People, Planet, Profits & Projects

As we send 2011 off into the sunset and wish it good bye (or good riddance), we at EarthPM thought this would be a good time to set resolutions for 2012. 

But first...

..before doing something so angelic...

...we thought we'd play devil's advocate.  Below are some of the objections we hear to planning in sustainability to your projects.   All are reall, and all actually have some virtue (it's the ying and yang of PM, we suppose).  Early in 2012 we will play angel's advocate and explain why these objections to resolutions oughtn't, shouldn't, and mightn't make a (negative) difference to you, your projects, planet, people, and profits.

So here they are, people, in ascending order to the NUMBER 1 reason why we need not plan sustainability into our projects.

(insert drumroll here)

5.  My project has its own needs and must not be hampered by corporate or other enterprise 'weights'.  I have enough to worry about with my project alone.

4.  I don't want to worry about how my project's product/service will be used in the long term - what a bother!  I am a PM – my projects have defined beginnings and endings, and I work in the here and now.

3. Since my project only runs for a short time, I don't need to run 'the project itself' efficiently.  I just need to get it done.  The operations people can worry about the steady-state.

2. Any money or effort spent to 'green up' my project is money NOT spent on my REAL project.  We’re all splitting one pie, so there is only so much to go around.

1. They've begun to find planets with similar characteristics to Earth.  So, with regards to the earth and "using it up" -  it's replaceable! So, what, me worry?

Have a very pleasant, safe, and fun New Year's and best of wishes to you, your people, projects, profits, and planets in 2012!

Well, that’s an interesting word, and I like interesting words.  It means, according to Encarta, literally “generating current of voltage when illuminated.”  It is further defined as “able to generate a current or voltage when exposed to visible light, or other electromagnetic radiation.”   So while I have seen the word before, I never actually paid much attention to it.  I’m sure it was the box for my solar garden lights.   It is really a great word foto-vol-tay-ik.  I wouldn’t have paid much attention to it if it wasn’t for a recent article I was reading about Google. 

Google is one of those companies that we considered “Top of Their Game” in our book.  It seems, from the article, that some were speculating that Google was “losing its appetite for clean power” because it had decided to stop its initiative “Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal.”  But I suppose it wasn’t that Google is not interested in clean energy, it is just that that initiative had run its course.  Google says that it is investing $94 million into four photovoltaic projects that Recurrent Energy is building in the Sacramento area. 

So what are these projects?  To paraphrase a line from Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come.”  The Sacramento Municipal Utility District has agreed to a 20 year deal to purchase 88 MW of solar power from Recurrent Energy.  Recurrent Energy develops solar energy projects and generates clean electricity to utilities and large energy buyers.  They are the primary solar development company for Sharp Corporation, and are a Sharp subsidiary.  For this particular project, there are four sites south and south east of Sacramento where these solar arrays will be built.  The first of the projects are scheduled to come on line in 2012. 

So Google is not abandoning their search for cleaner energy, just exploring all options.  But one thing that stands out in my mind is that fossil fuels will not be going away anytime soon.  I applaud the efforts of the clean energy industry and their backers to explore alternate clean energy sources.  I’m no fortune teller, but my tea leaves say that for the foreseeable future, energy will be provided by a combination of electricity (nuclear, solar, wind, fossil fuel plants, including wood and waste product fueled plants), natural gas, coal and oil.  The key will be to increase our usage of clean energy produced (including nuclear while finding the solutions to the safety issues surrounding nuclear plants), and decrease our dependency on oil and natural gas while making those sources cleaner.  We must work to decrease our dependency on the least clean energy sources, because I can’t see us totally eliminating their use.

