This Week In Sustainability – The Industrial Internet Revolution and Redefining “Clean Tech”

This week, GigaOM published a guest blog by Jeff Immelt, chairman and CEO of General Electric. Jeff discusses the “Industrial Internet Revolution,” which he argues will have the potential to merge the physical world of machines and facilities with the digital world of big data and analytics in such a way that makes obtaining information more efficient. Viewed as a true problem-solving entity, Immelt writes that the Industrial Internet is about combining the world’s best technologies to solve the biggest challenges, especially issues that impact sustainabilty like energy, infrastructure and smart cities.
Additionally, Forbes published a guest blog post by Vinod Khosla, the co-founder of Sun Microsystems and a founder of Khosla Ventures. A leading Silicon Valley clean tech investor, Khosla describes his philosophy of investing in “clean tech” and notes that Khosla Ventures has found the greatest success in a broad definition of clean tech, which includes LED lighting and distributed power generation in addition to wind and solar power, which is what is most commonly associated with clean tech. Khosla’s experience highlights the role that technology, in all its permutations, has to play in achieving more sustainable outcomes for society.