People, Planet, Profits & Projects

There are many projects that can lead to a more sustainable product.  I received a rug the other day from Pottery Barn.  We were looking for a sustainable product and this rug fills the bill.  It originates from Obeetee, a company founded on sustainable principles.  Shortly after World War I, a couple of British entrepreneurs decided to create an enterprise by partnering with group of local artisans in the rug making area of Uttar Pradesh, India.  Those artisans had a tradition of weaving high quality rugs for centuries.  But what makes it sustainable?

One thing that they do is vertical integration.  The company works directly with over 15,000 weavers so that the loom owners have close ties to the factory.  Those close ties allow for mutually beneficial relationship to form.  That relationship resulted in the “coveted” SA8000: 2001 Certification for Social Accountability which examines 8 core elements including; worker health and safety, working hours, child labor, forced labor, discrimination, freedom of association and collective bargaining, wages and discipline. 

Additionally Obeetee carpets are made with safe dyes and chemicals and “is the first in the industry to set up water effluent treatment plants and air pollution control systems.”  They majority of their power is generated using gas derived from biomass.  It is eco-friendly way to recover heat and power from the biomass and is utilized to run the power turbines.  Obeetee contributes to surrounding communities by planting trees and developing parks.  Even though the hiring age in India for labor is 14 years old, Obeetee’s hiring standards are a minimum of 16 years old. 

Looking at the labeling on the rug pad we also purchased at the same time from Pottery Barn, it states that it is “made from recycled polyester and nylon needle punched fibers, attached to a pad of natural and synthetic rubber.”  It also states that it is “made from recycled materials that are safe to use on all types of floors.”   

It is always interesting to find a company, in potentially a fossil fuel intensive industry, carpeting, and seeing that the projects along the way have lead to a very sustainable company.  One that we’ve mentioned before is Interface Global, “the worldwide leader in design, production and sales of environmentally-responsible modular carpet for the commercial, institutional, and residential markets, and a leading designer and manufacturer of commercial broadloom.”  Global Interface intends to be 100% sustainable by the year 2020. 

It is worth noting that whatever the product of your enterprise may be, it will fall somewhere in the “green spectrum," green by intent to green in general, from developing a wind farm to putting out a new software release. Defined in Green Project Management, greenality “is the “degree to which an organization has considered environmental (green) factors that affect its projects during the entire project life cycle and beyond.”  Obeetee has certainly done that from the beginning.

At EarthPM, people from IT departments of every sort always ask us - perhaps challlenge us is a better way to put it - how they can help. 

"We're in IT", the story goes. "We aren't an energy-intense organization.  Are you telling us to turn our computers off and keep the lights and heat off when nobody's there?".  And the answer is, of course, yes.  These things will help.

But it is bigger than that.  And IT (Information Technology) is bigger than that.

Bigger, in terms of size, and bigger in terms of maturity.

Witness the press announcement we share below, from a non-profit consortium called GreenTouch.  Established just a few years ago, it is "dedicated to fundamentally transforming communications and data networks, including the Internet, and significantly reducing the carbon footprint of ICT devices, platforms and networks."

They have set lofty and worthy goals which hopefully help answer some of the edgy questions we get from our IT colleagues:

By 2015, our goal is to deliver the architecture, specifications and roadmap --and demonstrate key components -- needed to increase network energy efficiency by a factor of 1000 from current levels. We'll accomplish this by designing fundamentally new network architectures and creating the enabling technologies on which they are based.

In reaching this goal, GreenTouch members and the global community will benefit from:

• A reinvention of today’s telecommunications networks
• A sustainable future for data networking and the Internet
• Unprecedented collaboration with leading experts from around the world
• Participation in fundamental research in exciting new areas
• Access to network models and studies examining key energy related issues
• New information on network power consumption, traffic growth, and energy trends

So now to the news.  Here is their press release about this latest development and fiinally, the connection to the streets of San Francisco.

