People, Planet, Profits & Projects

One of the most frequently asked questions at our webinars and conferences is “How do we sell the idea of sustainability?”  Our answer is; because it makes cents (sense).  One of the reasons projects are undertaken is to help the organization's bottom-line.  In the case of the New Hampshire Society for the Prevention of Cuelty to Animals (NHSPCA) executing projects that will make their facilities more sustainable will help the bottom-line and help the animals.  "NHSPCA Embraces Renewable Energy and Saves Big?” is a headline on the most recent NHSPCA Newsletter.  “It’s all about pets here at the NHSPCA, where the goal is to put all the money possible into saving animal’s lives.”

While looking at their operating budget for 2009-2010 season, to operate the Adoption and Learning Center, the noted that it was costing them over $55,000 in oil expense.  They equated that with 35,000 pounds of dog and cat food.  That can feed a lot of animals.  Projects began to take shape designed to increase efficiency through lighting audits and upgrades as well as upgrading the heating and ventilation controls.  While executing those projects, they “learned of a more significant project through the Community Loan Fund and the Office of Energy and Planning.”  There was a stimulus program called the Enterprise Energy Fund.  “With stimulus money available for grants and low interest loans our conversion to renewable energy systems began in earnest.”

The first thing the people at NHSPCA did was hire a consultant for an energy audit project.  That audit looked at insulating efficiency, hot water usage, space heating needs, etc. and made recommendations showing efficiency gains vs. potential costs, projected savings, and pay back periods.  It allowed the NHSPCA to choose which projects had the most “bang for the buck.”  Out of the many possible projects, they chose 3; insulating and air sealing the basements and attics, solar thermal collectors to preheat the vast amount of hot water they use on a daily basis, and wood pellet boilers as renewable heat sources. 

Bottom-line, and we all care about the bottom-line, it is projected that 80% of the oil used (11,000 gallons) will be offset by the pellet heating.  Not only is there a considerable cost savings for the equivalent number of BTUs used, since the burn is very clean, the carbon foot print is reduced, and estimated offset of almost 3 million lbs of CO₂.  Finally, the pellets are purchased from a company that harvests locally (profits, planet, and people). 

“We will be continuing to work with the Jordan Institute, (“The Jordan Institute is comprised of uniquely motivated staff whose collective experience includes energy policy, residential construction, engineering, project management, education, and architecture.”) to examine the existing mechanical systems to determine other efficiencies and continue to look for additional sources of energy savings.  We are tracking and recording our energy consumption so stayed tuned to see our actual energy savings!”  Be sure, we will and let you know how the projects pay off.

We were recent guests of The Sustainability Learning Centre - a partner of the prestigious Network for Business Sustainability.

We gave a 45-minute presentation and took some questions.  And they captured the whole thing on WebEx, for you to view for absolutely free – here .

Rather than a long blog post - we invite you to let the webinar literally speak for itself!

We've often covered "green-by-definition" projects - those where the ultimate deliverable is reduction of waste, generation of renewable power, preserving biodiversity, and so on.

We also continue to stress that projects of any kind can have a green (or at least sustainability) component.  This is the concept behind our "Spectrum of Green" as discussed in our book, Green Project Management.

Well, here is an example of a green project which has folded two green objectives into one - generating renewable energy, and preserving a precious resource (water).

A first of its kind, Gujarat (a state in northwestern India) will dedicate India’s first 1 MW Canal-top Solar Power Project on the Sanand Branch Canal of the Sardar Sarovar Project.

Here's another photo:

This project was developed by Gujarat State Electricity Corporation Limited (GSECL) with support from the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Limited (SSNNL). It will generate 1.6 million units of clean electricity per year and 90 lakh litres of water will be prevented from getting evaporated.

We won't give all of the technical details, you can read them all here.

And, if you want to hear about it directly from Narendra Modi, the CM (Chief Minister) of the state of Gujarat, he has actually blogged about this right here:

So think about it.  Are there any "regular" projects on which you're working where there may be a possible sustainability benefit?  Or, if you're already working on a 'green by definition' project, is there a way that a secondary benefit may be an outcome?

