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The Environmental Defense Fund launched an advertising campaign to protest the proposed cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency's budget. The ad warns that cutting EPA funding could lead to increased health issues, more pollution and increased levels of lead in drinking water.

Wegmans Food Markets and other grocers, businesses and communities are working with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Agriculture to cut 50% of food waste by 2030. Municipal and state efforts to reduce waste are being accompanied by grocers' food-donation and recycling programs.

Plastics are an important part of the global economy and have many practical applications for everyday life, but their indisputable benefits are significantly outweighed by their environmental drawbacks - namely in regards to ocean pollution. Recognizing the seriousness of the problem, Dell, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and NatureWorks are finding new and innovative ways to tackle plastic pollution both at the source and at end-of-life.

Drawing on a key example of successful stakeholder engagement between Rainforest Action Network and Mitsubishi Electric, Erik Wohlgemuth, Future 500's COO, draws important connections and breaks down how NGOs and corporations must continue to work together to confront irresponsible forest management and illegal deforestation across the globe.

New research reveals burgeoning private sector involvement in watershed protection and restoration.

The new Center for Sustainable Shale Development recognizes companies that go beyond regulatory minimums to protect communities and the environment.

Microsoft became the first company to purchase carbon credits generated by the Makira conservation project in Madagascar, which intends to preserve 320,000 hectares of forests and prevent 32.5 million metric tons of carbon emissions.

What do tech giants Apple, Google, Intel and Microsoft, retailers Kohl's, Whole Foods and Wal-Mart, the U.S. Energy and Veteran Affairs Departments, and the cities of Houston and Washington, D.C. have in common? According to recently updated data in the Environmental Protection Agency's Green Power Partnership, they are the most prolific users of renewable energy in the United States.

A giant solar receiver in California's agricultural region may offer some hope for farmers who have been denied water in a record-setting drought. Conservation policies to protect endangered fish species have have contributed as well.

Boston-based startup Cambrian Innovation has come up with water-cleaning technology that uses microbes to turn dirty water into clean energy. Cambrian has federal and private equity funding, including $365,000 from the Environmental Protection Agency. "It's where we will go in the future, where waste is a resource and we don't just want to get rid of it, we want to get energy out of it," said April Richards of the EPA's small-business innovation-research program

The approval by the government of Chile of the largest Marine Protected Area (MPA) in continental Chile is a boost to conservation efforts for blue whales and dolphins

Chines courts are allowed to hand down the death penalty for serisous cases of pollution

Finelite, a manufacturer of high-efficiency lighting systems, cut its waste production by 84 percent between 2005 and 2012 through using reusable packaging, Sustainable Plant reports. Through such innovations as replacing bubble wrap used to protect products with crinkled paper and so-called lean packaging, the company saved about $27,000 a year in garbage disposal costs, the article says.

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

For the seventh year in a row, Intel is at the top of the heap when it comes to commercial buyers of clean energy, according to the Environmental Protection Agency's annual Green Power Partnership report. Kohl's, Microsoft, Whole Foods and Google round out the top five in this year's ranking.

NEW YORK - Touted as the world's largest gathering ever on climate change, this week's U.N. Climate Summit will be as much about business as politics. Major companies, including Big Oil, will make pledges to help fight global warming by cutting their heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions, protecting the world's forests and reducing methane leakage from fossil fuel production.

Asia Pulp and Paper will restore and conserve 1 million hectares of Indonesian rainforest, targeting threatened species like orangutans, elephants, and tigers. The plan was developed with input from Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, and other environmental groups.

Apple has announced a multi-year project with World Wildlife Fund that aims to protect as much as 1 million acres of responsibly managed working forests in China that provide fiber for pulp, paper and wood products.

The Environmental Protection Agency's rule to limit greenhouse gas emissions by power plants has been overturned by the Supreme Court. The 5-4 ruling said the EPA was wrong to not have "properly" considered the "punishing costs" of abiding by the rule. However, many utilities have already started to make changes to be in compliance

The Environmental Protection Agency's power plant emissions rules would save about 3,500 lives a year and have many other positive health effects, according to researchers at Syracuse and Harvard universities. The emissions reductions mandated by the rules would lead to 1,000 fewer heart attacks and other hospitalizations from air-pollution-related illness annually, the study found.