As you read this, I am ending a short but jam-packed few days in Copenhagen, attending the "Business Weekend" activities, about which some I have blogged. (See here and here.) Along with my colleague, GreenBiz.com Senior Contributor Marc Gunther, and with the help of a host of amazing correspondents here in Denmark, we've done our best to bring you the business view of the COP15 summit. (See here for all of our coverage.) We'll continue that this week, as the summit heads into the fateful final days. (I'll be back in California, but Marc will stick around.)

Not surprisingly (at least to anyone outside Copenhagen), the world of green business has not stopped during the COP talks. This week's stories include new developments in wind turbines and solar panels, as well as a new campaign to green the office workplace. There are important breakthroughs to report on packaging and patents.

And as we begin to see the end of COP, we are gearing up for the next big thing: our State of Green Business Forum -- actually, forums, as we'll be holding two, in San Francisco (February 4) and Chicago (February 9). We'll be unveiling the speaker line-up in the coming days, with amazing people from companies like Autodesk, GoodGuide.com, Earthsense, Green Exchange, IBM, Intel, Johnson Controls, Microsoft, The Climate Group, The Chicago Clilmate Exchange, and more. I couldn't be more excited. More to come from that as 2009 fades out and 2010 fades in.

Speaking of which, a heartfelt note of congratulations to the newest member of the GreenBiz.com extended family: Oslo Morton Wheeland, the newborn son of Managing Editor Matthew Wheeland and his wife Rachel. A beautiful beginning for a new decade.

Joel Makower is executive editor of GreenBiz.com.

This report from Next 10 tracks the growth of green jobs in the Golden State over the last 14 years, and finds big growth and regional hotspots for different types of environmentally oriented careers.

Covering numerous eco-friendly systems, this reference demonstrates how green features are definitely worth the investments they require. Case study examples of projects that have incorporated these aspects as well as how they were constructed are included.

Mark your calendars for two 2010 State of Green Business Forums, in San Francisco and Chicago. These one-day information-packed events coincide with the release of GreenBiz.com’s “State of Green Business 2010,” the acclaimed annual status report on corporate environmental trends and progress.