This week’s Green IT Roundup highlights: Chicago’s efforts to make it a cleaner, leaner and more sustainable city, Three ways organizations can structure and elevate their sustainability initiatives to guarantee its success, and IT abilities to create ‘intelligent efficiency’ for buildings and transportation.

How IT creates 'intelligent efficiency' for buildings and transport
A new report released by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEE) states that energy efficiency, practiced on a system-wide scale, has the potential to create hundreds of billions of dollars in savings and productivity gains.  The report concludes that 22 percent of current U.S. energy consumption could be replaced with “intelligent efficiency” by infusing IT and communication technologies into building networks, transportation systems and city sustainability.

3 keys to making sustainability central to success
The way organizations structure and elevate their sustainability initiatives can lead to their success or failure.  This article highlights 3 ways an organization can approach implementing their sustainability efforts to ensure its success.  The 3 ways are:  centralizing its work, integrating it or embedding it.

How Chicago plans to lead in commercial building energy efficiency
Mayor Rahm Emmanuel announced that 14 of Chicago’s most recognizable and biggest downtown buildings have signed up to be leaders in creating a cleaner and more sustainable city, by curbing their energy use by at least 20 percent over the next five years.