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Poultry company Perdue Foods became the target of animal welfare organizations after an undercover investigation by Mercy For Animals (MFA) revealed illegal animal abuse at two of the company's contract farms. Almost 182,000 people signed a petition urging Perdue to adopt better animal welfare standards. After negotiations with MFA and other groups, Perdue announced new animal welfare policies this week. And animal welfare organizations are praising the company's new policies. MFA described it as the "most comprehensive animal welfare policy ever adopted by a major chicken producer." Perdue is one of only four companies that control most of the chicken industry.

Nestlé announced a pledge to improve the welfare of the farm animals in its supply chain, following the signature of a partnership agreement with NGO World Animal Protection.The agreement means that the hundreds of thousands of farms that supply Nestlé with their dairy, meat, poultry and eggs will have to comply with tighter animal welfare standards. Nestlé, with its global purchasing footprint, also becomes the first major food company to form an international partnership with an animal welfare NGO.

Starbucks recently updated its animal welfare standards. They include phasing out sow gestation crates and cages for chickens, eliminating the use of artificial growth hormones, and eliminating the use of fast growing practices for poultry. The standards will aso address concerns related to dehorning, tail docking, and castration, and supporting the responsible use of antibiotics.

After less than two intensive months of campaigning for change in the foodservice industry, The Humane League has proudly announced further progress. Compass Group has announced it will join Aramark and Sodexo, the nation's largest foodservice companies, in making major changes to their animal welfare policies.

On Tuesday, the Humane Society of the United States introduced a ballot initiative called the Prevention of Cruelty to Farm Animals Act, which calls for a requirement that all pork and veal sold in California be produced without restrictive crates, and that all eggs produced and sold in the state be cage-free. It would make California the only state other than Massachusetts, which passed similar legislation last year, to have such regulations on farm animal welfare.

The EPA concluded that GHG emissions produced by jet engines are harmful to human health and welfare, as they contribute to climate change.

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.

. As is the case with many companies who tout the magic year 2020, Hershey promises it will buy 100 percent responsible and sustainable cacao by the end of that year, and boasts it is ahead of schedule of that goal by having already met it halfway. Hershey also showcases a program that it says helped 31,000 farmers in nations such as Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria, without divulging how - while saying they are learning "information on best practices in sustainable cacao farming." Such a vague disclosure is not going to mollify critics who have long said the global chocolate industry is one that provides indulgences for wealthy citizens at the expense of some of the world's

Smithfield's pledge followed a legal complaint by the Humane Society alleging that the pork supplier claimed to have higher animal welfare and environmental standards than it actually did.

  General Mills announced plans to source 100% of its eggs from cage-free operations in the United States

The North Face and Patagonia have launched rival standards for animal welfare, with a particular focus on the way the ducks and geese used to produce down are treated. Now the two companies are sparring over which set of standards actually does more to protect the birds.

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus will be elephant-free by 2018, with the troupe's 13 performing pachyderms sent into retirement at a Florida conservation center. The move is a response to growing consumer concerns about the animals' welfare, coupled with the prospect of local bans on elephant performances. "It's a shame this took so long, but it's a creditable step toward treating animals with respect and dignity," writes Andrew Revkin

Panera Bread will transition to 100% cage-free eggs over the next five years, the company said Thursday. Panera will also stop sourcing pork from pigs raised with gestation crates and roasted turkey from birds raised with antibiotics, and boost the amount of beef that comes from grass-fed, free-range sources by the end of this year

The North Face today announced its Fall 2016 line, including more than 500 down product styles that feature certified responsible down through the Responsible Down Standard (RDS). Officially launched in January 2014, the RDS is the most comprehensive, global, third-party certified animal welfare and traceability standard for down and feathers available for use by any company. The North Face initially committed to include 100 percent certified responsible down in all retail and wholesale down products by Fall 2017, and was able to achieve the increase a year sooner than anticipated. 

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven recently declared at the U.N. General Assembly that his nation of 10 million people would become "one of the first fossil-free welfare states in the world."

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.

Largely recognized as a furniture retailer, IKEA also derives revenue from its store-based restaurants, where the company says it is working to make sustainable, affordable, transparent, traceable and animal welfare-friendly practices the norm.

Some amateur ranchers use free-ranging cattle as part of land management, and they are finding they can make money by selling grass-fed beef. TomKat Ranch aims to emulate the migratory patterns followed by wild herd animals, allowing land time to recover between grazings. "Ranches can be working landscapes if people understand how animals and land work together," says Wendy Millet, a ranch director who once worked at the Nature Conservancy.