Beyond These Four Walls: Product Innovation as Climate Action

This week's stories highlight the increased attention being paid to addressing customer needs as a core component of climate strategy.

ICT remains in the spotlight with Cisco's announcement of a full line of Smart Grid solutions aimed at an expected $20 billion market focused on helping utility companies and their customers manage power supplies and energy consumption more efficiently. A new report from research firm Verdantix aims to evaluate European telcoms on their efforts to help customers adopt tools and strategies to achieve corporate environmental and energy efficiency goals.

Meanwhile, in Washington, the Obama Administration announced a new federal vehicle policy (based heavily on California's approach) that will require fleets to scale up to an average fuel economy of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. This resolves years of conflict between various state-level and federal approaches to vehicle emissions and establishes a clear field for the race to develop next-generation product solutions. The cap-and-trade legislation making its way through the U.S. Congress will establish similar imperatives in other industries.

For a perspective on how your company can identify its own "hot spots" for climate action and innovation -- both within and beyond your four walls -- read our feature story: "How to Cool Your Company's Greenhouse Gas Hot Spots."

Eric Olson is vice president of advisory services at Business for Social Responsibility.

This report from Ecosystem Marketplace and New Carbon Finance was created to answer fundamental questions about the voluntary carbon markets, such as transaction volumes, credit prices, project types, locations, and the motivations of buyers in this market.

This report from a panel of retired U.S. military leaders concludes the country's current energy stance threatens the U.S. and its armed forces.

Investors are increasingly driving industry to strive for energy efficiencies and greater management of greenhouse gas emissions - the question is, what existing metrics and tools are being used today, and which are on the horizon?