How do you engage employees on environmental and sustainability issues? It's a simple question — to which, I've found, most companies have poor answers. They're quick to say, "Well, we have a green team, and an annual Earth Day fair, and an employee suggestion box, so we're getting their best ideas." Perhaps. But for most companies, employee engagement is a lost, or at least underutilized, opportunity. No one knows the untapped sources of waste reduction, energy efficiency, pollution prevention than line employees. No one knows the "better ways" to do things than those who engage in "business as usual" every working day.

This week, we're pleased to release the latest in our GreenBiz Reports "Green Teams: Ten Best Practices for Engaging Employees in Sustainability," by Deborah Fleischer. Based on interviews with green team leaders from Intel, Yahoo!, eBay and Genentech, as well as a review of the latest literature on employee engagement and green teams, the report provides an overview of the best practices companies are using to support and guide green teams. I encourage you to read, and heed, its advice.

Also this week: Part 2 and Part 3 of Dr. Richard Liroff's outstanding series on corporate efforts to address and reduce their toxic impacts. (Part 1 is here if you missed it.) And a report from last week's webinar with the co-chairs of the Sustainability Consortium launched by Walmart (and now an independent organization) to create the methodology for rating thousands of consumer products on retail shelves.

Finally, as COP15, the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, gets underway, watch GreenBiz.com and ClimateBiz.com for continuing coverage of the business perspective. I'll be there (along with my colleague, GreenBiz.com senior contributor Marc Gunther), our editorial team at headquarters will be monitoring things closely, and we've conscripted more than a dozen others from major corporations, activist groups, and others to write for us on how mainstream business is engaged in, and responding to, the events there. You can find all of our COP15 coverage here.

The latest in our series of GreenBiz Reports explores and outlines the 10 best practices for bringing all your employees on board with your company's sustainability projects.

This tool allows companies to develop an initial assessment of where they stand on the use of toxic chemicals in their operations, and discover and implement safer alternatives.

In this no-travel web conference, Bob Willard, author of The Sustainability Advantage and The Next Sustainability Wave, details how companies can reposition smart sustainability strategies as a means to achieve existing corporate financial goals.