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As an ever-expanding group of U.S. businesses commit to using more renewable energy to power their operations, a new study has found that for many companies, cost savings is the single most important reason for doing so. This is according to results of the first major survey of large electricity users since President Donald Trump announced his decision to pull the U.S. out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, conducted by SED Research. The Sept. 13 report, "Post-Paris: the State of Corporate Renewable Energy Sourcing," analyzes responses from executives at 94 companies and institutions, more than 40 of which are in the Fortune 500.

Social media giant Facebook has switched all electric accounts at its Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters to participate in a 100% renewable energy program created by a newly established California electricity supplier. 

Amazon has installed the largest rooftop solar system in the state of New Jersey at its warehouse in Carteret, New Jersey. The 5 MW rooftop system features 20,000 solar panels

The African archipelago nation of Cape Verde is powered by gas generators, but it has adopted a plan to run entirely on renewables by 2025. Cape Verde has a variety of options to make the move not only viable but affordable, including northeasterly trade winds that make the archipelago an excellent candidate for wind farming.

According to the report, rising environmental concerns and growing public awareness about eco-friendly products are expected to drive the rapid growth of sustainable packaging market over the forecast period. In particular, consumer demand for sustainable food product packaging is projected to be a large driver.

This morning, UPS announced that it has entered into an agreement to purchase up to 11.5 million gallon equivalents of renewable biogas a year well into the next decade. This gas, which is also known as renewable natural gas (RNG) or biomethane, is interchangeable with conventional natural gas, by which much of UPS' fleet has long been fueled.

In 2016, Hershey Entertainment & Resorts had environmental achievements that included saving 12.2 million gallons of water, recycling more than 17,000 pounds of paper for charity, and recycling over 23,000 gallons of cooking oil, according to the company's latest CSR report.

Chances are you don't prioritize your holiday wish list based on the chemical composition of the products on it. But informed shoppers are increasingly scrutinizing the items they're bringing into their homes with an eye to whether they include chemicals harmful to human health. That's inspiring more retailers to make meaningful changes to their chemical disclosure and elimination policies, according to a new industry report card released ahead of Black Friday. 

Latin America and the Caribbean are due for an ecological makeover. The World Resources Institute (WRI) says it already has the funding committed to restore some 131 million degraded lands across the region. The project has 16 investors so far. Another 19 investors are already hard and work funding the restoration of more than 24 million acres.

A plant that will transform 500,000 tons of date palm and agricultural waste into 300,000 tons of organically-based petrochemical products like biofuels annually is part of Saudi Arabia's plan to diversify its economy and modernize its farms.

At the COP23 conference in Bonn, Germany, mayors of 25 major cities from around the globe have signed a commitment to make their cities carbon-neutral by 2050. The list includes US cities Boston; Los Angeles; New York City; Philadelphia; Austin, Texas; and Portland, Ore.

Hyatt Place Amsterdam Airport has been recertified by Green Globe. The hotel is placing low-flow faucets in guest rooms this year and will eventually use energy-efficient LEDs in all public areas.

Beauty brands Coty, L'Oreal, Groupe Clarins and Groupe Rocher have partnered on an initiative to increase sustainability in the beauty supply chain. The Responsible Beauty Initiative will be overseen by supply chain sustainability ratings agency EcoVadis and will encourage businesses to enhance and share sustainable practices.

Walmart has saved over $1 billion in fuel costs by upgrading its fleet, and plans to continue to cut consumption and emissions through an effort called Project Gigaton. The plan, announced in conjunction with the World Wildlife Fund, will reduce emissions from Walmart suppliers by a gigaton by 2030.

Apple, Walmart, CVS, Ikea, Whole Foods Market, and Target scored the highest in a group's report card on reducing toxic chemicals in consumer 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.

British fast food restaurants and grocery chains, including Tesco, Morrisons and McDonald's, buy their chicken from Cargill, which feeds its poultry with imported soy, much of it apparently coming from the Bolivian Amazon and Brazilian Cerrado - areas rapidly being deforested for new soy plantations.

Earlier this year, around Earth Day, Walmart announced an ambitious plan to work with its supply chain to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by one gigaton. I decided to run the numbers to see what role source reduction, specifically in Walmart's packaging, could play.

The state Air Resources Board (ARB) adopted the extensive 2017 version to outline California's climate policy path to 2030 and detail how it will fulfill its landmark legislative mandate to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Developing a strong roadmap is important not only here but across the country and beyond because of California's global leadership role as a climate policy incubator and best practice exporter.

The story that should dominate every end of year round up from every media outlet on the planet came last month in the form of two reports released at the U.N. climate summit in Bonn. The first confirmed atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are at their highest levels in at least 800,000 years and possibly 3 million to 5 million years. As Emily Shuckburgh of the British Antarctic Survey said, the last time concentrations of greenhouse gas were as high as they are, sea levels were around 10 meters higher. Up to two meters of sea level rise this century is now entirely plausible. However, the second report was the real kicker. The Global Carbon Project predicted carbon emissions will rise this year after four years when flat emissions fuelled hopes global economic growth and carbon emissions had been decoupled