At the State of Green Business Forum today in San Francisco today, executive editor Joel Makower ran through some of the highlights (and lowlights) of the data beind the green business movement.

Speaking to a sold-out crowd at the PG&E Auditorium, Makower laid out what we found in the course of developing the report, as well as generally taking the pulse of the green economy.

Makower kicked off the Forum with a rundown of some signs of the times: A leading IT manufacturer using its state of the art green data center in Disney's Epcot Center, an apparel company cutting its overall CO2 footprint to 2007 levels, and many other signs of progress from mainstream green businesses.

And each of these announcements happened since January 1, 2010 -- and Makower said he could do the same exercise, with the same level of accomplishment for every month in 2009, in 2008, and earlier. That's a sure sign that the greening of mainstream business is going strong, Makower said.

In addition to listing some of the notable findings from the State of Green Business report -- many of which we also covered in our press conference yesterday, Makower talked about some findings from a survey of green professionals that also offers encouraging signs of green shoots in the green economy.

The vast majority of respondents -- from our GreenBiz Intelligence Panel, representing businesses large and small -- said they are going to keep steady or expand their investments in green product development in 2010 over 2009 numbers. Similarly, 80 percent said their firms are going to spend the same amount or more on EH&S in the new year.

The only downsides are that headcounts in sustainability departments are stagnant or shrinking, although 23 percent of respondents' companies are hiring. And fully 64 percent of Americans can't name a green business, though the remaining 36 percent consistently name Walmart, Clorox, Toyota, Whole Foods, SC Johnson, GE and a small handful of other firms as "green businesses."

Autodesk: Providing the Tools for Greener Decisions

Sustainability has become an important theme for software maker Autodesk, a theme that started off when customers started asking about green issues a few years ago.

Carl Bass, CEO and president of Autodesk, gave a quick history of what has led the 30-year-old company to integrate more sustainability-related tools and information into its products during a conversation with GreenBiz.com senior contributor Marc Gunther at the start of the State of Green Business Forum.

Autodesk makes software used by designers, engineers, digital artists and others to make films, computer games, buildings, consumer products and more.

"The building industry got most interested in it first," Bass said, and companies that make and sell consumer products are mostly getting on board with understanding sustainability issues because of consumer demand or competitive reasons.

But there are still some companies that when Autodesk talks to them about things like toxicity and materials' impacts, "there are still some blank stares," Bass said.