As someone who has been donating blood since 1976, I’m always excited to celebrate National Heart Month in February. It’s important to remember how we can do our part to help keep hearts beating around the world. Every two seconds, someone in the U.S. will need blood. And, one pint of blood donated can save up to three lives.

Today, KeyBank announced it will provide a total of $12 million in capital to help develop the Niagara City Lofts in Niagara Falls, New York. The adaptive reuse project will convert an existing, abandoned public school, built in 1923 and vacant since 1986, into 61 units of workforce housing, affordable housing, market rate apartments, and a new commercial community space. The building has been submitted to the National Register of Historic Places for designation as a historic building.

The day after Christmas, a tornado three and a half miles wide tore through neighborhoods in North Texas, damaging or destroying 1,110 homes and 35 businesses. More than 40 volunteers from Alliance Data's Plano office spent two mornings the past month clearing the rubble in one of the hardest hit neighborhoods.

It isn’t New Year’s without resolving to work out more and eat healthier. Planning your meals in advance can help you control calories and cut food waste. In your planning, perhaps you’ll think about using what’s in your pantry, buying only what you need, and repurposing leftover. Just a few years ago, Americans threw out over 74 billion pounds of food. Careful meal planning can help you save calories and our ‪#‎blueplanet.‪#‎SustainableResolutions

Drowsy German bureaucrats in Hamburg will soon have one less option for a mid-afternoon caffeine jolt, after the city banned single-serve coffee machines such as Nespresso from government buildings.

Waste production is a serious problem for all American companies and industries. The largest 5,589 publically traded businesses in the United States sent 342 million metric tons of waste to landfills and incinerators in 2014. That is the equivalent of sending the weight of three Empire State Buildings to a landfill every day.

The Ray C. Anderson Foundation is the new sponsor of “Talk with Green Guy,” a rapidly growing weekly show hosted by Eric Moncrief on WGST 640 AM, which airs locally Sunday mornings at 9:00 a.m. Eastern with podcasts available at www.greenguymedia.com.

Nat Geo Wild Europe launched its sixth annual Big Cat Week in February. Each year, Nat Geo Wild sheds light on the plight of big cats around the world with a week of premieres. More than a television event, Big Cat Week is an extension of the Big Cats Initiative (BCI), a long-term commitment by the National Geographic Society to stop poaching, save habitat and sound the call that big steps are needed to save big cats around the world. This global initiative actively supports on-the-ground conservation projects and education to help stem and eventually reverse the rapid disappearance of big-cat populations.

An essential part of building living communities isn’t just designing housing units with a low environmental impact, but making those housing units affordable for the communities they’re in.