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Incorporating biodiversity and ecosystems services (BES) into planning.

This week, scientists from The Nature Conservancy and The Dow Chemical Company, with research support from Colorado State University and Duke University, published Finding solutions to water scarcity: Incorporating ecosystem service values into business planning at The Dow Chemical Company's Freeport, Texas facility, which addresses challenges businesses face to accurately estimate the value of water resources and address future scarcity threats. 

The U.S. EPA Final Ecosystem Goods and Services Classification System, released in 2013, removes many bottlenecks that kept ecosystem services from becoming an integral part of corporate decision-making.

Armed with new high-tech equipment, mining companies are targeting vast areas of the deep ocean for mineral extraction. But with few regulations in place, critics fear such development could threaten seabed ecosystems that scientists say are only now being fully understood.

Vegas still prides itself on selling unfettered indulgence. Round-the-clock gambling, high-end nightclubs and decadent restaurants are not going away. Yet the opening of the Strip's first green space last month is further evidence that, regarding its relationship to the environment, Sin City is turning a new leaf. Featuring native Southwestern plants, recycled metal furniture and fountains built with locally sourced quartz, The Park, as it's called, is designed to create a sustainable microcosm of the surrounding desert landscape and provide a leafy path away from the Strip's tourist-choked sidewalks. It's a bold move away from fabulist themes that ignore the local ecosystem.

Mexico's pine forests are under threat from avocado farms, with producers expanding their orchards to meet burgeoning demand. The water-intensive orchards and increasing use of agricultural chemicals pose a threat to surrounding ecosystem, experts say.

A new short film featured by National Geographic highlights the plight of the Sargasso Sea - a diverse ecosystem of free-floating seaweed and unique wildlife - that is threatened by plastic waste. From microplastics to bioaccumulation, Care About the Ocean? Think Twice About Your Coffee Lid walks viewers through the dangers of plastic pollution in the Sargasso Sea (and other parts of the ocean) - and for human health.

Bees, butterflies and other pollinators are increasingly under threat from human activities and countries must transform their agricultural practices to ensure global crop production can meet demand and avoid substantial economic losses, the United Nations Conference on Biological Diversity heard today. According to the global assessment on pollinators produced by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), 75 per cent of our food crops and nearly 90 per cent of wild flowering plants depend to some extent on animal pollination, which is the transfer of pollen between the male and female parts of flowers to enable fertilization and reproduction. Without pollinators, crops such as coffee, cacao and apples would drastically suffer, and changes in global crop supplies could increase prices to consumers and reduce profits to producers, resulting in a potential annual net loss of economic welfare of $160 billion to $191 billion globally.

"Climate Take Back," as the new mission has been named, is the successor to Mission Zero, the name given to a vision articulated in 1997 that, for most outside the company, seemed audacious at the time: "To be the first company that, by its deeds, shows the entire industrial world what sustainability is in all its dimensions: People, process, product, place and profits - by 2020 - and in doing so we will become restorative through the power of influence."

In our Forest Trends Ecosystem Marketplace report, Supply Change: Tracking Corporate Commitments to Deforestation-free Supply Chains, 2016, we have tracked 579 individual commitments from 366 companies - up from 307 commitments from 243 companies in March of last year - and it shows that, of those 366 companies, most still haven't reported progress on their pledges.

Recent studies have shown, for example that the loss of important predators - from wolves in boreal forests to sharks in seagrass meadows - can lead to growing populations of terrestrial and marine herbivores, whose widespread grazing reduces the ability of ecosystems to absorb carbon.

National Geographic has long been in the business of creating what environmental economists call 'existence value' - getting people to care about the survival of places they know they will never visit in their lifetimes. Now, they're using carbon offsets as part of their strategy to reduce operational emissions while investing in some of the gorgeous landscapes that appear in their pages.

As evidence mounts that excessive use of light is harming wildlife and adversely affecting human health, new initiatives in France and elsewhere are seeking to turn down the lights that flood an ever-growing part of the planet

mounts that excessive use of light is harming wildlife and adversely affecting human health, new initiatives in France and elsewhere are seeking to turn down the lights that flood an ever-growing part of the planet.

Tropical dry forests make up nearly half the world's tropical forests and support people and iconic wildlife, just as their humid counterparts do. But they have yet to capture the attention of the public or policymakers as the world's rainforests have, putting them at risk of mismanagement and overexploitation.

Socially conscious fashion brand Eileen Fisher and Canadian environmental NGO Canopy - with the help of Quiksilver, prAna, Patagonia and lululemon athletica and 14 progressive designers - have announced a joint campaign designed to bolster protection of ancient forest ecosystems and raise awareness about the fashion industry's role in endangering them.

As ever more species face extinction, we lose the vital ecosystem services they provide, such as honeybee crop pollination. For its continued existence, mankind is reliant upon an untold plethora of species that maintain the status quo. As they disappear, that existence becomes increasingly fragile.

Climate change is driving tropical fish northward, with species used to relatively sparse coral reefs suddenly finding an appetite for the more abundant vegetation of northern kelp and sea grass beds. That could lead to radical changes in northern aquatic ecosystems, researchers say. "The faunas are mixing, and nobody can see what the outcome will be," says marine scientist Ken Heck.

Plastic waste causes $13 billion in annual financial damage to marine ecosystems, though the actual cost of plastic waste to the overall environment may be much higher, according to two reports released at a meeting of the United Nations Environment Assembly. One report, the UN Environment Programme Year Book, notes that when plastic material fouls fishing equipment and pollutes beaches it threatens tourism, fisheries and businesses in addition to marine life.

The rise in acidity from carbon pollution is threatening the vital fisheries and ecosystem services we depend on. Here's the price tag

It has already been established that climate change-specifically atmospheric carbon dioxide emitted by fossil fuel burning-has been acidifying the oceans, damaging fragile coral reefs and disturbing vulnerable marine ecosystems. But the McGill scientists discovered that carbon dioxide also has begun to drift to the ocean bottom, dissolving the very materials that help put the brakes on acidification.