This week’s Green IT Roundup includes: A new, creative way to heat your home — utilizing “data furnaces”, a Startup that’s using large amounts of data to help building owners and property managers make accurate, efficient decisions on how to make their buildings more energy efficient, sustainability executives plans for 2012, and the simple initiatives implement by Kaiser Permanente — that every organization can implement.

Can a datacenter heat your home?
Researchers at the University of Virginia and Microsoft Research have presented a paper exploring the possibility of placing servers, still operated by their companies, inside homes to use as a heat source. 

Startup Turns to Big Data for Cutting Building Energy
Not sure what sustainability initiatives your organization should implement or how long the return on investment will be?  A MIT startup, Retroficiency, developed software that delves through tens of thousands of pieces of data. It then renders an accurate characterization of each building’s energy use — enabling building owners and property managers to plan and execute more efficient retrofits of their buildings.

Companies’ 2012 Sustainability Plans:  Focus on Employees, Suppliers
According to a study by Green Research, corporate sustainability executives plan to invest significantly in employee engagement and supplier performance in 2012. The survey also noted that over 50 percent plan to increase their spending on sustainability initiatives.

Making Green IT Happen
Recently, Computer World released their Top Green IT Users and Vendors.  At the top of this list was Kaiser Permanente.  Kaiser Permanente was able to reduce their energy usage by 6 percent by implementing several simple green IT initiatives — that any organization can implement.