Every time you send or receive an email, you're contributing ever so slightly to the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere. In fact, just storing mail on a server contributes emissions. A single email doesn't add up to much, but put all the emails in the world together, and you've got a big problem. So if we could figure out a way to green email, we'd be doing a lot for the environment.

As I explain in my blog post, "Is Gmail the World's Greenest Email?" there's evidence that one of the best things you can do to green your email is to use Gmail. As I explain, developer Bob Gourley says that because Google's data centers are so green, that means that Gmail is the greenest email you can use. He also touts Microsoft's Hotmail as well. It's in intriguing argument; to learn more check out "Is Gmail the World's Greenest Email?"

We've all been subjected to this question at job interviews: What do you see yourself doing in five years? Likely, you've drawn a blank. But as I write in my latest blog post "Why IT Pros Will Become Chief Green Officers," you now have a good answer: To be a Chief Green Officer (CGO). As I explain in my blog, IT staff are ideally suited for becoming CGOs because they know how to gather, manage, and analyze data, and greening the enterprise will be all about data. So check out my blog, then start planning your new career.

This white paper from Cisco lays out why green IT is growing in importance, as well as case studies of schools that are helping students get out ahead of the green wave in IT.

Efficiency gurus from Amazon Web Services, Google, the Uptime Institute, eBay, Green Grid and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab share best practices in videotaped sessions from the Google Data Center Efficiency Summit.

In these tough economic times, sustainability leaders and CIOs are looking for projects that deliver a fast payback and lower their environmental impact. In this session, IT executives and a PC power management expert will discuss their approach to greening IT operations and delivering rapid paybacks for the investment.