About half of Americans (49%) say that protection of environment should be given priority, even at the risk of limiting the amount of energy supplies, virtually unchanged from their sentiment last year. Fewer than four in 10 (39%) prioritize the development of U.S. energy supplies even if the environment suffers to some extent.

This week, stakeholders continued to take action to pressure companies into turning over a new leaf when it comes to their sourcing practices - around what has become known as Conflict Palm Oil.

The latest effort, the Out of Fashion campaign for forest-friendly fabrics - led by the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) - is calling on the "Fashion 15" group of companies - Ralph Lauren, Prada, LVMH, Tory Burch, Michael Kors, Vince, Guess, Velvet, L Brands, Forever 21, Under Armour, Footlocker, Abercrombie and Fitch, GAIAM and Beyond Yoga - to take responsibility for their supply chains and develop strong, time bound commitments to protect forests and human rights. With proven connections from human rights violations and forest destruction all the way to our store shelves, fashion companies can no longer ignore this critical issue.

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.

The Xeros laundry system uses polymer bead technology to provide superior cleaning results as compared to conventional aqueous washing methods while saving up to 80 percent on water and up to 50 percent on utility costs.

With the Keystone XL and other pipeline projects running into stiff opposition, Alberta's tar sands industry is facing growing pressure to find ways to get its oil to market. One option under consideration would be to ship the oil via an increasingly ice-free Arctic Ocean.

The main reason soaring greenhouse gas emissions have not caused air temperatures to rise more rapidly is that oceans have soaked up much of the heat. But new evidence suggests the oceans' heat-buffering ability may be weakening.

Naturally occurring climate change lowered oxygen levels in the deep ocean, decimating a broad spectrum of seafloor life that took some 1,000 years to recover, according to a study that offers a potential window into the effects of modern warming.

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.

A number of leading apparel companies have come to realize that the way we produce clothes has a direct impact not only on the world's valuable water resources, but also on the industry's bottom line.

For decades, the slaughter of sharks - sought after for their fins and meat - has been staggering. But bans on finning and new attitudes in Asia toward eating shark fin soup are leading to optimism about the future for these iconic ocean predators

According to a study by researchers with Dartmouth College that was published in the journal Global Change Biology Bioenergy last September, however, the carbon stored in mineral soils, which lie underneath the organic soil layer, is released for decades after a forest is cut down.

Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE:TWC) has announced that its "Go Green" initiative has resulted in a 38 percent reduction in the company's carbon intensity over the past two years, far exceeding its goal of a 15 percent reduction set in 2012.

Finally, the fashion industry realizes we cannot continue this trend in a world where the rising population will have to devote more land to food - or even energy. We cannot continue to grow cotton like mad, nor can we endlessly spin fossil fuels into polyester or other synthetic fabrics. The road toward more sustainable fibers will be a long one with plenty of failures and misses, but it is one we need to take. That is, at least, absent a total rethink of how many clothes we really need in our closets - a discussion the large global clothing chains want to avoid.

Nearly every piece of plastic still exists on Earth, regardless of whether it's been recycled, broken down into microscopic bits or discarded in the ocean. And the world keeps producing more of the material -- creating 288 million metric tons of it in 2012. About 4.8 to 12.7 million metric tons of it end up in the oceans in 2010, according to a new estimate published in the journal Science.

The companies on the World's Most Admired list are rated based on nine key attributes, including innovativeness, sound financials, value as a long-term investment, and more.

At the University of Miami's Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Brian McNoldy and other researchers have been accumulating sea level data from Virginia Key (a small island just south of Miami Beach) since 1996. Over those nineteen years, sea levels around the Miami coast have already gone up 3.7 inches.

Shell is set to confront the risk that climate change may pose to its future, after backing a resolution from activist shareholders. The move came on the same day it announced $15bn (£10bn) in cost cutting due to plummeting oil prices and said it wanted to resume drilling for oil in the Arctic.

Thanks to a study published today in the journal Science, we finally have an estimate. Are you sitting down? Humans release between 5.3 million and 14 million tons of plastic into the ocean annually.