The GreenTouch Consortium, a global research initiative dedicated to dramatically improving network energy efficiency, introduced a major breakthrough for optical access -- Bit-Interleaved Passive Optical Network (Bi-PON) technology. GreenTouch estimates Bi-PON ultimately could deliver power reduction of 30 times over current technologies while improving performance and reducing cost.

In a webcast, researchers from Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs, France's INRIA research lab and France Telecom Orange, described how the bit interleaving passive optical network (BIPON) leverages a new protocol that cuts energy consumption in time division multiplexing (TDM) PON optical network units (ONUs) by a factor of 10 compared to today’s protocols. The key observation is that 99% of data is unnecessarily processed in ONUs today. By modifying the protocol, an order of magnitude improvement in ONU performance can be attained.

The bit interleaving protocol reduces energy consumption in the ONU by reducing clock speed requirements, data processing requirements, voltage requirements, and memory requirements. The bits are spaced in time to match the clock rate. The bit interleaving protocol frame structure includes a header and a payload section. The header contains a synchronization code word and a unique identifier for each ONU on the PON. The header also contains information that allows the ONU to know where its payload bits are — at what offset and bit rate they are being sent in the payload section.

The consortium members said Bi-PON represents the next major leap in passive optical network (PON) technologies. It is expected to be a necessity as electronic processing will increase with future 40GPON systems.

“With this demonstration, GreenTouch again shows why it is one of the most ambitious collaborative environments in sustainable network technologies,” said Gee Rittenhouse, GreenTouch chairman. “We are committed to reducing energy consumption across all ICT networks and Bi-PON is a huge and critical step in helping us achieve that goal. The impact is clear and wide-ranging including wireless backhaul and fiber to the home. Implementing Bi-PON over current technologies will have the energy savings equivalent to the carbon impact of permanently taking all the cars in a city like San Francisco off the road. We are making great progress toward our goal and are planning to make advances like this across all of our 25 research projects that are currently underway.”

If you're prepared for a rather detailed technical description and demo of this BiPon technology, watch the video below:

So next time you wonder whether or not IT can make a difference, flash back to (if you are old enough) an episode of The Streets of San Francisco.

I was watching a video the other day called Connections.  Surprise, surprise, it is about fly fishing.  There are three videos in the series so far including Drift and Rise.  The videos are a collaboration that includes Chris Patterson, long-time cinematographer for Warren Miller Films that brought us some spectacular skiing videos.  Connections is all about the connections we make to other fly fishermen, to getting to and from fly fishing locations, to the places we fish, guides, people we meet fly fishing, resort owners, fly shop employees, and finally between the angler and the fish on the end of the line.  It got me thinking about all the connections we’ve made by being are involved with sustainability.

We started slowly making those, for a good reason.  Sustainability is controversial and can be a source of conflict.  We needed to get out facts straight or at the least, investigate the reasoning behind sustainability.  It is also, to some, the cause de jour, a thing to exploit.  To us, it is much more than that.  It is our connection with the “natural world.”  It is the future if we are to have one. When we look at all of the issues we are facing in the future, like continued population growth, habitat destruction and water scarcity for example, we see that sustainability as that ultimate connector. 

There is a connection between green or sustainable business practices and project management.  We’ve talked about this before, project managers are where ideas become reality.  Therefore the reality of sustainable practices, are executed by project managers.  Our most cherished connections is the ones we’ve made with other, like-minded, project management practitioners who get it and get us.  We’ve made these connections all over the world and we are very proud of that fact.  The numbers are growing, too,  as evidenced by the interest in EarthPM.

The video discusses some of the same connections that we have with sustainability, even though in some instances they didn’t realize it.  As an example they talk about the transportation connection.  We have to get to the places we fish.  How we do that in the most sustainable way is up to us.  Fuel efficient vehicles, making sure our vehicles are properly tuned and tires properly inflated to reduce fossil fuel consumption and emissions, or carbon offsets for air transportation are examples of connecting sustainability with transportation. 

