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Date
A wind turbine whirrs wistfully, whispering eagerly and urgently of its unbridled energy. Sunlight glimmers off the sleek, shiny surface of a solar panel, as it emphatically sends surges of sustenance to energy-hungry inhabitants. A shapely new red Croatian electric vehicle veers vivaciously by a vineyard.
These are the images we're presented with when the marketeers have their way in showing us what sustainability looks like and feels like.
It reminds us of air travel. You don’t see (unless it’s depicting the ‘competition’) images of a paunchy, middle-aged man sitting in the middle seat, struggling to set up his laptop as the seat in front of him reclines fully, while a baby cries two seats ahead, and a rambunctious 2-year old is kicking the back of his seat, and… well you get the picture.
It’s not sexy.
What we see instead are happy people, relaxing with apparently unlimited legroom, headroom, in blissful relaxation as they are whisked promptly to their destination. Which brings us back to our shapely Croatian model.
Our expectations in sustainability are set around the whirring wind turbine, the wave-action power generator, the biofuel facility, the winery that uses finches and bluebirds as a natural insecticide.
But as in air travel – it’s just not always that sexy. Most of you frequent flyers will agree, it’s rarely that ideal.
Take the feature story in today’s Boston Globe. Titled “A Basic Approach”, it’s the story of Ameresco, a local company which does its work in sustainability by retrofitting companies to be more efficient in their energy use without up-front cost via the financing of these improvements from the expected future savings. It’s the ‘blocking and tackling’ of energy, as opposed to the quarterback, if you will allow us an American Football analogy.
As an example, Ameresco has a US$21M project with the city of Lowell, Massachusetts, involving 47 buildings; this project is targeted to provide annual savings of $1.5M via upgraded equipment, weatherizing of buildings, new lighting, air conditioning, and boilers, and some solar installations.
Ameresco averages about 35% savings on their projects, so clearly they will pay back. And their financial performance has reflected this success.
And so it is with project management's engagement with sustainbility. As authors of PMI's Cleland Award-winning book, Green Project Management, our pubisher asked us to pick between two covers, one of which had sunflowers, wind turbines and shimmering solar panels. We went for the other one - a picture of a tree yielding money. We knew back then that it is indeed the blocking and tackling - the integration of sustainbility thinking into our discipline that will make the difference. This is to take nothing away from shapely Croatian models - like the one we just blogged about. These will also contribute, and may represent huge leaps forward.
But it's going to be the focus on efficiency, removal of waste from projects, connecting the enterprise's long-term vision to your project vision that moves us forward consistently. And although it may not be as flashy, numbers like Ameresco is flashing, while not sexy, are at least...attractive, n'est pas?
Posted
by
Richard Maltzman
on: September 11, 2012 09:06 AM |
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