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A group of industry associations representing a total of 15,000 businesses launched the Conflict Minerals Resource Center, a website with compliance tools for new conflict mineral regulations

Ecodesk launched a monitoring tool for businesses to track conflict minerals in supply chain. They want it to be an eary warning system for non-financial factors in supply chain, providing an understanding of potential problems

The Conflict-Free Sourcing Initiative today announced that it has published its new Conflict Minerals Reporting Template (CMRT 4.0). The leading multi-industry tool to facilitate transfer of information throughout the supply chain in support of conflict-free sourcing, CMRT 4.0 includes an updated Standard Smelter List and numerous translation improvements.

The clock for corporates looking to get a handle on supply chain conflict minerals is starting to tick much louder. With just one year to go before stricter reporting is required by the Securities and Exchange Commission, many companies are still struggling to trace their sources for metals such as gold, tungsten, tantalum and tin, according to an analysis of reports submitted for the most recent reporting period.

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.

pilot project that sought to demonstrate that carbon dioxide emissions could be locked up by turning them into rock appears to be a success. Tests at the CarbFix project in Iceland indicate that most of the CO2 injected into basalt turned into carbonate minerals in less than two years, far shorter a time than the hundreds or thousands of years that scientists had once thought such a process would take. Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/iceland-carbon-capture-project-quickly-converts-carbon-dioxide-stone-180959365/#GpYzrDcLOjF1tUZx.99 Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter

Over 125 cosmetics and personal care products from 14 brands such as Beautycounter, Rejuva MInerals, and MyChelle Dermaceuticals have earned the Environmental Working Group (EWG)'s new verification. The EWG VERIFIED™ program aims to help customers quickly and easily identify products that meet strict ingredient standards and are "produced with the best manufacturing practices."

From materiality to conflict minerals disclosure, here are the top trends in corporate reporting, plus tips on how to refine your approach.

According to a study by researchers with Dartmouth College that was published in the journal Global Change Biology Bioenergy last September, however, the carbon stored in mineral soils, which lie underneath the organic soil layer, is released for decades after a forest is cut down.

Martin von Hildebrand, founder of the Fundacion Gaia Amazonas, is working to establish an ecological corridor protecting 333 million acres of rain forest stretching from Colombia to the Brazilian coast. That will involve finding ways to work with the loggers, miners and farmers already active in the area, he says. "We have to look at those areas where there already is something like oil, or like agriculture, or like cattle ranching and approach it from a sustainable point of view," he explains. 

The 14 companies that issued a joint statement Wednesday endorsing international negotiations include leaders from some of the world's most carbon-intensive industries: coal miners BHP Billiton Plc and Rio Tinto Plc; oil majors Royal Dutch Shell Plc and BP Plc; aluminum producer Alcoa Inc.; and the planet's biggest cement-maker, LarfargeHolcim Ltd