastructure can supply. But instead of adding a substation, which would cost $1.2 billion or more, Con Ed will deploy a mix of distributed solar, fuel cells and efficiency measures that will cost about $200 million - less than one-fifth the price of a substation, reports Inside Climate News.

Every year an estimated 8 million metric tons of plastic waste are added to the ocean. Without immediate intervention across all points of the pollution pathway, 250 million metric tons of plastic waste could be in the ocean in less than 10 years. The Ocean Conservancy and Trash Free Seas Alliance's new report, The Next Wave, examines some of the solutions and technologies currently available and looks forward to establishing a framework to generate greater collaboration and innovation toward long-term solutions.

Foodservice packaging company Pactiv has added a new line of foam cups to its EarthChoice portfolio. The new foam cup is made with up to 25 percent post-consumer recycled content material, the company says.

Hotel chains and casinos are adding low-energy lighting to guest rooms, putting solar panels on roofs and using hotel limousines powered by compressed natural gas, but these sustainable practices could be bolstered by the use of third-party standards that measure hotels against one another, writes Marc Gunther. "[I]ndustry executives cite three reasons why they have begun to take action on the sustainability front: to save money, attract and motivate their employees, and respond to demand from business and leisure travelers," Gunther writes

Panera Bread has been using antibiotic-free meat for a decade, but unlike rival Chipotle, it's struggled to effectively communicate its green credentials to consumers. writes Andrew Marder. The company is introducing a communications strategy touting its produce, donations and community cafes for low-income families. "[T]here's a lot of value in the work that Panera is doing, and it just takes a few good ad campaigns to bring that value to bear on the bottom line," Marder writes.