Green IT has been a buzzy phrase lately for corporations looking to reduce costs and look environmentally-responsible. This may be the most attention IT has gotten since the e-mail server went down that one time, for like an entire day. To sum up this new trend, InfoWorld has announced its inaugural Green 15, a collection of the organizations with the most efficient networks and energy-hacked stacks.

The chosen few range from big names like Verizon and IBM to who-woulda-knowns like Miami-Dade Public Schools. One, British broadband provider BT Group found itself using a full 1% of the U.K.'s total power consumption. To reduce their mammoth carbon footprint, the company overhauled their networks anddatacenters, knocked out walls for ventilation and started cooling their hard-working servers with chilly British air. Since BT started the 21st Century Network Data Center Project in 2004, they have saved $7.4 million in electricity costs and reduced their U.K. carbon footprint by 60%.

Digital Realty Trust, a tech-focused realty firm started its green IT project with the hardware around the hardware. They managed to renovate a 90 year-old printing plant in Chicago, making it into the firstLEED Gold datacenter . They achieved the do-over at the request of an unnamed client. Precise energy measurements and reuse of the existing structure helped to achieve the U.S. Green Building Council's 2nd highest certification while increasing the cost of the project just 4%.

Among the other geeky greens are the cheap and super-efficient One Laptop Per Child venture and Fujitu's foray into hydrogen power. InfoWorld also finds key lessons that can be learned from these ahead of the curve companies:

1. Many green IT projects pay for themselves. 

2. Green IT isn't just for the enterprise. 

3. Green IT isn't just for the datacenter. 

4. Measurement tools are critical to green-tech success. 

5. Green IT requires input from outside the IT department.

6. Clean energy is a complement to green tech.

The organizers of the Solar Decathlon, which we blogged about last year, have built a solar home in Second Life. Sure it's an advertising gimmick, but its also a reminder that in the real world, ubiquitous solar is still mainly a fantasy.

The brainiacs at the Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT) are looking to take solar to meatspace with a new initiative called the Solar Revolution Project (SRP). A $10 million gift from the Chisonis Family Foundation will fund the effort to accelerate the viability of solar capture, conversion and storage technologies.

"Solar is thought of as an ultimate energy technology off in the distant future. The goal of SRP is to move this timeframe nearer to the present. The SRP will make solar a practical alternative, by committing a 10-year timeframe for establishing the new base of scientific knowledge it will take to draw a market-competitive energy supply from the sun," said Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy and Professor of Chemistry at MIT, who will direct the SRP.

The plan is part of the institute's larger $100 million MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), which has the goal of nothing less than overhauling the global energy system.

SRP will be less structured than your usual research program (what else would you expect from these piano-droppers?). The millions are unrestricted and programs will take a shotgun approach, spreading initial money to 30 5-year energy fellowships for students. These longer-term projects are designed to give MIT's photon-ographers the time needed to make breakthroughs. The student research is expected to delve into areas like new conversion materials and methods for using solar to produce hydrogen fuel.

"By investing in the people at MIT and giving them the freedom to take risks in the lab, we will enable them to be true game-changers—advancing the state of the art to a point where solar power is cheaper and more reliable than electricity from coal," Foundation benefactor Arunas Chesonis said in a statement.

Personally, I wouldn't mind giving MIT the entire Department of Energy renewables budget to play with, so I'm glad to hear they're getting a chance to jump start the solar movement.

A conference on sustainable cities might not be the first place you'd look for a discussion on humanity's impact on the ocean, but what our seaside cities put in the air and the ground is having an impact on marine life.  

Marcia McNutt, CEO of the Monterrey Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, CA discussed the environmental degradation in our oceans.  Fertilizer that we apply to land runs off into the ocean, causing plant blooms and then decay; this depletes oxygen, kills marine life, and causes dead zones. McNutt made a strong point in citing that many of the world's biggest cities are located along the coast, presenting a direct threat to oceans. 

Our burning of fossil fuels -- which takes place largely in and around cities -- is changing oceanic pH as 50% of the carbon dioxide we produce heads into upper ocean layers.  There, it is converted to carbonic acid, lowering pH, affecting delicate marine life. The very plants that produce atmospheric oxygen are at risk, as the photosynthetic process is pH dependent.  

In fact, half of the oxygen we breathe is supplied by microscopic plants floating on the surface of the ocean.  The ocean's mid water occupies the largest part of Earth's living space. It cycles carbon and other nutrients, and is responsible for much of the biodiversity on Earth. So mucking up the oceans ultimately affects the air we breathe.

McNutt stated that a population 6 billion strong is a fierce threat to the oceans.  Long have we depended on them as a food supply, but recent technological improvements have escalated our impact.  Some fishermen now raise tuna in pens, scooping up delicate life on nearby ocean floors to feed the carnivorous fish.  Technology is also helping us understand our impact. Recent advancements in robotic technology allow us to explore the deep sea and develop an understanding of just how precious and significant it is to the entire ecosystem.  

