This development indicates that major investors are willing to bet on expansion of the residential solar market.

According to a December report prepared by the World Wildlife Fund, Ceres, and Calvert Investments, two thirds of Fortune 100 companies have adopted commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase use of renewable energy, or both.

The European Union Parliament has recently rejected an emergency fix to its cap-and-trade program that would temporarily remove some of the oversupply of carbon permits.

The Greenbuild International Conference and Expo will be held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center on November 20-22 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The RE-Powering America's Land Initiative encourages the placement of renewable energy facilities on contaminated and remediated sites.

Beverage and pharma producers beware: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently has shown an interest in enforcing the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.

Electric vehicle sales have doubled in the first quarter of 2013 in comparison to the previous year.

On April 3, the IRS released its inflation factors for calculating the production tax credit in 2013.

The Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) published its 2012 Renewable Energy Data Book on November 23, 2013, reporting significant growth, particularly for wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies.

In a recently released analysis, Deloitte provides an upbeat summary of the high growth occurring in infrastructure projects needed to support the hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling or "fracking" – boom across the country.

EPA’s RE-Powering America’s Land Initiative, which seeks to promote the siting of renewable energy projects on previously contaminated brownfield and mining properties, has now developed a fact sheet on financing tools that can help make these deals a reality.

In the face of US increases in tariffs for dumping on Chinese solar cells provoked by the Commerce Department’s finding that Chinese companies had been selling cells in the US below their manufacturing cost (dumping), China has begun an investigation which could lead to increased Chinese tariffs on polysilicon imported from the United States.

In a March 4 message posted to its website, the Treasury Department said grants under the "1603" stimulus program would be reduced by 8.7 percent to meet obligations imposed by the March 1 across-the-board "sequestration" budget cuts.

In a December 2012 Guidance Memo, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Assistant Administrators for Enforcement and Solid Waste set forth enforcement principles intended to enhance protections for developers of renewable energy projects on contaminated or previously contaminated "brownfield" properties.

In the past several years, systems for rating corporate sustainability regimes have burgeoned, and more than 100 ratings, rankings, and indices are now available for use by investors, consumers, and others interested in comparing one company to another based on its sustainability and corporate responsibility program.

Regulators and prosecutors are flexing their enforcement muscles in new and sometimes novel ways.

The US Government has for some time had in place sustainability procurement requirements, pursuant to Executive Order 13514, which mandates that 95% of new contract actions must be "green," including new task orders.

Pepper Hamilton LLP and Freeh Group International Solutions are presenting two in-person seminars on "The New SEC Conflict Minerals Rule: Overcoming the Challenges of Compliance."

The Federal Reserve’s decision to begin tapering its bond buying program is likely to put a dent in M&A activity in 2014 because it will likely lead to higher interest rates, making deal financing more expensive, according to a panel of experts.

In a watershed moment, Standard & Poor’s recently gave a BBB+ rating to bonds backed by solar power contracts that are expected to raise $54.4 million for SolarCity, an installer of residential and commercial solar panels.