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Incorporating biodiversity and ecosystems services (BES) into planning.

This week, scientists from The Nature Conservancy and The Dow Chemical Company, with research support from Colorado State University and Duke University, published Finding solutions to water scarcity: Incorporating ecosystem service values into business planning at The Dow Chemical Company's Freeport, Texas facility, which addresses challenges businesses face to accurately estimate the value of water resources and address future scarcity threats. 

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.

The U.S. EPA Final Ecosystem Goods and Services Classification System, released in 2013, removes many bottlenecks that kept ecosystem services from becoming an integral part of corporate decision-making.

Amazon has signed a 13-year agreement to buy wind power from Pattern Energy's 150-megawatt wind farm in Benton County, Ind. The Fowler Ridge wind farm will be renamed the Amazon Web Services Wind Farm and is expected to begin operations as soon as January 2016.

Under a new order from the state's Public Service Commission, utility companies will soon be barred from owning "distributed" power systems-that means rooftop solar, small wind turbines, and basically anything else that isn't a big power plant. "By restricting utilities from owning local power generation and other energy resources, customers will benefit from a more competitive market, with utilities working and partnering with other companies and service providers," the commission said in a statement.

The UN Environment Program and other partners launched the Sustainable Public Procurement Program, a project to redirect public spending towards goods and services with environmental and social benefits. The initiative is part of the UN's 10-Year Framework of Programs on Sustainable Consumption and Production.

By the end of the century, scientists say, megafires-conflagrations that chew up at least 100,000 acres of land-will become the norm. Which makes them of critical interest to researchers. These infernos, once rare, are growing to sizes that U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell describes as "unimaginable" two decades ago. Five alone have consumed more than five million acres in central Alaska since June. Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado also experienced their worst wildfires in the past seven years.

Rising temperatures are increasing the number of "megafires" in the forests of the western U.S., experts say. Tackling and preventing such fires could require a significant shift in firefighting and forest conservation strategies. "These stresses are going to become more widespread," warned Craig Allen, a U.S. Geological Service forest ecologist. National Geographic News (free registration) (8/9) 

A group of environmental organizations sued the US Forest Service on Tuesday, claiming that it allowed Nestlé to illegally divert millions of gallons of water from California's San Bernadino National Forest to use for Arrowhead brand bottled water while the state struggles through a historic drought.

A new radar and satellite system will give brands greater forest commodity sourcing transparency Companies that source commodities from areas potentially at risk of deforestation will have a new weapon in their armoury from the start of 2017. Starling is a high-resolution satellite auditing service that can be used to check forest management practices, in particular in source countries for palm oil, such as Indonesia and Malaysia.

In the spirit of preservation at the heart of the National Park Service, Yellowstone National Park is setting an example and promoting sustainable building practices. The park's Living Building Challenge and LEEDv4 Platinum-certified project focus on transparency in choosing building products with labels that gauge a product's environmental and material impacts.

Disney is mentioned for saving money using a Switch service

New York cements its position as a national renewable energy leader today with a New York Public Service Commission (PSC) order requiring that 50 percent of the state's electricity must from clean, renewable sources like solar and wind power by 2030.

Last month, the World Green Building Council announced its ambitious new project, Advancing Net Zero, which aims to make all buildings net zero by 2050. Here are five companies that are providing first-rate technology, building products and services that have been and will continue to be important tools for the evolution of net zero buildings.

Bees around the world face a real challenge to sustain their populations in the face of threats such as habitat loss and pesticides. Hawaiian yellow-faced bees are no different, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has now moved to protect the insects by placing seven species on the endangered list, a first for any type of bee in the US.

The New York State Public Service Commission has approved a $7.6 billion clean-energy subsidy for the Ginna, FitzPatrick and Nine Mile Point 1 and 2 nuclear power plants as part of the state's move to more sustainable energy. Environmental groups protested the grants, saying the production and transport of nuclear fuel release a great deal of carbon into the air.

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.

New York City's Department of Parks & Recreation has launched a Street Tree Map that allows users to not only learn about the city's different tree species, but also about the ecological and economic benefits they offer to the city. Using figures laid out by the U.S. Forest Service, the city, along with a team of 2,300 volunteers, completed a citywide tree census and used the data to calculate the estimated annual benefit in dollars trees provide to New York City.

Bees, butterflies and other pollinators are increasingly under threat from human activities and countries must transform their agricultural practices to ensure global crop production can meet demand and avoid substantial economic losses, the United Nations Conference on Biological Diversity heard today. According to the global assessment on pollinators produced by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), 75 per cent of our food crops and nearly 90 per cent of wild flowering plants depend to some extent on animal pollination, which is the transfer of pollen between the male and female parts of flowers to enable fertilization and reproduction. Without pollinators, crops such as coffee, cacao and apples would drastically suffer, and changes in global crop supplies could increase prices to consumers and reduce profits to producers, resulting in a potential annual net loss of economic welfare of $160 billion to $191 billion globally.

But the fact is that the blockchain is building some serious credibility within the world's biggest banks and financial services firms - they helped fuel more than $1 billion in investments between 2014 and 2016. That visibility has given both established and emerging companies the confidence to experiment. In mid-October, for example, Walmart announced a collaboration with IBM and Tsinghua University in Beijing focused on using the blockchain as a mechanism for authenticating food sources and keeping tabs on all sorts of related data - including the originating farm, batch numbers, processing plant information, expiration dates and storage temperatures.