In the e-commerce market, smart money remains in cross-border trade - but American businesses are largely missing out, according to tandem reports by UPS.

As many Australians grapple with how to save their Great Barrier Reef from global warming, others are preoccupied with building one of the world's biggest coal mines nearby.

Major manufacturers like Tesla and General Electric are facing a severe shortage of ethically sourced cobalt, and the metal is expected to increase in demand by 500 percent, says OilPrice.com. Amazon, too, needs the metal for its Kindle, and other consumer electronics are contributing to the demand and resulting shortage of supply.

Someone in a blue vest could deliver your next online purchase.

Full supply chain visibility has risen from companies' sixth most important strategic priority in 2015 to third in 2017, according to a recent GEODIS global supply chain survey. Still, just 6 percent of firms said they had achieved this aim.