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General Mills shareholders will vote this week on a resolution asking the company to assess its post-consumer waste strategies. The resolution was filed by nonprofit As You Sow.

Target partnered with product-rating website GoodGuide to develop a new Sustainability Product Standard for household cleaning, personal care & beauty, and baby care items. Products will be assessed according to chemicals used, transparency, packaging, environmental impact, and animal testing.

ITDP assessed the developments using its new TOD Standard, a policy guide that evaluates real estate developments using eight key elements to integrating sustainable transport, land use planning and sustainable urban design.

Climate change is already hitting America hard, according to a new study, leading to water shortages in dry regions, heavy rains in wet regions, more frequent and severe heat waves, worse wildfires, and forests die-offs. "Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present," the National Climate Assessment warns

Administration released the Third U.S. National Climate Assessment, the most authoritative and comprehensive source of scientific information to date about climate-change impacts across all U.S. regions and on critical sectors of the economy.

The Natural Capital Coalition selected the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the International Union for Conservation of Nature to develop the Natural Capital Protocol, a methodology for companies to assess their reliance on natural capital. The organizations will also lead pilot projects with major companies to test the protocol.

Airplane engine-maker Pratt & Whitney is going green to attract and keep the best workers, says environmental chief Mary Anne Cannon. The company is aiming for 100% recycling of manufacturing waste, is holding its supply chain accountable for its actions and has curbed factory emissions by 28% since 2000. The company performs life-cycle assessments to measure the effects of its products, Cannon says

The world's largest publishing companies have adopted policies that significantly curtail use of paper sourced from rainforest destruction and social conflict, finds a new assessment published by the Rainforest Action Network (RAN).  Read more at http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0518-ran-publishing-industry.html#20O30qvTrE8O6zAr.99

 cracks are beginning to appear in the shareholder value edifice and are leading to a renewed examination of the factors that should shape investor decisions. Three factors are driving this re-assessment.

Forest product company Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL) hired KPMG to audit the company's performance on its Sustainable Forest Management Policy. The policy calls for APRIL to conserve over 450,000 hectares of forests and to stop producing pulp from areas where conservation assessments have not been completed.

Barclays and financial services company MSCI will launch a new Green Bond Index to serve as a benchmark for assessing the performance of green bond funds. The index will be comprised of fixed income projects with direct environmental benefits.

Levi Strauss and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank launched a new program to reward garment suppliers in developing countries based on their environmental, health, safety, and labor performance. The IFC will offer better loan terms to garment manufacturers that score higher on a supplier sustainability assessment developed by Levi Strauss.

Private equity firm KKR announced that Del Monte, Dollar General, Sealy, and the 24 other companies in its Green Portfolio Program have collectively avoided more than 2.3 million metric tons of GHG emissions from 2008 to 2013, generating $1.2 billion in new savings and revenues. Companies in the Green Portfolio Program agree to assess, measure, and optimize their environmental performance in ways that improve their businesses.

Walmart launched a new sustainable agriculture strategy emphasizing locally sourced produce, sustainability training for farmers, and supply-chain environmental assessments. The company will also seek to reduce food waste in stores, purchase sustainable palm oil, and avoid Brazilian beef linked to Amazon deforestation.

To assess shareholder involvement, I poured through the social and environmentally related shareholder proposals of 2015 using two terrific resources: Ceres and the Manhattan Institute's Proxy Monitor 2015 Scorecard.

The interactive report, produced in partnership with Trucost, features: our ninth annual State of Green Business report, This year's report continues our tradition of taking the pulse of corporate progress in sustainability, in the United States and around the world.  * The top 10 trends for 2016 * Video interviews with key sustainability leaders * 30+ metrics assessing the environmental performance and progress of nearly 2,000 companies

In an effort to help companies use safer chemicals, the Clean Production Action (CPA), has released the next version of the GreenScreen for Safer Chemicals Hazard Assessment Guidance, adding information for using the GreenScreen List Translator as a first step in identifying hazardous chemicals in products.

As part of its CanopyStyle initiative, environmental NGO Canopy has released an updated and expanded edition of its Hot Button Report, a ranking of eleven viscose and rayon producers that represent 70 percent of global viscose production. The report is the first tool of its kind to enable fashion brands and retailers to robustly assess producers' impacts on the world's forests, as well as their leadership in forging solutions to eliminate endangered forest fiber from the rayon and viscose supply chain.