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Darden Restaurants has plenty of problems, but it's doing well with its sustainability goals, writes Mike Hower. The Olive Garden parent company has successfully curbed per-restaurant energy and water use, saving the company $25 million since 2008

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has signed into law a statewide goal to reduce food waste by 50% by 2030.

Over 20 tons a year of the produce that is served at the Walt Disney World resorts comes from the sustainable farms at Epcot Center. The Epcot greenhouses grow 150 different types of produce from all over the world in a sustainable, hydroponic system.

Levi's Stadium, the home of the National Football League's San Francisco 49ers, features an urban farm that will produce as much as 150 pounds of produce weekly. The garden encompasses 4,000 square feet of the 27,000-square-foot green roof that also has solar panels.

Rust-belt cities such as Gary, Indiana, want to spur urban renewal through large-scale greening programs, such as transforming vacant lots into community gardens, parks and micro-habitats. "There's a tremendous interest because some of these things are lower cost than traditional development, but at the same time their implementation will actually make the other land more developable," says Eve Pytel of the Delta Institute.

Coca-Cola and SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment expect SeaWorld's switch to PlantBottle plastic in its refillable cups to remove 35 metric tons of CO2 emissions annually, the companies say. The recyclable cup, using Coke's sustainable packaging technology, is now available in all SeaWorld and Busch Gardens parks across the US.

America's Best Coffee Roasting Company has been pulling out all the stops to reduce its waste, sending coffee chaff to animal-feed makers and leftover sacks to gardening companies. Now it's switched to using bulk containers rather than plastic bags that can't easily be recycled. "In hindsight, it didn't really take that much effort. I hope other companies feel inspired and consider similar changes for their businesses," says Vice President Kelly Zeissner.

Ecolab announced plans to offset 100% of its electricity use at Minnesota corporate and research, development, and engineering campuses through a SunEdison program supporting community solar gardens. The program will use shared solar panel sites with grid-connected subscribers to ensure clean electricity is generated for use in the local grid.

General Motors began composting food scraps at its global headquarters, working with a local company to transform the waste into gardening soil. The company expects to collect 51,000 tons of food scraps by the end of 2014.