As CIOs and other executives look for ways to expand sustainability initiatives, there's a growing awareness that initiatives can't stop at the four walls of the data center or office building. Today's structures can contain hundreds of thousands of components that consume energy and add to an organization's carbon footprint. In fact, buildings consume one-third of all energy globally and produce one-quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), according to The World Resources Institute. What's more, business and IT leaders are often narrowly focused on improving sustainability in data centers and procuring greener computing systems. Yet they overlook critical ways that technology can shrink a carbon footprint. "There is a growing awareness that buildings and workspaces are a crucial part of sustainability initiatives," states Bryon Carlock, National Real Estate Practice Leader for consulting firm PwC.

Christophe Deschamps was watching a basketball game with his wife and three children when he received an alert on his smartphone. The home security system told him something was wrong, so he quickly accessed the video feed on his phone. "I could see smoke," he says. Their home, in the Wallonia region of southern Belgium, was on fire. The family's thoughts immediately turned to their two Bernese Mountain dogs - Lisbonne and Hawaii - locked in the garage.