A new report released by independent research firm, Verdantix, explains why firms are floundering with carbon management and putting the future of the business at risk due to flawed governance and strained business processes. It warns that unless CEOs take ownership of carbon management as a business transformation challenge their firms will fail to achieve absolute reductions in CO2 emissions.

Verdantix, recently released a free report, that explains why the Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) is needed, defines the role of the CSO, and provides a profile to guide the appointment of the CSO. It also explains why organizations face a climate change and sustainability management deficit, why fixing sustainability governance gains is becoming a major priority by a growing number of firms, how the CSO can spearhead business transformation, who the ideal candidate for the chief sustainability officer role is, and what are the three priority areas of domain expertise.

Elaine Cohen explores the changes that are taking place in sustainability report and makes an assessment on the implications of those changes on organization sustainability. She provides a list of characteristics of what she thinks are needed in an effective online sustainability report that is transparent, engages the reader, and opens up a dialogue.

The financial risk of carbon liabilities, a need for better management control over carbon data, and new government regulations in a number of countries, will will compel CFOs to invest in carbon management software in the coming year. This is the main conclusion of the report, The Business Case For Carbon Management Software, from the research firm Verdantix. The report analyzes the business case for investing in carbon software from vendors like CarbonView, Carbon Hub, ESS, Greenstone Carbon Management, Hara, IHS, PE International, SAP and SAS.

The first wave of green IT solutions failed to make sustainability benefits tangible according to a new study conducted on the sector by the independent research firm Verdantix. However, innovative IT sustainability solutions just released into the market or on the horizon for 2010 – will quickly demonstrate the tech sector’s role in supporting corporate sustainability strategies.

Marie Hattar, vice president of marketing in Cisco’s Network Systems Solutions group in an interview with LaMonica of CNet stated “Our expectation is that this network will be 100 or 1,000 times larger than the Internet. If you think about it, some homes have Internet access, but some don’t. Everyone has electricity access–all of those homes could potentially be connected.”

This is quite a large helping of hyperbole, possibly the product of an unguarded moment of enthusiasm, but it makes a good headline. Kidding aside the Smart Grid is going to be big business for technology companies. In the same interview Hattar said that Cisco believes that just the communications portion of the Smart Grid represents a $100 billion opportunity — “$20 billion a year over the next five years.”