Our personal data form an incredibly important resource for many technology companies, leading some to regard the massive amounts of data we generate as the 21st century version of oil. Although potentially unlimited from a supply perspective, is our personal data a sustainable resource for the companies that rely on it?

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Explosive growth in mobile computing and cloud services has industry players, public and private sector organizations focused on greening the data center. But with investments and data center facilities growing exponentially, it’s more than likely that electricity demand will far outstrip energy savings and renewable energy gains.

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A recent RelayRides car accident is bringing attention to some of the liability issues associated with sharing economy borrowing arrangements.

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The U.S. solar industry has experienced emotional ups and downs in the last two years that would exhaust even stronger industries. Here are five reasons why the U.S. solar industry shouldn’t feel upset about BrightSource’s canceled IPO:

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About two years ago Bloom Energy revealed its top secret “Bloom Box” fuel cell system and immediately created an incredible buzz around it. It was amazing to see how much hype was created around what the company described as “a new class of distributed power generator, producing clean, reliable, affordable electricity at the customer site.” For a while, it seemed that there was nothing more exciting than Bloom’s fuel cells that presented a promise to change the world someday. So what happened with Bloom Energy since then? Was the hype justified?

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Employee engagement is one of the most effective tools for achieving long-term success and shared value. Intel, Hyatt, Walmart, Google and Clif Bar all have great programs for employee engagement and retention.

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Following on the heels of the Green Electronics Ranking, today Greenpeace released the fifth version of its Cool IT Leaderboard. This ranks and evaluates global IT companies on their leadership in the fight to reduce global carbon emissions

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Although Google is a tech-company with huge, energy-intensive data-centers, they are also pretty clued in about sustainability. Through the years, they have been investing heavily in renewable energy technology, not only as part of their CSR but also because it makes business sense for them. Last year, they released details about their carbon footprint and their report discussed [...]

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In November 2011, Bill Weihl, left his post as the Green Czar at Google. Weihl oversaw much of Google’s $700M investments in clean energy and was a driving force behind Google’s Green Dream otherwise known as The Impact of Clean Energy Innovation. Now, it seems that Dr. Weihl, a former Computer Science professor at MIT, [...]

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As 2011 comes to close, Google has embarked on its annual exploration of the biggest news, trends and events that captured our attention and sparked our curiosity throughout the year. With Zeitgeist 2011, Google provides a visual analysis of how the world searched, including Top 10 lists of the most popular queries in a variety of [...]

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On May 19, 1997, John Browne, then the CEO of BP, gave his famous ‘Climate Change: the New Agenda’ speech at Stanford, outlining BP’s new approach to global warming. One part of that new agenda was a foray into new energy technologies, particularly solar. Now it looks like solar is about to join the rest [...]

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The holiday season is the shopping season. It is also the catalog season, with tens of millions of glossy catalogs sent out to encourage people to shop. Although there’s nothing new about it, this year we can finally say there is a light at the end of the catalog tunnel. I’m talking about Catalog Spree, [...]

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At Cone Communications, we spend the entire year tracking cause marketing and corporate responsibility (CR), and between shark fin soap and $3,500 sneakers for a cause, we’ve seen it all. We reveal our top 10 cause marketing and CR trends of 2011.

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Is there is any way to prevent our society from becoming so dependent on digital communication that we forget how to connect as human beings?

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The company Intuit, known for its Quicken product and other popular software,  is out with a new sustainability report that addresses a growing challenge for software companies: how to continue developing a sustainable platform as the world transitions to greater mobility and cloud computing. The transition means that companies like Intuit are investing in and [...]

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90 percent off for a skydiving jump? 75 percent off for a candle-lit dinner for two? It’s easier than ever before for consumers to find good deals offered by local merchants, restaurants, and businesses. But is this a sustainable business model?

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Green Gift Monday, launched for the second year by The Nature Conservancy, encourages gift givers to consider environmentally and socially responsible choices around the holidays. It also presents a great marketing opportunity for the Conservancy and its partners.

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Last month, Google announced plans to invest $5 billion in an undersea transmission cable that will give a tremendous boost to wind energy development along the eastern seaboard of the United States. Called the Atlantic Wind Connection, the cable, at roughly 350 miles long, will act as a energy highway, connecting wind farms (as they [...]

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The U.S. is a global leader in installed geothermal capacity, but so far almost all of the activity has been confined to a few western states, primarily California and Nevada with Utah running a distant third. Now a new geothermal study viewable on Google Earth reveals that some of the hottest regions for future geothermal [...]

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The value of urban trees is pretty clear to anyone who has finally reached a soothing green canopy after trudging down a hot city street, and now studies are emerging that put a dollar sign on trees in urban neighbohoods. In that regard, the world of urban forestry is right in step with Mark Tercek [...]

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As a former resident of Allston, MA, I was happy to read in the Boston Globe that Google is investing $28 million to help construct 240 housing units at the Charlesview Residences in Allston. I guess the developers are happy to have Google on their list of investors and according to the article it’s also a [...]

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In 1984, when the world was assaulted with terrible pictures of famine coming out of Ethiopia, several original charity singles like We are the World, Do they know its Christmas? came out to bring awareness to the cause. The world vowed then that this tragedy would never happen. Sadly, fast forward 27 years and it’s [...]

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Last Thursday Google released for the first time details on its carbon footprint. The figures themselves were interesting, but the fact that Google finally ditched its somewhat schizophrenic approach toward its climate impact was even more interesting. On one hand the company is a green leader in the IT industry that made a commitment already [...]

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By: Dan Auld Google loves talking about world before analytics — when most website owners knew almost nothing about their sites. Nothing useful, anyway. That all changed when website analytics came along – a new technology came along that allowed web owners to monitor their site traffic as much as they wanted. Any time they [...]

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I always thought that GoogleMaps was one of the coolest things when it came to finding your way. As a person who is prone to getting lost, it’s a constant guide when I navigate new cities. Now, HopStop is aiming to do one better – in addition to helping you find your way, they also [...]

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This post is part of a series on Stakeholder Engagement sponsored by Jurat Software. In the 1990’s, Dell enjoyed huge popularity and was among the top ranked consumer computer corporations. In the past decade it has floundered, falling in business rankings and unfavorable press spotlighting its allegedly poor customer service. Blogs and bulletin boards have been [...]

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Google has its staff masseuses. Airbnb has its in-office tree house.  Yelp provides employees unlimited beer on tap. Dropbox boasts a room dedicated to the game Dance Dance Revolution. Everywhere you look, tech startups from Seattle to San Diego are engaged in an arms race of employee perks.

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Not all the employees in the banking sector are like Cosmo Kramer. Many of them work in banks for various reasons other than a burning desire to become bankers, which might present a challenge when it comes to employee engagement.

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Google, the company best known for its search engine, is investing $100 million in the Shepherds Flat Wind Farm in Oregon. Located on over 30 square miles, the wind farm is expected to take $2 billion to build and will be completed next year. The energy produced by the wind farm will be sold to [...]

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With over 1 billion monthly searches for recipes, Google is in a prime position to influence what Americans “discover” when searching for food. The Internet search giant released a new tab next to the “Images, Videos, and Shopping choices” on their search-results screen: Recipes. This option will ultimately simplify finding professional recipe websites, but what [...]

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