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exceeded our Better Buildings, Better Plants goal within the first four years of joining - seven years ahead of schedule. We achieved a 32 percent reduction in energy intensity across 14 U.S. industrial, commercial and mixed-use sites. At our 100-year-old headquarters building in West Hartford, Conn., we were able to reduce our energy use intensity by 10 percent in just two years, leading to a $233,000 savings in 2013. And those savings will show up in every budget going forward, too.

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

The euphoria over rise in world tiger population early this year may have been misplaced for India as the official data placed before Parliament shows that 98 tigers died in the country by November 16, 2016, a steep 25 per cent rise over last year when 78 deaths were reported. There are many anti-poaching measures initiated by NTCA which coordinate with state forest departments, but to little avail. In fact, poaching cases increased by more than 100 per cent this year. The figures attribute nearly 30 tiger deaths to poaching this year, which is more than double of last year's figure of 14. Top forest officials that Mail Today spoke with expressed helplessness in their fight against poachers and at times cited "political pressures'' leading to more frequent man-tiger conflict.

6 MARCH 2017 | GENEVA - More than 1 in 4 deaths of children under 5 years of age are attributable to unhealthy environments. Every year, environmental risks - such as indoor and outdoor air pollution, second-hand smoke, unsafe water, lack of sanitation, and inadequate hygiene - take the lives of 1.7 million children under 5 years, say two new WHO reports.

Late last year, devastating fires engulfed 2 million hectares of land in Indonesia, impacting the health of 43 million people and emitting as much greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as Brazil does in a year. They were driven by years of rampant, unregulated deforestation, chiefly for the expansion of paper pulp and oil palm plantations. Through global supply chains, we are all connected to Indonesia's fires and to the deforestation that led to them. It's easy to say we need to stop deforestation, but this is nearly impossible without adequate information. 

Deforestation in the world's largest rainforest jumped 29 percent over last year, representing a sharp increase over the historically low deforestation rate seen just five years ago and the highest level recorded in the region since 2008, reports the Brazilian government. The numbers, released by Brazil's National Space Research Institute INPE on Monday, show that 7,989 square kilometers of rainforest were destroyed between August 2015 and July 2016. The loss is equivalent to an area 135 times the size of Manhattan or the combined land mass of the American states of Connecticut and Delaware.

Logging emissions is an important step in securing the transparency that China needs to solve its pollution problems, Mr. Ma argues. Among the harmful pollutants are air particles known as PM2.5, which can enter deep into the lungs and even into the bloodstream. In an interview, he talked about the considerable progress he sees in the Chinese government's approach to air pollution, but also how concerns about social unrest continued to constrain discussion of pollution's damage to public health. Before 2013, levels of PM2.5 [the finest and deadliest particulate matter] were not monitored or made public in a single city. Now it's monitored and released in more than 400 cities. China has entered an era when air quality information is released. It's much more transparent. The 11th and 12th Five-Year Plans only referred to "emission reduction targets," so local governments could play games by claiming they had reduced emissions. Now, by saying by what year the PM2.5 must be below a certain amount, it's much harder to fake. The 13th Five-Year Plan is a progressive plan because it says that the public has the right to participate, to monitor, and that it's the public's right to know.

Nepal had its first zero poaching year in 2011 and has had three 365-day stretches with no poaching since then, giving its 645 rhinos some breathing room. Last year, the herd grew by 21 percent. It's a bright spot in the bleak world of rhino conservation: In 2015 Africa lost a record 1,338 rhinos to poachers and in India's Kaziranga National Park, which is one of the last strongholds of rhinos on the subcontinent, poaching is still common.

This year may be only half over, but 2016 is already on track to be the hottest year ever on record, with each of the first six months, from January to June, setting new temperature records, NASA officials announced this week.

Developing nations invested $37.6 billion on renewable energy development in 2015, according to the World Bank. That renewables expenditure added up to 63% of all energy infrastructure spending in such countries last year, up from a five-year average of 44% and a 10-year average of 37%.

Global carbon dioxide emissions were flat for the second consecutive year in 2015 due, in part, to renewables, according to the International Energy Agency. The report said that renewables accounted for about 90% new installed capacity last year, and wind represented at least half of that total. Meanwhile, the world's economy jumped about 3% last year, "offering further evidence that the link between economic growth and emissions growth is weakening," said the report.

ntifying Disney's achievements and milestones throughout the year, Yahoo Finance named The Walt Disney Company as its Company of the Year just last month. The award is based on Yahoo's evaluation of quantitative and subjective standards that cover companies' financial performance, shareholder friendliness, strategic focus and customer loyalty.

Global water consumption has tripled in the last 50 years. In the United States, the demand for fresh water will exceed the supply by 40 percent by the year 2030, according to a State Department report last year.

This year, the Environmental Leader Product & Project Awards have been opened for corporations to submit projects they have implemented that helped improve sustainability metrics (or for consultants to submit projects they have implemented for corporate partners). Here are a few ideas, examples of successful projects that have come across our desks in recent months. These are the types of projects that would be strong submissions to win a Top Project of the Year Award.

Each year, Future 500 releases a Top 10 list of what we view are the most pressing and timely stakeholder issues of the year ahead. Check out our video this year to learn more about these key stakeholder concerns that impact both the corporate sector and activist community.

There's been a lot of talk in 2014 about the "utility death spiral" and suppositions that utilities as we know them will cease to exist. I'm not entirely sure we've seen the last of the utility industry, but I feel certain a year from now we'll look back on 2015 as the year a lot shifted in how each of us individually acquire and manage our energy consumption. Here's why.

The mixed messages over the last few weeks alone - not to mention many other less-than-stellar environmental developments in recent years (hello, fracking) - raise one big question for 2016: which way from here on climate change? Here are five key areas to watch in the year ahead.

In the Arctic Ocean, some ice stays frozen year-round, lasting for many years before melting. But this winter, the region hit a record low for ice older than five years.

The Antarctic Peninsula is not only getting warmer, it's getting dramatically greener with a sharp increase in plant growth over the last 50 years. Key points A study of moss cores sampled from along the eastern side of the peninsula has provided a unique record of how temperature increases over the last 150 years have affected plant growth.

While 2016 lacked the drama of Indonesia's 2015 fire and haze crisis, surging deforestation in Earth's largest rainforest and ongoing destruction of forests for industrial plantations meant that it was far from a quiet year for the planet's rainforests. So what's ahead for 2017? Here are eight things we'll be closely watching in the new year.