Dr. Peter Fox-Penner, a principal in Brattle’s Washington, DC office, authored a piece for the September 28, 2010 issue of the Huffington Post on the environmental benefits of digitization.

In his post, “Is Smarter Greener?” Dr. Fox-Penner discusses the increasing prevalence of digitized or “smart” technologies in everyday life and in the utility industry, and whether or not this shift really reduces the energy and carbon footprint of a particular activity or purchase. Dr. Fox-Penner describes the various benefits of adding smart hardware to current energy-using infrastructure or from rebuilding entire structures to be inherently more efficient. However, he concludes that “we should deploy energy-reducing smart hardware everywhere it’s cost-effective, but we should not let this distract us from the larger task of rebuilding our energy-producing and consuming infrastructure for a cleaner, sustainable future.”

To read Dr. Fox-Penner’s entire post, please visit the Huffington Post website.