Viewing Posts by Dave Shirley
Dream Home - Green Home
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What caught my attention when watching the introduction to this year’s Dream Home was the fact that they constantly mentioned their project manager and, by supposition, his or her significant contributions to the project, and the fact that it is in a project intended to be truly sustainable, considering the triple bottom line. While the emphasis is on nature, there are aspects of energy efficiency and comfort. The house is in the Kiawah Island Resort, South Carolina. It is a barrier island and according to Kiawah Island Associates“…it will likely be the last large barrier island on the east coast to be privately developed. Containing about 10,000 acres, the Island enjoys a moderate climate, breathtaking natural beauty, controlled accessibility, and the professional and financial resources necessary to create both a resort and year-round residential community without compromise or parallel.” So this resort is not inexpensive, and the lessons learned here can go a long way to helping developers and builders understand the concepts of green building and, perhaps, find less expensive alternatives. Part of the expense, here, is the property. For instance, the philosophy of the Kiawah Island Associates is as follow: “Over the years of its stewardship as the Island’s developer, Kiawah Resort Associates has been dedicated to preserving a unique and ecologically sensitive community. The architectural design and construction philosophy of the Company maintains that homes should generally be unobtrusive in form and color in order to complement their natural setting. No particular period, style, foreign or geographic influence, or traditional approach is specifically endorsed or discouraged. The chief concern is that the residential community be basically homogeneous with certain areas having more architectural diversity than others. This philosophy suggests that each home be treated not as an individual creation or architectural entity arbitrarily placed on its site, but rather as a carefully planned addition to the natural setting which embraces the site and becomes one with it. Consequently, design solutions should extend beyond the building walls to include the entire site, varying in design to complement and enhance their natural surroundings. Designs and colors appropriate for the mottled shade of forest areas might be inappropriate for open or un-wooded sites. Colors and textures of exterior building materials should be compatible with the light reflecting properties of the natural elements such as tree bark, surrounding trees and shrubs, pine needles, natural grasses, and other vegetation.” There is an extensive guideline (5+meg) that can be a helpful planning document for anyone to use. Some of the sustainability techniques being used is green landscaping; using native plants, butterfly attracting bushes and also takes into consideration the area wildlife. Forest Stewardship Council certified wood is used in the project. According to Jason Shuey, Rainforest Alliance, “Another myth is that FSC-certified products cost much more, sometimes more than twice as much, as wood products that are not FSC-certified. Often contractors and/or pro-dealers who do not want to put in the extra effort to source FSC-certified products will significantly mark up the quote of the products that are FSC-certified to sway the project manager toward not going with the FSC-certified products. Most contractors also like to deal with pro-dealers that they know and are comfortable with. So if these suppliers do not wish to locate and sell FSC-certified products to their contractors at a reasonable cost then the contractor needs to use the resources available to find and purchase FSC-certified materials from another FSC-certified supplier.” One other thing to note (among lots of things), is “cellular pvc siding” used on the home. “Polyvinyl chloride is the plastic used to make the white drain pipes used in household plumbing. But when the molten plastic is whipped with air and then extruded into building materials, it makes a terrific substitute for exterior wood. HGTV Dream Home 2013 is clad in PVC trim and wall shingles. Each shingle boasts a distinct faux grain pattern and can be cut and nailed in place using the same techniques and tools as wood. But the plastic won’t absorb moisture, rot or host termites. So like every part of this house, siding will withstand the harsh island elements for an extended period of time.” By the way, the house has earned a Platinum LEED Certified rating. That means that the house achieved the highest rating using the following criteria; sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy & atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality and innovation is operations.
