When I was thinking about what to write about for Earth Day, my mind was flooded with so many topics. I thought about how sustainability is becoming more and more mainstream, but at the same time the focus is being diverted to so many marginal issues.

Alliance Data recognizes that our natural environment is under increasing strain. Climate change and threatened ecosystems and wildlife are creating growing uncertainty for not only businesses, but also society and economies.

The Consumers Energy Foundation celebrated Earth Day today by providing $500,000 for three projects that will make a significant impact on Michigan’s environment – protecting habitat for Michigan’s wildlife, planting 100,000 trees and preserving freshwater resources.

Bayer has renewed its commitment to the “Bridging the Seed Gap” project for five years. The project, developed by the non-profit organization Fair Planet, facilitates smallholder farmers’ access to seeds of high-quality vegetable varieties suited to local growing conditions.

Las Vegas Sands, through its award-winning sustainability program Sands ECO360, continuously focuses on reducing environmental impact while engaging Team Members and partners to unite around the protection of our planet. Engaging Team Members with various activities and initiatives around the world allows its over 46,000 Team Members to understand the efforts that the company makes to reduce its footprint, while also learning how to reduce their own impact in their daily lives, at work and at home.

In 2017, Hallmark and its businesses made several moves that met its goals of creating work spaces that foster employee productivity while being as energy-efficient and environmentally friendly as possible.

As the world celebrates Earth Day 2019, we reflect on Pentair’s mission to deliver smart, sustainable solutions that empower our customers to make the most of life’s essential resource. As a large manufacturing company, we take seriously our obligation to deliver these solutions through responsible business practices that help reduce our environmental impact.

50 years ago, the EPA did not exist, which meant there was no Clean Air Act, no Clean Water Act, and no legal regulatory mechanism to protect our environment. This all changed in April 1970 when Senator Gaylord Nelson created Earth Day as a way to force this issue onto the national agenda. Twenty million Americans demonstrated in different U.S. cities, and it worked! In December 1970, Congress authorized the creation of a new federal agency to tackle environmental issues, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Now, each year on April 22, people all around the world come together on Earth Day to celebrate the planet's environment and raise public awareness about pollution.

Merck has been recognized by the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) for its commitment to diversity and inclusion. AISES released its listing of the 50 Top STEM Workplaces for Indigenous STEM Professionals in the Spring 2019 issue of Winds of Change, AISES’ national magazine which focuses on career and educational advancement for Native people in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

“Movements” – what comes to mind when we describe the characteristics of this term are 20th Century examples. The late-20th Century “environmental movement” was a segue from the older 19th and early 20th Century “conservation movement” that was jump started by President Theodore Roosevelt (#26), who in his 8 years in the Oval Office preserved some 100,000 acres of American land every work day (this before the creation of the National Parks System a decade later).