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The US Green Building Council (USGBC) has updated the LEED green building rating system in an attempt to stop illegal logging.

These small-scale fishermen in southern Japan are up against an industrial fishing juggernaut that is rapidly depleting stocks of Pacific bluefin tuna. A prime culprit behind the crisis, the Iki fishermen said, is a high-tech Japanese fishing armada that mines the waters northeast of Iki where Pacific bluefin tuna congregate to spawn. For the past 11 years, convoys of boats have waited in the Sea of Japan for these fish to gather, then used sonar tracking devices and huge purse seine nets to scoop them up by the thousands and sell them to global seafood giants such as Nippon Suisan Kaisha and Maruha Nichiro Corporation.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously voted to outlaw a host of commonly used foam products, in a move hailed as the nation's most extensive such ban. The ban applies to polystyrene food packaging, packing peanuts, to-go containers, coffee cups and pool toys, among other things. For most products, the ban will take effect Jan. 1, 2017.

San Francisco just took a major step to save the environment. The city's Board of Supervisors unanimously passed an ordinance to ban the sale of polystyrene - more commonly known by its brand-name "styrofoam" - on Tuesday. It's the broadest ban on the product in the country, according to Mother Jones. "The science is clear," London Breed, Board of Supervisors president, said in a statement in April. "This stuff is an environmental and public health pollutant, and we have to reduce its use." Starting January 1, 2017, vendors will no longer be able to sell polystyrene products, from food packaging and coffee cups to packing peanuts and pool toys, according to Science Alert. And starting July 1, styrofoam fish and meat trays in supermarkets will also be banned.

The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil has released its 2016 RSPO Impact Report, which highlights the following accomplishments for 2016: * Increased membership by 29% over the previous year. * Achieved 83 million hectares (10,900 square miles) of certified palm oil producing lands across 14 nations. * 40 RSPO growers have phased out the toxic herbicide paraquat, with another 33 firms saying they are on track to ban the use of this chemical. * Doubled the number of certified independent smallholders. * Closed two-thirds of the labor grievances filed since 2009.

"Just 14% of plastic packaging is collected for recycling globally, one third ends up in the natural environment and if current trends continue, by 2050 our oceans could contain more plastics than fish, by weight," says Rob Opsomer, lead of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's new plastics economy initiative. "We need to fundamentally rethink the way we produce, use and recover plastics, redesign plastic packaging and adopt common standards."

Bacardi's 42Below Vodka brand's circular economy initiative - the project collects used lemons, martini olives and other fruit waste from bars, turns it into liquid soap and sends it back to the bars for free - has diverted 400 kilograms of fruit waste from landfills since it launched in December 2016.

VF Corporation has released its first-ever Forest Derived Materials Policy. The company joins over 65 other apparel brands and producers supporting the CanopyStyle initiative, which aims to eliminate the use of ancient and endangered forests in the production of forest derived fabrics such as rayon and viscose from the apparel and fashion industries by the end of 2017.

Amazon intends to install solar power panels at more than 50 warehouses and distribution centers worldwide, including 15 this year in the US. The company estimated power generation of as much as 41 megawatts of by year's end.

Newlight Technologies is doing. Its patented technology extracts carbon from the air and converts it into long-chain polymers that can be used as substitutes for oil-based plastics.

Sara Neff, vice president for sustainability at Kilroy Realty, says an upcoming project in San Francisco will be the real estate investment trust's most innovative sustainability project. The site "will feature a living roof, use of storm water for toilet flushing, solar panels and bricks grown from bacteria," writes Sarah Borchersen-Keto

The Coca-Cola Company, General Mills, Kraft Foods and the other 300-plus food companies that are members of the Grocery Manufacturers Association will soon lobby the US food safety regulator and Congress for a single federal standard covering oversight and labeling of new genetically modified foods, Reuters reports.

the Chicago-based aviation giant reported that it is stepping up efforts to expand the use of sustainable aviation biofuel by seeking U.S. Federal Aviation Administration approval for its aircraft to fly on "green diesel." The proposed new source of aviation biofuel emits at least half the lifecycle carbon dioxide as traditional petroleum-based jet fuel, according to Boeing.

Post Foods, which will roll out a non-GMO verified Grape Nuts in January 2014, has become the second food company this month to cave to pressure from an environmental group and the public and stop using genetically modified ingredients in a cereal.

Some fashion companies are embracing ethical shopping trends, using greener chemicals and more sustainable production methods. Marketing eco-fashion can be tricky, though: Executives say it's important to avoid finger-wagging and to make sure fashion comes first. "It is primarily about fashion. Being 'green' is in the background," says Olaf Schmidt, organizer of the Ethical Fashion Show in Berlin

L'Oréal has pledged to use only renewable raw materials by the start of next decade as part of a "zero deforestation" strategy that will affect its sourcing of palm oil and other resources.

At the kick-off of the Berlin Fashion Week, World Wide Fund For Nature Germany and Welthungerhilfe invited leading textile companies to Berlin. The goal was to provide information about the use of sustainable cotton fundamental for a responsible clothing industry and to discuss possibilities to increase transparency in the textile supply chain.

The Coca-Cola Company has installed its 1 millionth hydrofluorocarbon (HFC)-free cooler using natural refrigerant, preventing the emission of 5.25 million metric tons of CO2 over 10 years, the company says.

New CO2 Fuels has completed stage 1 testing for its proof-of-concept system for technology that converts CO2 into fuel using solar energy.

Royal Caribbean Cruises wants its pork suppliers to detail their efforts to eliminate gestation crates used to confine pregnant pigs.