McNutt concluded by highlighting cities such as New York, Berkeley, and San Jose, which are making strides in reducing their carbon footprints and overall impact on oceanic ecosystems. 

On a personal level, McNutt's presentation got me thinking about my individual contribution to environmental degradation.  I'm thankful that I live in a small box on a rock, not former wetlands, and I don't have a yard to fertilize.  I'm questioning the value of perfectly green lawns and the beef I could consume because both probably benefit from fertilizer.  Thankfully my city of San Francisco has excellent public transportation, and now I have more drive than ever to make good use of it.

As I expected, my first day at the 2008 Ecocity World Summit Main Conference was informative and thought-provoking. I attended a session focused on the environmental consequences of our choices in food. Unfortunately presenter Emmanuel Mukete, National Coordinator for the Cameroon EPA, was unable to attend the conference after being denied a visa at the U.S. Embassy in Cameroon.

Ambika Shukla, president of People for Animals in Deli, India gave a passionate talk about one of the most effective ways individuals can reduce their environmental impact: go vegetarian or vegan. While this wasn't my first exposure to this ideological argument, it was the most powerful.

Shukla began by citing statistics about urban poverty: 600 million city dwellers in India, and about 1 billion slum dwellers in developing countries. Rapid growth means that India has the largest construction market in the world, with about $10 billion in works. She spoke of the need to thoroughly review building energy and design, suggesting the adoption of solar captive houses, vertical expansion, removal of cars from cities, and to strengthen public transport systems.

However, Shukla considers the focus on these technology solutions as treating the symptom, but not the disease, which she believes is of a spiritual nature. I was intrigued to hear her say that the environmental crisis is in fact a spiritual crisis. While previous human cultures worshiped the Earth, new religions appear to grant humans domination of the Earth and all living things. Shukla contrasted this statement by saying that in India, Hinduism still dominates, maintaining a respect for nature. In her words, animals in cities represent green, and the "simplest and most crucial way to save our cities" is to become vegetarian.

Shukla produced a very convincing argument against eating meat. Not only can it be harmful to your health, it is certainly taxing for the planet. Meat consumes land, water, and fossil fuels in greater amounts per calorie than agricultural products. Consider: pastures, grain, and water for cows, oil to transport them before and after slaughter, and the presence of meat-packing districts in cities that Shukla says breed filth and desensitize people to violence.

She says each quarter pound burger consumes 55 square feet of tropical rain forest. Meat requires 10 times more energy in cereals and grains than it eventually produces. Instead of wasting 78 calories of fossil fuels for every 1 calorie of meat energy, why not go vegan?

The world population is projected to reach 9 billion people by 2050, which would overwhelm the planet if everyone were a carnivore. Thus, Shukla says the argument is not only ethical, but strongly environmental as well.

I have made a sincere effort to decrease my meat consumption in recent years. Already, I considered the ethics surrounding farming and slaughter practices. I reasoned that eating organic, and only on occasion were good ways to alleviate those concerns. Now, I can't escape the knowledge of environmental impact. The idea of contributing to world hunger, pollution, and climate change just because I like the taste of a fillet is no longer merely a menu choice to me, but a question of environmental responsibility.

Urban farming. To put it bluntly, it sounds like an oxymoron rolled inside a bad idea. Community gardens have long served as tiny oases for stressed city-dwellers, but that's more hobby than food supply. Now, two university of Wisconsin-Madison students have won the G. Steven Burrill Business Plan Competition with their cross between a farmer's market and a green roof.

The idea is to put rooftop gardens on top of grocery stores ("Oh, the produce aisle? Yeah, go out those doors, climb onto the fire escape, don't trip..."). Their proposed company, Sky Vegetables, sounds a little seedy at first, but these greenhouses wouldn't be garden variety. They would be teched-out soilless hydroponic grow rooms churning out fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers with no weeds, and no pots.

The Burrill Competition, held by the UW-Madison School of Business, encourages its students to develop and present a business plan and offers a $10,000 1st place prize. Winners Keith Agoada and Troy Vosseller plan for the super foods to be sold downstairs in designated sections with a live feed from the aisle to the roof, so customers can actually watch their leafy greens grow.

They say that using hydroponics means that the system can produce 5-15 times the yield with 10% of the water usage. The fake n' bake greenhouses also mean that the grower can ignore outside weather conditions.

Agoada and Vosseller say that the average travel distance for produce is 2000 miles. Besides transportation costs, this causes fruits and vegetables to be picked prematurely, resulting in a less nutritious and tasty product. The greenhouses make use of rooftop space ordinarily reserved for tar storage and keep the garden freshies close to market, avoiding the carbon emissions of normal food transportation.

