In early 2016, agri-business giant Monsanto faced a decision that would prove pivotal in what since has become a sprawling herbicide crisis, with millions of acres of crops damaged.

Violations of the federal Clean Air Act can lead to hefty fines, and even heftier spending on improvement plans, as ExxonMobil was reminded last week: The company settled with the Department of Justice, the EPA and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality for a civil fine of $2.5m and an agreement to spend approximately $300m on air pollution improvements.

Two recent studies report varying performance levels in Apple's supply chain: Bloomberg argues that it's lost its mojo, but Greenpeace rates the tech giant as a sustainability pioneer.

Sustainability and profitability go hand-in-hand at Cox Enterprises, a $20bn company headquartered in Atlanta with major subsidiaries in the communications, media and automotive industries.

It seems that the fashion industry has finally woken up. Gucci's scrapping fur; Russian entrepreneur Miroslava Duma is investing $500m in sustainable innovations in textiles, such as leather that can be grown in a lab and silk spun by spiders.