Role of Information on Environmental Practices

A new study by Sanjay Sharma in the journal Business Strategy and the Environment finds that information availability mediates the the association between organization design variables and environmental practices. More proof of the importance of information technologies in informing beliefs, changing actions, and improving the natural environment (my emphasis added):
This study examines whether providing employees [...]

Green and White Collar Jobs

David Levy at Climate Inc. has a post about “green and white collar jobs” in which he discusses firms and products in the IT sector that are poised to drive green job opportunities – another important dimension of IS for environmental sustainability in which innovation is critical (my emphasis in bold):
Some of the sectors, such as [...]

SAP Acquires Sustainability Software Company

According to the Financial Times (subs. req.), SAP is moving into the sustainability software space:

Regardless of compliance, organisations should be moving to a more sophisticated definition of what green IT entails, one that acknowledges the role IT can play in curbing emissions across the business, says Peter Graf, chief sustainability officer of enterprise software giant [...]

Software That Tracks Carbon

Demand for software that tracks a firm’s carbon footprint is heating up. From http://earth2tech.com:
When the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, tells tens of thousands of suppliers to start tracking and disclosing the environmental impact of their products, odds are they’re gonna listen. That means the companies selling carbon management software will be prepping for a wave [...]

Demand Response Pilot in Boulder, CO

IEEE Spectrum reports on a smart meter pilot in Boulder, CA.
How do consumers actually behave when they have real-time data on their electricity usage. Do they use less? How much? Is it worth the investment for power cos.? For consumers? Will efficiency be rewarded or penalized due to regulations? Regarding investment risk:
”The real risk” [...]

Happy Birthday U.S.A.

Clear and Present Danger

I try to stay on topic, but sometimes I stray.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman in today’s Times:
The fact is that the planet is changing faster than even pessimists expected: ice caps are shrinking, arid zones spreading, at a terrifying rate. And according to a number of recent studies, catastrophe — a rise in temperature so [...]

The World’s Energy Meter: Go Figure

Energy Use Eye Candy

From The Greener Grass comes an iPhone concept for monitoring and managing home energy use. 
Service concept

App interface:

NY Times on Smart Infrastructure

Today’s Times has a nice piece about IS for sustainability:
In the mid-1990s, the Internet took off because its technological time had come. Years of steady progress in developing more powerful and less expensive computers, Web software and faster communications links finally came together.
A similar pattern is emerging today, experts say, for what is being called [...]