The pair is pushing their hydroponic hopes on the Sky Vegetables website, where they blog about rooftop gardening projects the world over. With stories of chronic food shortages and high grain prices hitting the newspapers, maybe it's not such a foggy idea after all.

I spent yesterday attending the first day of the 2008 Ecocity World Summit Academic and Talent Scouting Sessions, which gave attendees a view of academic research aimed at solving some of our toughest global challenges in urban planning.  (The Main Conference begins April 24.) 

Green Building has become a prominent international concern in recent years, given that nearly half of the world's 6 billion people live in cities.  The challenge to reduce environmental impact through urban design improvement is being tackled by professionals and students alike around the world, such as Jordi Oliver-Sola of Spain and Jeremy Gabe of New Zealand. 

Oliver-Sola's work "Life Cycle Assessment as a Tool for Designing More Sustainable Cities" focuses on energy demands of housing developments of varying densities in Barcelona.  By comparing length of natural gas pipe and service life of components in the three developments, Oliver-Sola determined that length of pipeline was the key factor in minimizing energy demands.  Single-family homes with longer grids are more demanding than housing developments consisting of townhouses or apartments, which supply more inhabitants with necessary fuels on a shorter grid. 

Jeremy Gabe's work "Feasibility of a Performance-Based Framework for Monitoring Integrated Sustainability at the Neighborhood Scale" compared two Auckland, New Zealand, developments  to determine the feasibility of developing shared principles of sustainable development on a neighborhood scale.  Gabe cited the lack of common sustainability assessments for neighborhoods as complicating the process. He says contextual differences -- ie the goals of the communities -- between the two developments could make it difficult to share principles in sustainable urban design.  One community was built by commercial developers and was more of a "top down" driven agenda while the other was a native Maori community that was building on native lands. Core similarities existed in their environmental objectives, however, so there was potential for sharing basic principles. 

The Ecocity World Summit offers a refreshing variety and quality of presenters looking to share their achievements in sustainable development. These academic researchers can provide important data and analysis for city planners and builders to use in making progressive changes in sustainable urban planning.  Collectively we can simultaneously build better communities for both people and the environment.

The For Dummies books have been helping self-selected dimwits do-it-themselves for years. Titles in the series range from Catholicism For Dummies, Microsoft Office For Dummies, and Beekeeping For Dummies, so if you think they're going to stay out of the white-hot green market, you really are slow. The publisher now sells several books with a sustainable slant.

Green Building & Remodeling For Dummies, written by founder of organicARCHITECT and LEED Accredited Professional Corey Freed, informs lunkheads on how to give their homes an efficient makeover. The volume takes the reader through the basics of green building to specifics on energy, heating/cooling, and waste systems.

The second title, Solar Power Your Home For Dummies, tells those missing a little upstairs how to choose and install a PV system, break off a piece of those clean energy tax breaks and to plug into the electricity grid.

Homeowners who don't know where their fuse box is, probably shouldn't be rewiring for sun power or installing efficient windows. For these simpletons, there is Green Living For Dummies, which provides useful tips on greening everything from your household to society at large.

I think the Green Dummies series some real potential. Who doesn't want their book shelf to the world to know that they're planet conscious and sub-par in the IQ department (OK, no more dumb jokes)? I can't wait for Advanced Geothermal For Dummies, Building Plug-in Hybrids For Dummies, and CO2 Emissions Trading For Dummies.

The manufacturing and industrial sectors of the U.S. are letting a lot of useful heat -- and money -- fly out the window.

An article in this month's Atlantic Monthly says companies that capture the waste heat as part of their manufacturing process could produce one-fifth of all the electricity needed in the U.S.

Not all of this excess heat could easily be turned into steam power and electricity since for some companies the electricity would surpass their needs -- a nice problem to have.

According to the article, the U.S. economy wastes 55 percent of the energy it consumes and trails Europe in implementing processes that simultaneously produce combined heat and power (CHP).

To take advantage of this readily available energy supply, a company called Recycled Energy Development has organized funding for $1.5 billion of projects that will harness what is now waste heat.

These are the kind of projects that the tax structure and the Congress need to focus on. They eliminate carbon and save money and can possibly generate revenue for the producers. This is the definition of doing well by your stockholders and doing good for everyone living on the planet.

2008 is proving to be the year of the green building code. Major cities across the country are not just encouraging, but requiring new construction to be more sustainable. Already this year, new building rules have been passed or gone into effect in Los Angeles, Dallas, New York City, and Annapolis with more on the way.

For years, cities have developed plans and voluntary standards for earth-friendlier buildings. When mandatory standards were enacted, they usually covered only public projects. Now, metro-politicians are realizing that voluntary green building standards accomplish about as much as opt-in greenhouse gas emissions control. Newer rounds of regulation affect private projects, and the truly cutting edge 'green codes' include residential construction as well.

Below, you'll find a round-up of green building codes around the U.S., the standards they use, and the key features of each.