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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.

The first item on the long list of issues to be addressed at the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week: Climate change. On Tuesday President Barack Obama will address a group of world leaders at the U.N. Climate Summit, a one-day meeting hosted by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and open to leaders of all 193 U.N. member states, though not all will attend, plus members of the private sector.

The mayors of Paris, Mexico City, Madrid, and Athens pledged to phase out cars and trucks powered by diesel engines by 2025. The announcement was made during the C40 Mayors Summit in Mexico City.

A partnership of leading international public and private organizations launched the Food Loss and Waste Accounting and Reporting Standard at the Global Green Growth Forum (3GF) 2016 Summit today in Copenhagen. The FLW Standard is the first-ever set of global definitions and reporting requirements for companies, countries and others to consistently and credibly measure, report on and manage food loss and waste. The standard comes as a growing number of governments, companies and other entities are making commitments to reduce food loss and waste.

A total of 34 companies signed the New York Declaration on Forests this week at the United Nations Climate Summit in New York.

At the World Travel & Tourism Council 2015 Global Summit in Madrid this week, the NGO Sustainable Travel International unveiled an industry-wide campaign entitled "10 Million Better," to monitor and scale up social and environmental benefits from travel and tourism

The US Green Building Council joined the Global Energy Efficiency Accelerator Platform, a membership initiative with the goal to double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency by 2030. The program was launched during the UN Climate Summit two months ago under UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon's Sustainable Energy for All initiative.

The North Face set a goal of procuring 100% of its down from sustainable sources certified under the Responsible Down Standard. The company also plans to use 100% sustainable down for its Summit Series and European styles by 2015.

This UN Global Compact-Accenture CEO Study report reveals that the UN climate summit (COP21) is critical to supporting private sector investment and that executives see climate change action as an opportunity for growth and innovation. Among the world's largest companies, those with annual revenues in excess of US$1 billion, 70 percent see opportunities for growth within the next 5 years and 69 percent see investment in climate solutions as essential to competitive advantage.

MGM Resorts is making water conservation a top priority in developing its Park promenade in Las Vegas -- even though there's a relative paucity of water-conservation technologies compared with the number of energy-efficiency technologies now available, says Chief Sustainability Officer Cindy Ortega. MGM also launched a social app to raise employee awareness about water conservation.

The Climate Summit for Local Leaders-hosted by Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo and Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City and the UN Secretary General's Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change-is the largest-ever convening of mayors, governors, and local leaders focused on fighting climate change. 

They'll always have Paris. But what did the U.N. climate summit mean to these business leaders who lived it? Execs from H&M, BASF and others weigh in

As the COP21 climate change summit starts in Paris today, Unilever has announced it will become "carbon positive" in its operations by 2030.

They may seem obtuse and complex to outsiders, but the decisions taken at this United Nations climate summit hold ramifications for almost every business on Earth. Here are seven reasons why COP24 matters for your business.

Mayors of 52 of the world's megacities, representing more than 275 million citizens, have called upon G20 leaders to address climate change at the upcoming G20 Summit. In a joint statement, members of the C40 network urged the G20 to work closely with cities towards creating a more sustainable future.

The story that should dominate every end of year round up from every media outlet on the planet came last month in the form of two reports released at the U.N. climate summit in Bonn. The first confirmed atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are at their highest levels in at least 800,000 years and possibly 3 million to 5 million years. As Emily Shuckburgh of the British Antarctic Survey said, the last time concentrations of greenhouse gas were as high as they are, sea levels were around 10 meters higher. Up to two meters of sea level rise this century is now entirely plausible. However, the second report was the real kicker. The Global Carbon Project predicted carbon emissions will rise this year after four years when flat emissions fuelled hopes global economic growth and carbon emissions had been decoupled

President Barack Obama will announce a new executive order at the United Nations meeting on climate change Tuesday, directing federal agencies to consider climate change in all international development programs.

(Ethical Corporation) analyzes responses from 415 members in Ethical Corporation's global network to identify prominent supply chain sustainability trends. The analysis finds that around 24% of the respondent group cited industry collaboration as the most significant opportunity to advance supply chain sustainability; 16% cited the circular economy as the most significant opportunity in coming years.

IKEA Group is considering internal carbon pricing as a way to tackle emissions and build a "new and better" company, says CEO Peter Agnefjall. "We see sustainability as a driver of building a new and better IKEA," Agnefjall says. "It is a driver of a renewal of our business, renewal of our products and a driver of innovation of all kinds."

The Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council playbook series in time for its annual summit.