I did find this about the benefits of a LEED certified home:
Looks a little (a lot) like the triple-bottom line to me. |
It seems that everyone these days are going “green.” Even HGTV, with their new “Dream Home”, “Green Home” 2013 sweepstakes, is going with increased sustainability. Yes, I admit, I am an HGTV watcher (at times). Just like The "Tar Oil" Sands of Time
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You have proba Every once in a while, although it probably seems more like often, we come across projects that may be questionable in nature. They may not be protecting one or all of the triple-bottom line. George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I found this on reference.com in response to the Santayana quote. “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it is an old but oh so true saying. The times and players may change but the game always remains the same.That is why we still tell stories like the boy who cried wolf and the three little pigs. (It is) To teach a lesson. Those who have been there and done that before us have given us a valuable blueprint of human behavior. If we ignore the history behind it and refuse to see and apply the lessons they teach, then we doom ourselves to the same fate that they suffered. Live and learn and pass your wisdom down to others to help make their paths a little easier.” So let’s look at an ExxonMobil/Canadian oil giant Enbridge project. We’ve all heard about tar sands oil. According to the Oil Shale and Tar Sands Programmatic EIS Information Center , “tar sands (also referred to as oil sands) are a combination of clay, sand, water, and bitumen, a heavy black viscous oil. Tar sands can be mined and processed to extract the oil-rich bitumen, which is then refined into oil. The bitumen in tar sands cannot be pumped from the ground in its natural state; instead tar sand deposits are mined, usually using strip mining or open pit techniques, or the oil is extracted by underground heating with additional upgrading.” It is highly toxic. A conventional oil spill is an ecological nightmare, but a tar sands oil spill is even worse — more corrosive, highly toxic and much harder to clean up. [1] ExxonMobil and Enbridge want to pump that mixture through old oil pipelines from the 1950’s through a major watershed in Maine to reach Casco Bay so that the tar sands oil can then be exported. As a matter of fact, the pipeline comes within 1000 feet of Sebago Lake, a lake so pristine that it supplies drinking water to the greater Portland (Maine) area without needing to be filtered. [2] A spill, like the one that that occurred two years ago in Michigan, spilling 1 million gallons of tar sands oil into the Kalamazoo River devastated the surrounding area. The EPA is still trying to clean it up.[3] So sometimes, a project just doesn’t seem like it is worth doing, especially if you have considered the environmental risks associated with the project. However, we looked at the risk register that the team on the Macondo Well (Gulf of Mexico spill) and the only risk categories populated were in cost, schedule and productionsee www.boemre.gov/pdfs/maps/AppendixJ_RiskRegister.pdf. So, if that is any indication of addressing environmental risks, Sebago Lake is in potential trouble. And, to add to Mr. Santayana, let’s not only remember the past, but take our lessons learned and actually learn from them. "Live and learn and pass your wisdom down to others to help make their paths a little easier.” [1] Lisa Song, "A Dilbit Primer: How It's Different from Conventional Oil," Inside Climate News, 26 June 2012. [2] Portland Water District, Sebago Lake: State of the Lake 2012
[3] Elizabeth McGowan and Lisa Song, "The Dilbit Disaster: Inside the Biggest Oil Spill You've Never Heard Of," Inside Climate News, 26 June 2012. |
Could Aquaculture Be THE Answer
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That is a quote from Wayne Miller, Chairman of the Board of Health in Barnstable, Massachusetts, and owner of a small trout farm on Cape Cod, MA. It has certainly been said before, and is spawning an entire industry dedicated to providing the protein from farm raised fish, to replace or at best supplement the decline of natural fisheries. That decline has roots in many areas; global climate change, reductions of wetlands (fish nurseries) due to over development, point source pollution of major fisheries, and just plain over fishing (or unregulated fishing). While they don’t try to compete with the “big boys”, like Blue Ridge Aquaculture in Virginia that raises nearly 4 million pounds of fish per year, or Clear Springs Trout Company in Idaho that produces over 22 million pounds of trout annually, at best, Wayne and Barbara Miller produce about 8-10,000 pounds of trout destined for private ponds, fishing derbies, and science. So their contribution is recreational and more importantly, to help scientists “solve the problem of disease in farm-raised fish and answer a host of other scientific questions about life on the fin”. Their clean water and low density of fish lend itself to a “pristine” fish that draws biologists to the farm. Biologist Erin Bromage, from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, is a regular visitor to the farm taking fish for research. “Everything is geared to increasing the currently thin margin of profitability from fish farming” says Bromage. For more reading on the Miller’s farm, see, Big fish science in a small pond by Patrick Cassidy As a glass have full type of person, I see the declining of our natural food sources from fish as a chance to; design projects that provide an alternative to feed people, to make some profit and to supplement our planets resources (The 4 Ps). I also know that aquaculture is not without its detractors. Especially with Atlantic Salmon farming, the overuse of antibiotics, the potential to introduces waste and diseases into the wild fish population, escaping fish competing with wild populations, etc., are all problems that need to be addressed through innovation and new projects. And, there is always “Frankenfish”, a genetically altered salmon that may make it to our fish counters soon (unlabeled as such). At this point, noone knows what the long term effects of eating a genetically altered salmon would be. But I did hear However, there are positive signs as noted above like the Miller’s farm. We need to do something; otherwise, additional food shortages will exacerbate existing problems, especially with expected population growth over the next 30-40 years. We want to give you one other perspective on genetically engineered foods. "Risks exist everywhere in our food supply," points out Dean DellaPenna. "About a hundred people die each year from peanut allergies. With genetically engineered foods we minimize risks by doing rigorous testing." Dean DellaPenna is a plant biochemist from Michigan State University. To read more about his views, see this article in National Geographics. |
"Aquaculture is probably the answer to the world's protein woes."Paving Paradise, Saving Eden?
