As strategic innovation becomes a growing part of the CIO's job, a focus on energy management could prove valuable. If managed correctly, energy could become its own profit-generating unit, says Michael Meehan, a founder of the energy performance management firm, ENXSUITE.

Rather than look at energy use and carbon emissions as a cost of business and compliance burden, some companies have begun looking at them as ways to improve business, Meehan writes in a column at Forbes. A focus on reducing energy consumption can lead to projects that reap tax incentives or create new areas of business. 

Meehan points to the timber business--which is not traditionally thought of as "green"--to illustrate his point. A number of timber companies are moving energy use from the cost center to the profit center by using a waste product as a main energy source and reducing the energy needs at plants. They're not only lowering their energy costs but they're also lowering the cost of waste disposal.

For more:
- Michael Meehan's column at Forbes

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