This week I’m fortunate enough to be at the Sustainable Brands conference in Monterey, Calif. This is my second year, and it’s proven once again why it’s my favorite conference of the year.

 U.K. retailer Marks & Spencer has made significant strides on its energy, emissions and waste goals while falling behind on travel emissions, water tracking and organic food sales.

 Marks & Spencer's annual sustainability report gives a detailed update on the 100 commitments that are part of its Plan A program.

Sainsbury's has invested in new technology that will allow the retailer to make real-time supply chain decisions to reduce food waste caused by unexpected weather.

Retailer Marks & Spencer will soon put GreenPrint Technologies' print management software to work at corporate headquarters in London in an effort to reduce use of paper, ink and energy.

 When purchasing equipment and materials, the initial cost trumps any sustainable features or life expectancy for the majority of healthcare professionals surveyed at recent seminars.

Later this year, Ford will begin selling 6.8-liter F-450 and F-550 Super Duty chassis cabs that are conversion-ready for compressed natural gas (CNG) and propane (LPG).

The company, a contract manufacturer for a number of electronics companies including Apple and HP, faces questions about its labor practices in the aftermath of suicides by workers.

Car rental giant Enterprise Holdings unveiled a new sustainability initiative Thursday aimed at reducing energy consumption and cost by 20 percent over the next five years at the companies vast network of neighborhood car rental branches and airport facilities. The initiative, called 20/20 Vision, began as a pilot in 2009 in select markets and is now being rolled out companywide.

Researchers from Brigham Young University found that, on average, employees with telecommuting and flex-time schedules worked an additional 19 hours per week before feeling overwhelmed by the work-life balance.

KKR and EDF revealed two-year results from their Green Portfolio Program and the results are impressive: millions in savings in operational costs, and 345,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions and 1.2 millions tons of waste avoided.

The Green Portflio Program from KKR and EDF has saved more than $160 million in operating costs and eliminated more than 345,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions, 1.2 million tons of waste and 8,500 tons of paper use for eight companies.

As the healthcare industry strives to reduce its environmental footprint, the makers of pharmaceuticals and medical devices are working to curb their use of energy and water and run their facilities more responsibly. Thera Kalmijn examines their efforts in Part 2 of her series on green initiatives in the healthcare industry.

Students from the U.S. and Sweden will compete in a contest from Net Impact, Staples and International Paper aimed at finding innovations recycling solutions for companies.

How can you shift a corporate culture so that it embodies environmental sustainability? Is it all about getting the incentives right or is it brought in by recruiting, driven by front-line employees, led by the executives  --  all of the above? Those were among the questions explored at a recent Green Innovation in Business Solutions Lab in New York City.

The latest rankings of the airline sector from Greenopia find wide differences among how many environmental initiatives airlines are undertaking, with room for improvement the only consistent element.

In times of crisis, speed is everything; nothing is faster than crowdsourced 2.0 problem-solving. Yet BP seems committed to problem-solving the 1.0 way.

Why do so many organizations miss the mark when it comes to communicating their achievements? The obvious answer is that as more and more companies wrap their marketing in green messages, it gets harder and harder to separate the wheat from the chaff. But if spin is the enemy, then the best antidote is to offer something of value.

A socially responsible investing firm has launched bylaw amendments at three of the world's largest technology companies in the wake of those firms' removal from a sustainable stock index.

The Gulf oil spill is now at least three times the amount of the 11-million-gallon Exxon Valdez spill in 1989. How BP handles the catastrophe will be the true measure of the company -- and a sign of whether the industry has learned from the disaster 21 years ago.