ComputerWorld has an article about Socially Responsible Outsourcing, and how Green IT is making the list of IT requirements.

Is your outsourcer an IT sweatshop?

Adherents say an ethics-based approach to outsourcing is good for your conscience and your company

"We just got into IT outsourcing within the past couple of years, and we're trying to apply the same ideas: giving back to community, supporting the economies in which we live and work, green initiatives," says Kifer, who is a group vice president at Applied Materials Inc., a Santa Clara, Calif.-based company that creates and commercializes nanomanufacturing technology. "We need to make sure that our suppliers are operating to the same high standards" as the company, he says.

The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) lists socially responsible outsourcing as the No. 1 trend in the field for 2008. The association predicts that companies providing, using or offering advice on outsourcing will increasingly develop standards that go beyond pure business objectives to address ethical questions. It expects that these standards will touch on topics that indicate how a company interacts with people, the community and the environment, such as labor policies and green initiatives.

ComputerWorld writes of a new data center receiving permits for large wind turbines.

Wind power data center project planned in urban area

Will get part of its power from tall turbines in repurposed smokestack factory

April 20, 2008 (Computerworld) A developer who plans to build a data center in Fall River, Mass., about 50 miles south of Boston, will install two large wind turbines -- as tall as two high-rise buildings -- to help generate its electricity.

Roland Patenaude, a local developer, won local zoning board approval Thursday to install two wind turbines that can each be as high as 300 feet on an industrial-zoned 4.5-acre parcel. The parcel includes an existing but unused smokestack factory that's only a short walk from Fall River's government center.

If the effort to build the 120,000-square-foot data center goes ahead as planned, its wind turbines will likely be one of the largest wind-utilizing installations in a U.S. urban area, if not the largest. Fall River's population is about 91,000.

Sun announced the launching of their Eco Advantage Program for partners.

Company Enhances Sun Partner Advantage Program with New Initiative; Eco IT Services Offerings Significantly Improve Margins for Partners

SANTA CLARA, CA April 15, 2008 Continuing the momentum of its ongoing Eco Innovation Initiative, Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: JAVA) today announced the Sun Eco Advantage Program (EAP), providing Sun Partner Advantage Program members with the tools, resources and training they need to build their own eco IT practices. This new program enables Sun's worldwide partners to deliver a comprehensive set of products and services to meet growing customer demand for energy-efficient IT strategies and solutions and increase revenue-generating opportunities. To learn more about EAP, visit www.sun.com/partners/news/eco.jsp

As companies face rising energy costs and look to deploy more energy-saving technologies, they are seeking partners who can deliver energy-efficient products, as well as assist with consulting and integration projects. A recognized leader in developing energy-efficient products and solutions, Sun is uniquely positioned to provide the proven methodologies and resources for partners to build eco IT services that will reduce customers' energy, cooling and space costs. This new program provides Sun Partner Advantage members with exclusive access to Sun's comprehensive portfolio of eco services and products, including Sun servers, such as the new Sun SPARC Enterprise T5140 and T5240 servers announced last week, the virtualized Solaris Operating System and scalable archive products.

To the Sun PR team , maybe you shouldn't emphsized in a PR release to the public and customers that this offering significantly improve margins for partners.

Ran into Richard Florida's creative class site.  And his thought leadership reminded me of the Green Market which closely matches his definition of the Creative Class.  Below is a video his company created for BMW which could have been created for a company who wants to be greener and reach the green market/creative class.

• 40 million Americans. 30% of the US work force with spread out across the US, but concentrated in creative centers. 
• People with a passion for creativity and innovation.
• Affluent
• Creative Class and BMW - core for sustainable ideas, real and useful solutions, doing the right thing vs. popular thing,

InfoWorld posts a blog entry on Apple filing a formal complaint with US Patent and Trade Office.

Look at this logo for a moment:

If you saw it on a reusable cloth shopping bag, would you think for a moment, "Hey, that must be Apple's new iBag!"?

Apparently, Apple is worried that's the case. The above logo is actually the emblem of New York City's GreeNYC campaign, the Big Apple's move to encourage denizens and visitors to reduce pollution and greenhouse gases.

In case you can't tell, the GreeNYC logo is a combination of the infinity symbol and a green apple, the implied message being something along the lines of, "Let's keep the Big Apple green for all eternity."

Apple maintains that the GreeNYC looks too much like its own corporate logo, which, of course, looks like this (in green):

The company has gone so far as to file a formal complaint with the U.S Patent and Trade Office against the GreeNYC logo, according to Wired, claiming that it will confuse people -- and potentially tarnish Apple's good name. "Any defect, objection or fault found with [GreeNYC's] goods and services marketed under [GreeNYC's] marks would necessarily reflect upon and seriously injure the reputation which [Apple] has established for its goods and services," the claim states.

Even though this positioned as bad Apple, speaking as an ex-Apple employee and the knowing the importance of the logo.  Apple needs to make reasonable efforts to defend their logo. If Apple stopped defending their logo, then they could use their rights to the logo.  This may be obvious its different, but when it comes to an attorney and his legal responsibility he/she will be conservative.