Charlottesville is going green. During a tide of concern about climate change and energy preservation, Charlottesville is becoming one of the latest cities to pass environmentally friendly standards.

The (Charlottesville) Daily Progress reported the city is constructing a vegetative roof on city hall and the police department headquarters. The lifespan of the buildings’ roofs was ending, and city officials took the opportunity to build an environmentally friendly roof. Green roofs are designed to reduce energy costs and reduce stormwater runoff.

The city has also offered a lower tax assessment rate for energy-efficient homes and agreed to offer energy-saving light bulbs to residents.

Charlottesville certainly isn’t the only community responding to concern about the environment. Albemarle County, for example, installed a green roof on its government headquarters. Arlington County requires all developers to construct buildings according to sustainable standards from the U.S. Green Building Council or contribute to the county’s Green Building Fund.

All across Virginia, localities, businesses and educational institutions are responding to the call for environmental stewardship. Virginia Business will look significantly at this trend in its April issue.

Be prepared to see just how green Virginia can be.

Countries can’t lead in a global economy without highly trained workers. That’s why states are hustling to get more students signed on for courses in science, engineering, technology and mathematics. In Virginia, six new academies — in the cities of Suffolk and Newport News and Arlington and Halifax, Russell and Stafford counties — will provide this instruction at the high-school and post-secondary levels. They are being developed through a partnership among public schools, colleges and universities, employers, businesses and the state.

Partnership is the key word here. States can’t do it alone. Many face budget shortfalls caused by drops in tax revenue as a result of the housing slump. Funding for what will be known in Virginia as the Governor’s Career and Technical Academies comes from a $500,000 grant from the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices. It receives support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Intel Corp. 

Virginia was one of six states to get a grant. The money will be matched with support from federal Workforce Investment Act funds. Meanwhile, in high-tech California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to attract 20,000 new engineers over the next decade by taking a similar approach. He supports the use of $1 million in federal workforce funds to develop apprentice programs between community colleges and private industry.

Virginia Business will report on Virginia’s workforce development program in its March issue. For stories on the country’s growing shortage of engineers and what Virginia is doing about it, go here.

Our holiday tree is up, shimmering with treasured ornaments. As they come out of hibernation each year, I take stock: what’s good, what’s ratty, what deserves front-of-the-tree.

At year end, businesses take stock, too. They look at what worked, what didn’t, what strategies should be in play for 2008.

This year brought dramatic change to Virginia’s business community. Businesses came and went and continued to morph as they jockeyed for position in a 21st century global economy. After more than eight decades, Ford Motor Co. closed its assembly plant in Norfolk as part of an effort to restore profitability. As the last F-150 truck rolled off the line, more than 1,000 workers said goodbye to some of the best-paying manufacturing jobs in Hampton Roads.

Meanwhile, new players decided to call Virginia home: Volkswagen of America is moving its corporate headquarters to Fairfax County, and Rolls-Royce plans a new jet engine plant in Prince George County — developments expected to create 900 new jobs. Plus, Virginia’s R&D profile is on the rise with construction under way on SRI International’s new drug research facility in Rockingham County.

On the bright side, Virginia continued to rack up No. 1 rankings as the best state for doing business. But there’s still room for improvement. Just ask Northern Virginia how to spell r-o-a-d-s.

Before we get too woozy from the eggnog, whereupon even journalists have been known to bid good cheer, here’s a short list of some of the major business developments in 2007:

The housing industry
The subprime mortgage meltdown is starting to feel like a limbo contest. How low can you go? Some mortgage lenders already are out of business and major financial powerhouses have reported billion-dollar losses. Foreclosure rates stand at a 20-year high, a trend contributing to budget shortfalls in Northern Virginia, where localities rely heavily on real estate tax revenues to fund public services. However, a diamond remains among the lumps of coal. Median home prices in Virginia are still going up. In October, the median price was $232,478, way above the national median of $205,700, which dropped 6 percent compared to the same month in 2006.

Telecom
In this industry, developments are flying faster than Santa’s reindeer. Verizon ended the year with a major policy change. Come mid 2008, its expansive cell network will open to phones purchased from other vendors. The move will give customers more freedom when picking network providers and mobile applications.

Meanwhile, AT&T rolled out a new third-generation (3G) wireless broadband network in Richmond and Hampton Roads. Customers can check company e-mail or catch the latest video highlights of the Hokies’ upcoming Orange Bowl game, all from their phone. The AT&T team stopped by our office and demonstrated Video Share, a service that lets users share live video while carrying on a telephone conversation. Look, Grandma, here’s little Susie playing Bach at her recital.

Energy
It seems everyone is going green and looking for alternative energy sources. The Hopewell City Council recently voted to sell city land to a company that wants to build an ethanol plant downtown, and a biodiesel plant is coming to Lee County. Conversely, Chesapeake said no to a massive ethanol plant.

As the price of gasoline shot up at one point to nearly $100 a barrel, nuclear energy seemed poised for a rebirth. Richmond-based Dominion became the first investor-owned electric utility in the country to file an application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a possible third reactor at North Anna. Altogether, applications for six new reactors have been filed with federal regulators in the last five months, and they expect more in the new year.

Nuclear power is cheaper to generate and doesn’t contribute to global warming like the burning of fossil fuels. However, disposing of nuclear waste remains a challenge.

Health care
Hospitals around Virginia are expanding as they brace for the aging of the baby boomers. The cost of health-care premiums continues to rise at many companies while small businesses struggle to even afford employee health care. Some relief could be on the way for small businesses if Virginia’s General Assembly signs off on a $7.7 million budget proposal from Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to assist businesses in purchasing health insurance. The move would cover about 5,000 people — out of an estimated 1 million who are uninsured in Virginia. Only a small step to be sure. Yet, isn’t that what a new years is all about? Trying new solutions to old problems.