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Members of UK retail industry body the British Retail Consortium including McDonald's, Asda and Sainsbury's have pledged to reduce their absolute carbon emissions from retail operations 25 percent by 2020 based on 2005 levels as part of a raft of environmental targets covering waste, transport, resource efficiency in buildings, water and refrigeration.

McDonald's and 24 other retailers committed to a new set of 2020 sustainability targets within their UK operations. The companies pledged to collectively reduce absolute carbon emissions associated with retail operations 25% from 2005 levels, account for 100% of their water usage, and divert over 99% of their waste from landfills.

Consumer demand has finally put green retail on the main stage, according to a report from Forrester, which states that more than 50% of U.S. online adults are "green" consumers.

Retailers Bed Bath & Beyond, Nordstrom, JC Penney and Backcountry.com have been fined $1.3 million by the Federal Trade Commission for misleading environmental claims.

A zero-waste food retailer is readying to open up in Brooklyn, N.Y., that will allow shoppers to fill their own reusable containers and offer milk in glass bottles that shoppers can reuse on future trips. The concept of retailers like the Fillery are popular in Europe, but they have yet to catch on in the US market.

British retail giant Primark joined the growing number of brands committing to eliminate all hazardous chemicals from its supply chain as part of Greenpeace's global Detox campaign.

H&M has negotiated agreements this year that make the Sweden-based fast-fashion retailer the sole customer of two factories in Bangladesh and a third in Cambodia, a move designed to give the retailer more control over working conditions and wages for the people who make its clothes. "We see these a little like test centers where we can try out different things that we can then push out on a larger scale in the entire supply chain," said social sustainability manager Anna Gedda

Target, Wal-Mart and Whole Foods Market are leading retailers in the race to provide safer chemicals in products.

Retail giant Target has partnered with GoodGuide, the products-rating website acquired last year by Underwriters Laboratories, to create a rating systems for thousands of consumer products, the retailer has announced.

IKEA, the world's leading home furnishings retailer, today announced it officially has 'flipped-the-switch' on a fuel cell system installed at its retail location in Emeryville, CA - one of two San Francisco-area stores for the Swedish company. Consistent with the IKEA focus on emerging energy technologies, this project represents the first IKEA endeavor globally to convert biogas into electricity through a clean electro-chemical process

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.

36 major brands and retailers have now signed up to the 100% by 2025 pledge, including four of Forbes magazine's list of the world's ten largest global apparel brands, and three of the top 10 UK clothing retailers.

By the fall of 2020, REI will sever its business relationships with any of its 1,000-plus suppliers that don't meet stringent new requirements in areas including environmental impact, chemical usage, animal welfare, and labor safety and fairness. The move is among the most comprehensive efforts to advance sustainability in the retail sector. The outdoors-equipment retailer has already supplied to its vendors a 12-page document detailing the new sustainability standards. Some go into effect immediately, while others are more ambitious and aspirational and won't be mandatory for a couple of years.

The British retailer Tesco announced a commitment to immediately start removing hazardous chemicals from the supply chain of its F&F clothing and footwear label. Tesco recently signed onto the Greenpeace Detox Campaign, agreeing to eliminate chemicals such as phthalates, heavy metals, and chlorinated solvents by 2020. The retailer joins 80 other brands and suppliers that have agreed to the campaign since it began in 2011.

Retailers including J.C. Penney, H&M and Target are promoting clothing made from recycled water bottles and other waste materials for back-to-school this year in a push to appeal to parents and kids concerned about environmental sustainability. Price is still top-of-mind as consumers shop for green products and secondhand goods, industry experts say.

The industry group Sustainable Apparel Coalition has opened use of its Higg Index suite of tools for measuring and evaluating supply chain impact to non-member small and medium-sized (SME) brands and retailers. SMEs may now take advantage of a special licence for full access to the Higg Index. The coalition, which has over 180 apparel, footwear and home textile company members, expects that increasing the number of SMEs participating in the Index will bolster reporting and impact a wider spectrum of the supply chain.

On Tuesday, Whole Foods WFM -1.91% said that it planned a huge project to cover nearly one-fourth of its stores with solar panels. After construction is complete, Whole Foods says it could be among the top 25 biggest commercial U.S. solar suppliers alongside Walmart WMT -0.08% , Walgreens WBA -0.41% , and Target TGT 0.59% .

Tiffany & Co., Target and Helzberg Diamonds have committed to more sustainable gold and metals mining.

Home improvement chain Lowe's Cos Inc will stop selling a type of pesticide suspected of causing a decline in honeybee populations needed to pollinate key American crops, following a few U.S. retailers who have taken similar steps last year.

Home improvement chain Lowe's Cos Inc will stop selling a type of pesticide suspected of causing a decline in honeybee populations needed to pollinate key American crops, following a few U.S. retailers who have taken similar steps last year.