Last month I went to a CMU alumni chapter event in Houston and attended a talk from a professor at the CMU Green Design Institute. The talk was really interesting ... it focused on energy usage during the lifetime of a single product, such as gasoline and meat. For each product, energy consumption was followed during each step of the process. For instance, how much energy is required to make the product and how much energy is required to distribute it as well as how much energy is used to recycle the product. This energy balance is called an Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment tool. Bascially the goal of this tool is to determine what steps require the most energy and how can it be lowered. It was a super interesting talk ... and low and behold - I just found an article that discusses energy conservation by Buy.com and how it was assessed by CMU's own Green Design Institute - check it out on the link below.
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/are-couch-potato-shoppers-greener-than-mall-rats/
