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According to a report issued today by CDP, deforestation is leaving as much as $941 billion in assets worldwide at risk as they are linked to commodities tied to deforestation.

Protection of the natural world has been an integral part of Indian culture and heritage. The Constitution of India places responsibilities on the State as well as citizens for protection of nature and the living beings therein. The following two Articles of the Indian Constitution are noteworthy: Article 48A: The State shall endeavour to protect and improve the environment and safeguard the forests and wildlife of the country; and Article 51A (g): Fundamental duty of every citizen to protect and improve the natural environment, including forests, lakes, rivers and wildlife and to have compassion for living creatures. In the face of rapid industrial development, the environmental effects were not given much importance. However, with environmental impacts becoming detrimental for wildlife, biodiversity and people, the Indian Parliament has passed legislation to keep pace with changing demands. The British had passed the Indian Forest Act, 1927, mainly to regulate timber extraction for construction purposes. From production forestry, protection forestry principles were also considered. Later, wildlife (both flora and fauna) were considered essential for sustainable forest management. The Wildlife Act was passed in 1972. The Environment Protection Act was passed in 1986 as an umbrella act to consider environment in its totality. Since then, biological wealth started to be considered as an asset of the country just as other productive assets.

Companies that switch to green buildings save 14% in operational costs over five years, according to the World Green Building Trends 2016 SmartMarket report. The report found that companies that either build green offices or renovate to be more sustainable add 7% in asset value to the company.

Companies that own as-yet-unextracted fossil-fuel reserves could be left with stranded assets if the regulatory atmosphere changes, experts say. Expensive fossil-fuel sources, such as Alberta's oil sands, could be among the first to become uneconomic to extract. "I don't see this discussion going away. If anything, it's gaining momentum," says Ceres analyst Ryan Salmon.

ExxonMobil is to become the first fossil-fuel giant to report on threats to its oil and gas assets due to possible future regulation of carbon emissions. The move won plaudits from clean-energy campaigners, who say fossil fuels will become economically unviable as governments tackle carbon emissions. "That the largest American oil and gas company is the first to come to the table on this issue says a lot about the direction that energy markets are taking," says Danielle Fugere, president of As You Sow

Water supply, infrastructure, Ocean acidification and dought

Major institutional investors are increasingly mindful of the risk that carbon-intensive assets could lose their value if climate regulations become tougher, Tim McDonnell argues. That could be good news for clean energy investment, even though spending on that sector declined in 2013.

The CDP Global Water Report 2013 was launched at the CDP Global WatA pair er Forum on Oct. 31. The report was produced for 530 institutional investors representing about $57 trillion in assets, and is based on information submitted to CDP by 180 Global 500 companies. It notes that "companies are more aware of the breadth and significance of water-related risk, such as business interruption due to inadequate infrastructure, supply chain disruption due to water scarcity and reputational damage."

Institutional investors representing over half a trillion dollars in assets under management are calling on four major palm oil producers to adopt an immediate moratorium on deforestation and join the growing effort within the industry to establish traceable, deforestation-free palm oil supply chains. Led by Green Century Capital Management, investors called on the companies to cease their efforts to weaken the existing threshold for no-deforestation.

Another resolution, filed with J.M. Smucker, was withdrawn this week by co-filers Clean Yield Asset Management and Green Century Capital Management when the company agreed to stringent guidelines on the sourcing of palm oil.

The EU added a record-breaking 12.8 gigawatts of installed wind capacity last year, according to the European Wind Energy Association. The group says wind has surpassed hydro power, becoming the third-biggest source of generation in the EU. "Wind power accounts for one-third of all new power installations since 2000 in the EU. Conventional power sources such as fuel oil and coal continue to decommission more capacity than they install," EWEA said.

A new shareowner coalition coordinated by Walden Asset Management has filed resolutions with 11 oil and gas companies, seeking to shine a light on the practice of energy companies to fund, through direct lobbying or trade association membership, efforts to derail regulatory efforts to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. 

JPMorgan Chase is the target of a new environmental push demanding the bank end funding for tar sands drilling, HuffPost has learned. In a new campaign set to be announced Tuesday, the San Francisco-based Rainforest Action Network criticizes the country's largest bank by assets for providing over $3.1 billion to tar sands producers between 2014 and 2016 alone.

A coalition of investment firms with more than $6.5trn in assets under management have called on six of the world's largest fast food companies to take more ambitious action to tackle the climate and water risks within their supply chains, as a "matter of urgency".

With grand speeches, new climate strategies, the offloading of carbon intensive assets and even changes in executive pay structures, the last few weeks have provided some intriguing evidence that oil firms  finally may be starting to take the climate threat seriously.

Announced today at Climate Week NYC 2017 in New York, global financial institutions Citi and JPMorgan Chase & Co. have joined The Climate Group's RE100 campaign with CDP, committing to source 100% renewable power across their global operations by 2020. Other companies joining the RE100 initiative are one of the fastest-growing beverage companies, Califia Farms, and UK investment management company Jupiter Asset Management. The announcements follow news last week that The Estée Lauder Companies, Kellogg Company, DBS Bank and Clif Bar & Company have also joined RE100. 110 of the world's most influential companies are now generating demand for over 150 TWh renewable energy annually - more than enough to power New York State.