Belonging to or donating to organizations like the Nature Conservancy who are protecting those valuable resources that we fly fishermen use, is a connection between us and the land.  Purchasing our equipment from companies who are part of the “1% for the Planet” is another way to connect.  You can find those companies by going to 1% for the Planet website.  Not purchasing from companies who employ unethical business practices is a way to connect to sustainability via corporate social responsibility.  Those companies can easily be identified by going to any number of sustainability indices. 

When we think about it, we see that we are connected to sustainability in just about every way.  Perhaps we just need some someone to be able to “Touch” us to see them.

If you take nothing away from this article other than the link to Earth Beat, an outstanding resource from Radio Netherlands, we've done our job.

But don't head off there quite yet.

We just wanted to bring to your attention the project started by 10-year-old Daniel Cashdan, of Oak Park, California, USA, in which he decided to try to - in effect - grow his own peanut-butter and jelly sandwich.

It is a bit about understanding how food is sourced and grown, how food is so convenient but really takes a lot of energy and effort.

Here's a link to the specific radio segment on Daniel Cashdan:

CLICK HERE TO PLAY RADIO NETHERLANDS SEGMENT

Now, zoom out a little.  Earth Beat is a program on Radio Netherlands, in English, which covers all sorts of interesting stories on all things sustainable.  Many are about projects, and projects not as limited in scope as growing your own PBJ sandwich.

This week's particular program, Food, Glorious Food, was about food in general.  But Earth Beat's host, Marnie Chesterton, can always be counted on to inform, entertain,  intrigue, and while doing so, tickle your funnybone.

So we suggest that you sit yourself down to a home-made (and perhaps home-grown?) peanut-butter and jelly sandwich, and listen to a few episodes of Earth Beat.

You can thank us later.  Seriously.  Please thank us.  We'll know you're listening.

Could water be the new oil?  We mean that in a “demand” type of way.  If the answer is yes, then we have a very critical issue.  I noticed in the Wall Street Journal the other day that Fidelity Investment had a two page ad suggesting that investing in water resources may be the way to go in the future.  In other words, they are predicting that water could be the next traded commodity.  Looking at it pragmatically, we can see that possibility.  With an increasing population, strange happenings with the global climate like a change the weather patterns, urbanization, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, groundwater pollution, and all of the other sustainability issues, there is a good possibility that water may become scarce.  The demand for water could exceed the supply, making those who control the water in the driver’s seat.  That begs the question as to whom, if anyone should control the water.

We may not have much choice in the matter.  Water is controlled today.  When dry weather persists, municipalities place restrictions on its use.   At least there is control on municipal water supplies.  Even those with well water are at the mercy of contamination and periods of drought.  They, too, will have to look to some collective source of water.

Ron Lauder, in a CNBC video, makes the point that only 1% of the world’s water is drinkable.  He says that 97% is unusable, 1% each are in the arctic and Antarctic leaving 1% of drinkable water.  The statistical collection website, Worldometers, says ““Almost 80% of diseases in so called "developing" countries are associated with water, causing some three million early deaths. For example, 5,000 children die every day from diarrhea, or one every 17 seconds.”  You can clearly see the problem.

Not many countries remain unaffected.  It is a particularly critical issue in the countries with the most populations, like India, Pakistan, Mexico, China, and the United States, especially in the mid-west, southwest, and western US.  While oil rich, Saudi Arabia is water poor, and along with Yemen and Israel will face severe future shortages.

Who controls the water will be a critical issue in the future.  The wisdom of making such a life-sustaining resource a commodity seems to be flawed.  Whether or not a government, “Fanny Mae” type, agency should be controlling the water could be flawed, too.  The scarcity of water will certainly be a serious issue and what we do about it will have to be carefully and thoughtfully approached.