While the closing of 600 Starbucks stores is bad news for the 12,000 baristas who will lose their jobs, it's an economic plus for others. The coffee giant is ramping up PR efforts to shape its message about its contraction.

Most everyone admits that minimizing junk mail would save a lot of trees, but because of the profits it generates, it isn't about to go away.

Monsanto, Dupont, Archer Daniels Midland and the PR giant Burson-Marsteller are some of the corporations behind the Alliance for Abundant Food and Energy.