Today’s business environment in both public and private sectors is uncharted territory.  In the past, business organizations have coped with dramatic change and uncertainty, such as global and regional war, political unrest, disruptions in source of supply and rising cost of resources, foreign and domestic competition, rapidly evolving technology, climatic change, critical financial constraints and general economic downturns. However, today’s business organizations face all of these challenges at the same time.

While the federal government receives much attention for its environmental initiatives, much activity is now taking place at the state and local levels to improve energy efficiency and sustainability. The report sets forth six strategies that local government decision makers and administrators can use to develop new sustainability programs or refine existing programs.

Laura Chick, California's Inspector General for the Recovery Act has never been known for mincing words. So, it was entirely characteristic when she wrote a biting letter to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger back in mid-August. Her concern: The fact that spending on the state's green building projects seemed to be following guidelines from the Molasses School of Management. Case in point: While $25 million had been approved to fund energy savings in state buildings in September 2009, by the end of June, 2010, only 1 percent of the money had been spent.

The history of state and local government is littered with tales of well-funded projects that failed because the entity plunged in without enough careful thought and analysis. After all, ribbon-cutting is about the most fun a person can have in public service.

In August, the U.S. Department of Energy authorized the use of stimulus funds to cover half of the $178 million cost of the Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration Project, the largest effort of its kind in the United States.

Even before the Recovery Act was finalized, Kentucky officials were pondering one of the most important questions about stimulus dollars: How can you get the most out of the cash influx, even after the incoming dollars dry up? When it came to the energy dollars, Bluegrass State officials had a head start. They had long been thinking about “greening” state buildings.

We're always on the lookout for ARRA dollars spurring innovations that could change the way we live.

We recommend that you listen to Maryland Morning's excellent report on the Recovery Act's renewable energy impact in Maryland as well as the program delays that have slowed the start of green collar jobs like solar panel installation. Maryland Morning is a radio program that runs 4 days a week.

Part of our incentive for starting this blog was to shed more light on the actual performance benefits of stimulus dollars, as opposed to just “jobs, jobs, jobs,” in the words of the GAO’s Stan Czerwinski.

With roughly $25 billion flowing out of the stimulus package to various energy efficiency programs, there's a compelling need to measure and evaluate energy savings.