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This year, the Environmental Leader Product & Project Awards have been opened for corporations to submit projects they have implemented that helped improve sustainability metrics (or for consultants to submit projects they have implemented for corporate partners). Here are a few ideas, examples of successful projects that have come across our desks in recent months. These are the types of projects that would be strong submissions to win a Top Project of the Year Award.

In the Delhi region alone, Indian project partners of the Sustainable Water Resources Management project implemented 85 different "low-hanging fruit" recommendations resulting in a 765 percent return on investment in one year and an average payback time of 11 days per project, SIWI says.

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

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. new project providing nearly 600 electric charging stations throughout the airport for ground support equipment (GSE) such as baggage tugs, bag ramps and pushback vehicles. Converting the GSE from fossil fuel to electric, each year the project is projected to save $2.8 million in airline fuel costs and 10,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions - the equivalent of taking 1,900 cars off the road.

Amazon Web Services unveiled five new solar projects in Virginia, totaling 180 MW of renewable energy capacity. The projects include four 20 MW solar farms, and one 100 MW facility. The projects will be operational before the end of 2017.

For the first time, solar power is becoming the cheapest form of electricity production in the world, according to new statistics from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) released Thursday. While unsubsidized solar has occasionally done better than coal and gas in individual projects, 2016 marked the first time that the renewable energy source has out-performed fossil fuels on a large scale-and new solar projects are also turning out to be cheaper than new wind power projects, BNEF reports in its new analysis, Climatescope.

The $1.35 billion Quest carbon capture and storage project in Canada being developed by Shell Canada is now half finished. There are 600 workers on the project, scheduled to become operational late next year. When completed, the facility will reduce direct carbon dioxide emissions by 1 million tons per year, "equivalent to taking 175,000 cars off the road," the article notes

Today, the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) launched LEED Proven Provider, a new designation that streamlines the LEED project review process for experienced organizations that demonstrate consistent excellence in administering LEED projects. "LEED Proven Provider makes the LEED review process faster and more seamless," said Doug Gatlin, vice president of program delivery, U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and GBCI. "It allows GBCI to deliver faster reviews of LEED projects while still maintaining the integrity of the LEED certification process."

Texas Wesleyan University has installed a co-generation system called the Combined Heat and Power Plant that can produce its own energy. Powered by natural gas, the system captures waste heat from the engine and exhaust and converts that to power. The project is projected to save the university $377,000 a year and is part of a $6.2 million energy project.

Wells Fargo plans to put $200 billion toward investment in, and finance of, companies and projects involved with clean technologies, renewable energy, green bonds and alternative transportation, by 2030. The funds will also go toward companies and projects focused on sustainable agriculture, recycling, conservation and other environmental activities, as part of a company-wide effort to support - and be part of - the transition to a low-carbon economy

The Department of Energy has made available $8 billion in loan guarantee authority to support advanced fossil energy projects that avoid, reduce or sequester greenhouse gases.

Acciona Agua, the water services division of Acciona, a global renewable energy, infrastructure and water services group, will deploy Spain's first smart water grid in the western city of Cáceres as part of a European project that aims to apply new technologies to the management of drinking water networks.

Through an ambitious project model combining innovative financing approaches with traditional conservation, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS) and The Orangutan Project (TOP) will join forces with local communities to actively manage the 100,000 acres of former logging forest, known as Bukit Tigapuluh (known as Thirty Hills), to protect rather than exploit the land's natural resources.

Adidas launched its "Sports Infinity" research project, which aims to combine components from old sporting goods with excess materials from other industries to create new products. The goal of the research project is to provide soccer players with adhesive-free, recyclable, and zero-waste sporting goods.

Renewable energy projects surpassed all other sources of new electricity added to the global supply last year, says a new report released this week by the International Energy Agency. In 2015, renewables made up more than half of all new installed capacity, with the greatest gains seen in onshore wind and solar. It's a development that speaks to a "transformation of global power markets,"

In the first initiative of its kind to publicly benchmark corporate chemicals management, the Chemical Footprint Project (#ChemicalFootprint) today published its inaugural report. The results provide valuable insights into how leading companies manage chemicals in their products and supply chains, and how all companies might manage these issues in the future.

Since Google declared its 100 percent commitment to renewables back in 2012, it has signed contracts that will help add almost 2.6 gigawatts of wind- and solar-generated electricity to the grid by the time all the projects are completely. While each of those installations has its own timetable for completion, at least 900 megawatts of those projects should come online within the next four to six weeks alone, according to one of Google's energy strategy executives. Over the course of next year, all the clean power that Google is adding to the grid will offset what it's using in aggregate. And moving forward, Google wants to ensure that more of the electricity it actually uses can be traced to renewable generating sources.

A plan launched by Philadelphia City Council President Darrell Clarke and backed by the Philadelphia Energy Authority will use $1 billion on energy efficiency projects in municipal buildings, schools, small businesses and low- to middle-income homes with the goals of creating 10,000 green jobs over the next decade and reducing energy consumption. PEA's executive director, Emily Schapira, says green energy is a growing industry, and the project will spur its development in the city.

The Wildlife Habitat Council launched a new certification website that enables its members to add projects, upload documentation, submit applications, and more. CEF members that have been recognized by the Wildlife Habitat Council for achievements in land conservation include BASF, Boeing, CH2M, Chevron, Dow Chemical, Fidelity Investments, General Motors, Lockheed Martin, and Waste Management. 

World leaders have agreed to double the clean energy research funding they pledged in December as part of an international push to reduce carbon emissions, the White House announced on Thursday.  During the first meeting of the 21 countries involved in the Mission Innovation project this week, international members said they would increase the clean energy research and development funding the project is designed to facilitate.  According to the White House, member countries will now spend $30 billion per year by 2021 on clean energy research.