Green News Week

Being in between the GreenNet conference last week and the upcoming Heartland Green Up (which I am going to) -- I have a lot of green news in my browser cache. There were several interesting things at the GreenNet conference that caught my attention -- most notably the Google Budget Containment system. I've looked at air curtains before and have been intrigued...I think they give an attractive solution to most any data center and Google highlights the flexibility it allows them. The Greenpeace IT rankings were also announced at the conference, with Cisco taking the #1 spot. Jonathan Koomey also spoke on a panel at GreenNet about the Dematerialization opportunity.

I also caught a Seattle Xconomy story last week about Cisco and a Verdiem, an energy management software company teaming up. Through the Cisco "EnergyWise Orchestrator" brand they will market Verdiem software for PCs and networked devices. I still think that 'one' of the Cisco acquisitions in 2010 will be related to their building management / EnergyWise division.

Another green story last week was from the U.S. Green Building Council -- saying that they were selected to help empower a new generation of green building student leaders. At the Clinton Global Initiative University annual meeting the USGBC and others were called to help students jumpstart their careers in green building and sustainability through the USGBC Student program. At the conference all attendees were asked to make a commitment to action, a comprehensive, formal plan to address a specific problem around the world, in their community or on their campus.

An interesting item I ran across in my neck of the woods was the Eco4 Partners project for Moss Green Urban Village. The project is developing 170 acres of land in Iowa City, Iowa as a 'green' office and research park, allowing developers to apply for tax increment financing. The most cost effective energy saving and green technologies will be used -- shooting for near Net Zero in energy usage. Buildings will use 60% less BTU's per square foot than a conventional office building.

This coming Wednesday at The Heartland Green Up conference in Des Moines I'll learn about green lessons learned at HP and Oracle, as well as efficient data centers at Wells Fargo and MidAmerican's wind energy program. I'm also going to try and attend the track with Kevin Monson and Tom Struve, talking about the ACT data center in Iowa City that achieved LEED platinum status. It should be an awesome event!