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UK retailer Marks & Spencer has launched its first sustainable footwear collection, Footglove Earth - the latest component of the company's ongoing Plan A initiative to become the world's most sustainable retailer by 2020. Each of the shoes' components is sourced through suppliers that developed them sustainably or through the use of recycled, post-consumer waste.

Activists in Washington state are pushing a ballot measure that could see voters order the implementation of America's first carbon tax. If a petition succeeds, the legislature will have to enact such a law in 2016 or send the petition to a voter referendum. 

Carbon pricing was in the spotlight at the climate talks. Post-Paris, these reports are essential for any business interested in emissions trading, carbon tax and more

France's environment minister, Nicolas Hulot, abruptly resigned from his post during a live French radio interview Tuesday, citing "an accumulation of disappointments" in Emmanuel Macron's government.

It's back-to-school time, which means the advertisements are everywhere: Buy! Buy! Buy! Pencils and gadgets. Backpacks and sneakers. And, yes, heaps and piles of brand-new clothes. But this year, those ads are running up against another powerful message, resounding from such big brands as Eileen Fisher and Patagonia, along with a growing cadre of smaller thrift and resale shops: Let's make do, reuse, recycle.

A group of 24 companies - including Apple, Facebook, Google, HPE, Ingersoll Rand, Johnson Controls, Microsoft, Tiffany & Co, Unilever, and VF Corporation - signed a statement urging President Trump to "keep the United States in the Paris Agreement on climate change for the good of the U.S. economy." The statement was featured as a full-page advertisement in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and New York Post.

The new shoeboxes will be made from 100 percent post-consumer waste, including milk and orange juice containers and coffee lids.

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.

Construction is finished at the 33-story Tower at PNC Plaza in Pittsburgh, a structure considered one of the world's greenest buildings. It was designed to use 50% less energy and 77% less water than a regular office building. The project used new materials techniques, requiring construction workers to understand the latest technology. "They get trained and they get retrained when new things come out," said Jack Shea, Allegheny County Labor Council, AFL-CIO president. 

n what has been hailed as a far-reaching victory for global shark conservation, Air China has become the first airline in mainland China to ban shark fin cargo on its flights. The airline, which is headquartered in Beijing, announced the ban on Friday. "We were one of the first airlines in China to raise the awareness of the unsustainability of the global shark trade," says a message on the carrier's website. "We understand the community's desire to promote responsible and sustainable marine sourcing practices, and this remains important to Air China Cargo's overall sustainable development goals."

2016 saw several powerful environmental movements and projects, from the Dakota Access Pipeline protestors to celebrity Leonardo DiCaprio's "Before the Flood" documentary. World leaders also passed the Kigali Amendment, which reduced hydrofluorocarbons in the environment.

NASA found that 2016 was 1.78 degrees warmer than the mid-20th century average, while NOAA found 2016 was 1.69 degrees warmer than the 20th century average. The agencies use those pre-industrial periods as a set point for measuring climate change.

A changing climate means less rain and lower water supplies in regions where many people live and much of the planet's food is produced: the mid-latitudes of the Northern and Southern hemispheres, including the U.S. Southwest, southern Europe and parts of the Middle East, southern Africa, Australia and Chile. As WRI-Aqueduct's future scenarios for water supply show, diminished water supplies will be apparent in these areas by 2020 - less than four years away - and are expected to grow worse by 2030 and 2040.

"Without increasing connectivity and basically building wildlife crossings like a tunnel or an overpass, I think the mountain lions here are definitely going to be lost," Park Service wildlife ecologist Seth Riley said.

A chemical spill along the Elk River in West Virginia has left close to 300,000 people without access to tap water for the past 5 days. The spill originated from a facility run by chemical company Freedom Industries.

Looking for ways to jump-start a sluggish fast food market in the US, more brands are tacking toward sustainability positioning and "clean" ingredients as the king of that approach, Chipotle, doubles down on its own efforts as profits continue to rise.

The White House has announced a new plan to reduce America's methane emissions, which are thought to account for up to 14% of the country's total greenhouse emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency will monitor methane emissions from the fossil-fuel sector, and the Interior Department will develop a plan to capture and sell methane emitted by coal mines on federal land. The effort will depend on "cost-effective, voluntary actions and common-sense standards," said Dan Utech, special assistant to the president for energy and climate change

Mountaintop-removal mining is changing water chemistry and harming fish stocks in the Appalachians, federal researchers say. "We're seeing significant reductions in the number of fish species and total abundance of fish downstream from mining operations," says biologist Nathaniel Hitt.

President Barack Obama is pushing American companies to abandon the use of a chemical coolant called R-134a in refrigerators, air conditioning systems and other industrial applications. R-134a is in a class of chemicals that can be up to 10,000 times as powerful a greenhouse gas per ounce as carbon dioxide.