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Continuing with the thought in the first paragraph, while we were preparing this blog post we saw a brief note from T. Boone Pickens, Chairman of BP Capital Management, an energy-focused hedge fund, in the latest issue of Parade Magazine. He makes the point that we can affect our national bottom line by reducing our impact on foreign oil. That’s not too original of a thought, but he further makes the point on how to do it. We should cultivate our own resources more. Domestic oil is 15% less expensive that foreign oil, and our natural gas is 75% less expensive. If we were to convert 8 million heavy trucks to natural gas, we could save 3 million barrels of oil per day. We now get about 4.5 million barrels a day from OPEC, so, according to Mr. Pickens, we would reduce our need for foreign oil by 2/3rds. Natural gas is not only cleaner than diesel, and, by increasing our production of natural gas, we would create jobs. Job creation = more people paying taxes = more revenue to the government = debt reduction or at the least somewhere to get money, rather than printing it or borrowing it from foreign govenments. Just a word of caution, we do need to make sure that we protect the environment when we call for the increase in use or extraction of any of our natural resources. Back to the Journal.
In an article by Yuliya Chernova, she highlights an interesting project to |
My best friend saves Wall Street Journal Reports for me. He is very disciplined and reads the Journal front to back every morning. I’m not so disciplined or inclined. While we share a profound love of fly fishing and the outdoors, he also knows that I am also interested in sustainability. Thanks to him, I read a recent Journal Report focused on energy, or rather “Investing in Energy.” This is the first of many blogs about energy and how it affects the triple bottom line (3BL). They probably won’t be in any sequence as interesting blog subjects come across our desks daily. We wish we had time to blog all the time, but alas, there are other things we need to do. To find out more of what we are doing, take a look at our home site, 
modify parking lots. Now parking lots are notorious for causing pollution problems. Runoff from them tends to be a pollutant itself, lack of surface area to allow rainwater to percolate into the soil and additional heat generated by its surface are just a couple of ways in which a parking lot can be viewed in the negative. However, there are some parking lot owners who have discovered that can “double up on their under-utilized property, and to offset their utility bills at the same time.” Putting canopies over the parking spaces that contain solar panels does just that. “One of the largest solar carports is now under construction at Moving to “Sustainable Project Management”
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Not as an apology, but as a way to put things in perspective, we would have preferred our book title to be reflect sustainable project management, but our publisher thought it best to title the book the way it is as a catalyst to further discussion. We are grateful that they did make that suggestion because it did start the discussion. Further, we were given a choice of covers, and we chose the one with the “money tree,” because that is what being a sustainable project manager means. It means saving precious resources when you can, thus saving the enterprise money.
We like heavy traffic when it comes to sustainable project management, we can only hope that the drivers speeding along the highway are good drivers, paying attention to the other drivers and thereby creating a good environment so that all can deliver their products safely (to keep within the analogy). However, what we’ve seen is that like anything, when a market becomes popular, more and more “trucks” enter the highway carrying products to that market. So, not to mince words any more, although you can tell by our blogs that we love analogy and puns, make sure that the training you signed up for is the training you receive. If you want to know about green/sustainable project management, there is a right way to go about it and a wrong way to go about it. In the world of PM, there are many, many initials and credentials you can get; PMP, PMI-ACP, Prince2® Certification, Masters Certificates in Project Management from various colleges and universities, etc. The key message here is that these certificates and credentials are “sanctioned” by careful consideration of course content. In the case of PMP, for example, a rigorous course of study and document experience is evaluated by the Project Management Institute, a not-for-profit organization chartered for the purpose of forwarding the discipline of project management. Right now, there is no such organization for sustainable/green project management. Although ISIS-PM, still in its infancy, it is intended to do just that. And, it takes a long time to put something like this together with the integrity, rigor and discipline that it deserves. Stay tuned for more information on ISIS-PM in the coming months. In the meantime, we echo the words of Sgt. Phil Esterhaus, from the television show Hill Street Blues, “Let’s be careful out there.” |
It’s not that we are changing our perspective, considering the title of our book is Green Project Management, but as you will find in our book, as well as in our webinars, courses, and real life, that it is really about sustainability. We just don’t want to limit your thinking about the process. Beside, just thinking in terms of “green” makes it sound like project managers should only be concerned with the environment. The natural environment is of concern to the project manager, of course, but sustainable project management goes way beyond that. And, we will certainly continue to focus of the environment (green) as an important part of sustainability. The title of this blog is People, Planet, Profits & Projects and could be subtitled Sustainable Project Management. 
And with all of the buzz created around the intersection of green business and project management, we wanted to be clear about where we stand. First let me say that we are grateful for all the buzz. When we first started talking about the intersection, it was a blinking yellow light, although at one point we thought that it might change to a blinking red light, first stop, then you can proceed. So we carefully approached the intersection using a combination of brakes and accelerator. Now that we’ve gotten safely through the intersection and are continuing down the road, we are still cautious of the traffic. We sometimes get caught up in our analogy, so please bear with us.
