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Tyson Foods urged its pork suppliers to stop using manual blunt force to euthanize sick or injured piglets, use anesthetic for tail docking and castration, and improve housing for pregnant sows. The company also announced that it will increase the frequency of third-party audits that monitor animal well-being.

Procter & Gamble plans to end the use of phosphates in all of its laundry detergents in the next two years, a move that will have the greatest impact on developing countries, the Guardian reports.

Hotel chains and casinos are adding low-energy lighting to guest rooms, putting solar panels on roofs and using hotel limousines powered by compressed natural gas, but these sustainable practices could be bolstered by the use of third-party standards that measure hotels against one another, writes Marc Gunther. "[I]ndustry executives cite three reasons why they have begun to take action on the sustainability front: to save money, attract and motivate their employees, and respond to demand from business and leisure travelers," Gunther writes

DuPont Fabros Technology's Ashburn Corporate Campus (ACC) now uses reclaimed water for the four data centers with evaporative cooling plants.

Bacardi is planning to source 40% of the sugarcane it uses to brew its rum from sustainable sources by 2017, and 100% by 2022. The company also announced plans to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and the use of packaging and water

Columbia, Md.,-based W.R. Grace & Co. under its bankruptcy plan of reorganization, paid over $63 million to the US government to resolve claims for environmental cleanups at approximately 39 sites in 21 states, the US Department of Justice and the EPA announced today

BASF has announced a goal of using only certified palm oil by 2015.

Environmental questions about Canada's massive tar sands development have long centered on greenhouse gas emissions. Now there are mounting concerns about the huge volumes of water used by the oil industry and the impact on the vast Mackenzie River Basin.

Based on data released earlier this month by the US Drought Monitor, nine urban areas in the United States are under "exceptional drought" conditions and may experience widespread crop damages, even more severe water restrictions, and water emergencies in coming months.

Patagonia will use 100 percent traceable down across its entire collection of down-insulated products starting in the Fall 2014 season, the outdoor apparel company says.

PlasRecycle has built the UK's first facility for reprocessing post-consumer polythene bags and packaging films to produce a plastic granulate that can be used for making new bags.

Waste from snack food production, such as potato peels, corn kernels and other ingredients, is used to generate 35% of the electricity needed to power two PepsiCo plants in Turkey, thanks to an investment the company made in anaerobic digestion technology at the plants two years ago as part of its zero-waste commitment. The nutrient-rich digestate is also used as a fertilizer that the company supplies to 350 contract farmers

Delta Air Lines has joined oil industry trade groups in fighting the US biofuel mandate. Through its refinery unit, Monroe Energy, Delta has filed a lawsuit in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit challenging the EPA's 2013 renewable fuel requirements, FuelFix reports.

Unilever has plead guilty to two counts of violating the US Clean Water Act and will pay a $1 million fine under an agreement reached with the EPA and the US Attorney's Office for the District of Connecticut (USAO).

A new product could help people in remote, parched places gain easy access to clean drinking water. The Warka Water, a 30-foot-tall tower shaped like a vase, uses a straw mesh and a nylon net to capture airborne humidity in the form of dew, which it then collects for human use. The device can reportedly gather more than 25 gallons of potable water in a single day, even in desert conditions

Internal carbon prices used range from $6-60 per metric ton, according to the report. In their 2013 CDP filings, the Walt Disney Company notes a price of $10-20, Google $14 and Xcel Energy $20. Other companies included in the report include: Wal-mart Stores Inc, Delta Airlines, Microsoft and PG&E Corporation.

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.

IF HUMANITY is to avoid dangerous climate change, we need to capture hundreds of billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide. But what to do with it all? There is no shortage of places to bury it (see "Trailblazing power plant is first to bury its carbon"), but we can at least put some of it to good use. A few start-up companies view CO2 as a resource rather than a waste product. They are using CO2 as the raw material for making products including superglue and fertiliser.

Chicago is using a data-driven energy benchmarking system to monitor its buildings' energy use and emissions, helping officials make targeted improvements and boost energy efficiency. Boulder, Colo., meanwhile, has implemented America's first carbon tax, raising $1.8 million a year for energy efficiency and public transit projects.

Using a first-of-its-kind heat recovery system, and drawing a substantial percentage of its electricity from solar, the university is greening up its operations in a move that will see greenhouse gas emissions cut by 68 percent and fossil fuel use cut by 65 percent.