• More sports teams are going green, report shows
  An increasing number of professional sports teams in North America are shifting toward greater use of renewable energy, according to a report from the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Of the 126 professional sports teams in the five major professional North American leagues, 38 teams have shifted to renewable energy for at least some of their operations," the report stated. The NRDC has partnered with investment and project management firm Vulcan to form the nonprofit Green Sports Alliance, which links sports organizations with environmental experts. United Press International/Medill News Service (11/9)      

• Climate-policy lessons from the Gipper
  President Ronald Reagan was no environmental saint, but his campaign to protect the ozone layer shows the way forward for politicians today, writes Cass R. Sunstein, former head of President Barack Obama's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Reagan relied on cost-benefit analyses to determine the need for action while minimizing the impact on businesses and consumers. Obama should follow a similar strategy to push through climate reforms, Sunstein argues. The New York Times (tiered subscription model) (11/10)      

• Editorial: A carbon tax could help the planet and the U.S. budget
  The Washington Post (11/10)      

• Skanska measures its way to better CSR
  With 90,000 third-party suppliers and 200,000 subcontractors, it's tough for Skanska to ensure that top-down environmental directives lead to tangible change, says environmental-management chief Courtney Lorenz. The key is to run CSR initiatives that lend themselves to measurement and accountability. "Without metrics and accountability, our initiatives are nothing more than marketing," Lorenz says. Forbes (11/9)      

• Los Angeles aims to persuade residents to eat less meat
  The Los Angeles City Council has declared that Mondays will now be "Meatless Mondays" as part of a campaign to improve residents' eating habits and help the environment. "The small changes we make every day can have a tremendous impact. That's why this 'Meatless Monday' resolution is important," says Councilman Ed Reyes. KNBC-TV (Los Angeles) (11/9)      

• Why Disney put its CFO in charge of CSR
  Walt Disney Co. Chief Financial Officer Jay Rasulo is also the company's sustainability chief -- and he says combining the two positions makes perfect sense. Selling sustainability initiatives to investors is never easy, Rasulo says, but it's much easier to make the case for CSR when you're already in charge of the company's financial side. TriplePundit.com (11/8)      

• Experts: Obama's win boosts chances of wind tax-credit extension
  President Barack Obama's re-election means a short-term extension of the federal wind-energy Production Tax Credit is more likely, energy-policy experts said. The industry can expect a wide-ranging tax bill that includes at least a short-term extension, said Gregory Wetstone of Terra-Gen Power. "We are looking at a two-step dance here where we get a year or two and then we come back to the tax reform debate," he said. SNL Financial (free content) (11/8)      

Top five news stories selected by SmartBrief on Sustainability readers in the past week.

• 25 people with awesome CSR-related jobs (GreenBiz.com)

• Funny cat videos make green messaging more palatable (The Globe and Mail (Toronto))

• Why Zappos' Tony Hsieh made a $350 million bet on Sin City (GreenBiz.com)

• 4 climate-policy priorities for the next president (Bloomberg Businessweek)

• Emissions rules leave cruise-ship operators with a sinking feeling (The Telegraph (London))

• Results based on number of times each story was clicked by readers.

• Happy workers are an HR pro's best friend
  When it's time to fill a vacancy, worker referrals are a great resource -- but only if your employees are willing to recommend your company to their friends. That means companies with happy workers will tend to have more luck when it comes to hiring, says John Touey. "Engaged employees don’t need much prompting to be evangelists for their companies," he says. SmartBrief/SmartBlog on Leadership (11/9)      

[W]ith respect to protection of the ozone layer, Reagan was an environmentalist hero." --Cass R. Sunstein, Harvard professor, writing in The New York Times