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Norsepower Oy and Bore say the sea trial of Norsepower's Rotor Sail - a new wind propulsion technology for ships - verified by NAPA and supported by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, confirm fuel savings of 2.6 percent using a single small Rotor Sail on a route in the North Sea. With these fuel savings, the technology has a payback period of 4 years, the companies say.

The UK brewing industry has met its 2020 carbon target - to reduce carbon emissions by 67 percent compared to 1990 levels - eight years early and is on track to achieve its 2020 target for improved water efficiency, the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) says.

The UK brewing industry has met its 2020 carbon target - to reduce carbon emissions by 67 percent compared to 1990 levels - eight years early and is on track to achieve its 2020 target for improved water efficiency, the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) says.

FedEx, Walmart, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and UPS - five of the country's biggest trucking fleets - could cut their fuel use by 500 million gallons a year under the new heavy duty truck fuel efficiency standard, saving $1.7 billion on fuel, according to a Union of Concerned Scientists study.

Mars Chocolate North America achieved zero-waste-to-landfill at all 10 of its manufacturing facilities. The company plans to achieve zero-waste to-landfill across all business segments by 2015.

The Better Buildings Challenge says businesses that have participated in its initiative have reduced energy use 2% annually for a total savings of $1.3 billion. The goal is to make buildings 20% more efficient within 10 years. In total, 34,000 buildings and facilities have been part of the effort.

The Coca-Cola Company has achieved its goal to replenish 100% of the water used in its global sales volume and production by the end of 2020, five years ahead of schedule. The company also made progress against another water-related goal by increasing its water use efficiency by 2.5% from 2014 to 2015.

A plan launched by Philadelphia City Council President Darrell Clarke and backed by the Philadelphia Energy Authority will use $1 billion on energy efficiency projects in municipal buildings, schools, small businesses and low- to middle-income homes with the goals of creating 10,000 green jobs over the next decade and reducing energy consumption. PEA's executive director, Emily Schapira, says green energy is a growing industry, and the project will spur its development in the city.

The European Commission released "Clean Energy for All Europeans," a new clean energy package that lays out plans to help the EU meet its climate targets under the Paris Agreement. The plans outlined in the package include cutting carbon emissions by 40% and increasing energy efficiency by 30% by 2030, phasing out coal subsidies, and more.

Global trade has made it easier to buy things. But our consumption habits often fuel threats to biodiversity - such as deforestation, overhunting and overfishing - thousands of miles away. Now, scientists have mapped how major consuming countries drive threats to endangered species elsewhere. Such maps could be useful for finding the most efficient ways to protect critical areas important for biodiversity, the researchers suggest in a new study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. For example, the maps show that commodities used in the United States and the European Union exert several threats on marine species in Southeast Asia, mainly due to overfishing, pollution and aquaculture. The U.S. also exerts pressure on hotspots off the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and at the mouth of the Orinoco around Trinidad and Tobago. European Union's impacts extend to the islands around Madagascar: Réunion, Mauritius and the Seychelles. The maps also revealed some unexpected linkages. For instance, the impact of U.S. consumption in Brazil appears to be much greater in southern Brazil (in the Brazilian Highlands where agriculture and grazing are extensive) than inside the Amazon basin, which receives a larger chunk of the attention. The U.S. also has high biodiversity footprint in southern Spain and Portugal, due to their impacts on threatened fish and bird species. These countries are rarely perceived as threat hotspots.

Some of the world's biggest companies are seeing waste reduction and energy efficiency as opportunities to help the bottom line. Wal-Mart is changing its sell-by labeling to reduce food waste, while IKEA is running furniture-recycling and clean-energy initiatives to reduce its costs. "We've taken power from a cost to profit center," says IKEA Chief Sustainability Officer Steve Howard.

IKEA wants to become a net exporter of renewables by 2020 and plans to spend another $670.5 million on renewable energy development. It currently sources 53% of its total electricity needs from renewables, controlling 314 turbines and 700,000 solar panels worldwide. The company will continue to embrace energy-efficiency measures, reduce supply chain emissions and make its products more sustainable.

Now, a company called HyperSolar claims to have developed a commercially-scalable method of producing hydrogen using only sunlight and water.

Often taking up more than half of a product's unit volume, some studies indicate that product packaging accounts for nearly half of all household waste. Simple, powerful solutions for reducing packaging waste lie in finding more efficient ways to meet consumer demands. The adoption of manufacturing practices that satisfy marketing and quality requirements without over-packaging goods would be a great and necessary shift for more sustainable production standards.

Marks & Spencer, Nestlé UK and Ireland, and Unilever were among a group of more than 25 stakeholders in the food and beverage industry to sign on to resource efficiency charity WRAP's Courtauld Commitment 2025. The Commitment aims to reduce food and drink waste by 20%, cut the GHG intensity of food and drink consumed in the UK by 20%, and reduce the impact of water use in the supply chain.

Water and waste giant Veolia has saved the city of Poughkeepsie, New York, millions while improving efficiencies throughout the city's wastewater system and facilities over the course of a 35-year environmental contract.

Energy efficiency and renewables are indispensable weapons in the fight against climate change, but the real challenge is keeping fossil fuel reserves in the ground. 

Apple released its first Green Bond Impact Report, which highlights 16 projects made possible by proceeds from a $1.5 billion green bond it issued last year. The company allocated approximately $441 million to environmentally beneficial projects in fiscal year 2016, with the majority of funds going toward renewable energy (about $129 million), green building (about $232.6 million), and energy efficiency (about $74.6 million).

Outdoor retailer REI is saving 1.8 million KW-h per year after installing energy-efficient cooling systems at its Seattle datacenter. The project reduced energy consumption tied to cooling by 93% and had a payback period of less than 1 year.

The Winter X Games in Aspen produces a big carbon footprint, the Aspen Times reports, but Aspen Skiing Company (Skico), which produces the games that ended Sunday, is taking measures to make the annual event more sustainable. Snowmaking is the biggest greenhouse gas emitter. Schendler estimates this accounts for 5 percent of Skico's overall annual GHG emissions. But by replacing older snowmaking guns with more efficient models, Skico is shrinking the event's carbon footprint, the paper reports.

Members of UK retail industry body the British Retail Consortium including McDonald's, Asda and Sainsbury's have pledged to reduce their absolute carbon emissions from retail operations 25 percent by 2020 based on 2005 levels as part of a raft of environmental targets covering waste, transport, resource efficiency in buildings, water and refrigeration.