Just some food for thought if nothing else...

You know from reading our blog postings, whether here, at our website, or other guest posts we’ve contributed over the last couple of years, that we are neither “tree huggers” nor “Hummer huggers”, but fall somewhere in between.  We do believe that sustainability is the way of the future for a variety of reasons including, we assert, that it is the right thing to do.  Every once in a while we come across a project executed by one of the more radical factions that deserves a closer look.  In this case it is a project, a challenge, to the Information Technology (IT) industry.  The gauntlet was thrown down by Greenpeace.    It is called the Cool IT Challenge. 

According to the Greenpeace Internationalwebsite, and as we also believe because of the huge impact it has on the environment,  “The IT sector is uniquely positioned to help the world shift to a prosperous clean energy economy, and the Cool IT Challenge is urging IT companies to put forth innovation, mitigate their own carbon footprint, and advocate for significant policy changes in the mutual interest of business and the climate.”  Further, “Greenpeace launched the Cool IT Challenge in 2009 to call on Information Technology (IT) companies to power technological solutions needed to fight climate change.  In 2008, The Climate Group and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) issued a report, called SMART 2020: enabling the low carbon economy in the information age, which showed how the IT sector can reduce economy-wide global emissions of up to 15 percent by 2020.”

The Cool IT challenge pits global IT companies against each other to try to top the prestigious Cool IT Climate Leaderboard.  The “Leaderboard” is another metric that investors and concerned consumers can access to assess the different tech companies and their sustainability efforts.  Here is the link to look at the latest leaderboard.  Tech companies are compared using three categories; IT Climate Solutions, IT Energy Impact and Political Advocacy.  Climate Solutions are the “economy-wide technical climate solution” efforts that the tech companies are offering to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.    Energy Impact are the “initiatives” undertaken to reduce their own global warming emissions.  Political Advocacy, that we find very interesting, is the “active” engagement by these companies in the political advocacy and support for science-based climate and energy policies. 

While the latest leaderboard show that Google has topped the leaderboard and many of the companies are gaining ground.  But what it also shows is that there is a significant drop across the board on political advocacy.  As we said, this is one of the more interesting of the measures for us because without political support and advocacy thereof, changing the conversation will be difficult.  It is not only “talking the talk”, but “walking the walk.” 

A popular and fundamental axiom in project management is that in order to be successful a project must have top-down support.  Grassroots, or bottom up, can only do so much.  We need to continue to push these companies to include political actions in their projects, whether it is continuing to connect to the enterprises sustainability plan, communicating the need to do so with upper management, encouraging management ot become involved in the political proces of sustianabilty or with our buying habits by supporting the companies that support this mission. 

One thing that's always been interesting to us as consultants in project management is stakeholder identification and analysis.  One thing that's also interesting and often left out is the interaction between stakeholders. This could be a pair (or trio, or quad) of stakholders with similar interests, wildly different interests, or a mix.   In our opinion, one of the columns on a stakeholder register should be "Interactions", to capture this complex and important human aspect of your project.

This couldn't have been illustrated better than with this article featured on Earth Day in the Cape Cod Times.  In the article you'll discover  the interaction between potentially green-minded, well-intentioned folks, in a project involving installation of 3,150 solar panels.  The project also involved the clearing of a bunch of trees in what is one of the few remaining undeveloped plots of land in Hackensack, NJ, USA.

Last year, a similar situation occurred when 100 eucalyptus trees were cut down to make room for solar panels in a regional park.

Which "green" is better?  This is the question posed in the article.

We tend to side side with the considerations explained in the article by Ashwani Vasishth, of Ramapo College's Center for Environmental Studies, who explains that trees don't only sequester carbon - they provide habitat, capture rainwater to prevent erosion, help provide shade and cooling, and remove particulate matter.

So it's similar to our points about long-term  thinking in general.  Full consideration is important.  And this case it it's literally a matter of seeing the forest for the trees.