For some of us, the holiday season, by nature (excuse the pun), is about green.  Not Kermit green, but evergreens and “mistletoe and holly” to quote a Christmas Carol.  But it could go either way, sustainable or not, and if it goes not, it goes in a big way.  Americans toss out an extra 25 million tons of trash over the holidays, largely due to packaging.  I remember when I was young and it was all about the present count.  Each present was gaily wrapped by one of Santa’s elves and mysteriously appeared in the on Christmas morning under the tree.  The tree miraculously appeared with ornaments and lights just in time when my question of “Has Santa come?” was answered in the affirmative, usually in the wee hours of Christmas morning.  Funny I never heard the sleigh.  By the time all the presents were unwrapped; there was an enormous pile of colored paper.  What to do with it?  Usually, it went into gigantic black plastic “contractor’s” bags to be placed on the curb with all of our neighbors black plastic bags.  I’ll bet some of that wrapping is still in a landfill somewhere.  After all, there is virtually no degradation taking place in a landfill.  Besides, the waste in landfills, the remnants of the wrapping paper can be a fire hazard.  People almost burn their houses down by throwing too much of the paper in their fireplaces.  Have you ever seen how that stuff burns?

And then there is that Christmas tree with all the lights and ornaments.  When the lights went bad, they were thrown away, but the ornaments, now that was a different story.  A lot of them are handed down from generation to generation to be unboxed and hung on the tree from year to year, reuse!  At one time the trees were collected and used to fuel a huge bonfire to signal the end of the holiday season and to warm us while we watched.  One of the best uses of discarded Christmas trees we’ve seen is that they are collected and ground up for mulch to be used in the spring on minicipal lands or made available to citizens for their gardens.   Christmas trees are certainly a renewable, recyclable resource, just ask the Virginia Christmas Tree Growers Association http://www.virginiachristmastrees.org/facts.asp. 

There are now alternatives to the traditional non-recyclable wrapping paper.  Have a contest to see who can come up with the most sustainable wrap.  It is amazing what people will come up with, especially if there is an incentive involved, like some homemade cookies for the winner.   If you do buy paper, make sure it has the Sustainable Forest Initiative symbol.  And, then do what my mother used to do, carefully unwrap the present to preserve the paper for another gift.  Reuse again.   Have another contest to see who can come up with the cleverest idea for ribbons and bows or other packaging decorations.  Gift bags are also to be considered as they can be used again and again.   Food as a package decoration is great, as long as it isn’t something perishable.  Candy makes great decorations, especially the Christmas candies like candy canes and ribbons, very colorful. 

I have a friend who sends a very simple Christmas card, but he hand ties a fishing fly that is included.  Each year is a different fly.  A hand tied fishing fly would be a great decoration for a simple package (just watch the hook).  There are a lot more things to green up your holiday season.  Just look on the Internet; LED lights for the tree to reduce energy usage, solar lights for the outside (a disappointment for Clark Griswold) to reduce energy usage to 0, and more.  Not only is it fun to create ways to be more sustainable, but the results could drastically reduce that holiday waste.  Now, if I could just do something about my holiday waist-line to keep myself more sustainable.

Two strongly-related news stories caught our attention today.

One (from Politico.com) describes the closing of COP17, the UN Climate Conference which completed last week in Durban, South Africa.

The other, (from today's Boston Globe) using that as an opening, is a story about how technology is really the answer and that (as Gomer Pyle used to say: "surprise, surprise, surprise") the diplomats and governments are just not that good at solving problems.

Wherever you stand on climate change (and we're interested to hear just where that is), we hope you'll agree that the field of green technology holds promise for us - as project managers.  Indeed, to quote Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University, the "efforts to develop these new technologies need to accelerate to full throttle". 

That means development projects:

• research
• design/innovation
• testing
• trials

That means deployment projects:

• design/implementation
• construction
• training
• conversion

In other words, jobs for us as PMs.

So - sharpen your tools.  Build your 'green vocabulary' and get out there and do what the diplomats and policy makers continue to NOT do, and that's to make a difference.

One way to do that is to check out the job opportunites here on GreenBiz.  Note how many of them are driven by new projects.  That's all we're sayin'.

In 1986, when Jay Westervelt, a New York environmentalist, coined the word “greenwashing”, it was in an essay assailing the hotel industry for its attempt to use an environmental cause to reduce its costs, rather than an effort to reduce energy usage.  Today, the term applies to any company who uses the consideration of the environment as an advertising tool rather than a concerted effort to reduce their environmental footprint.

During a recent holiday, my wife and I decided instead of driving a long distance, or flying to a location to be with family, that we would have a “stay-cation” and use our lowest emission, fuel efficient vehicle to drive the 40 miles to Boston and spend a few days in the city.  We were able to park our car and then use “pedi-power” for our stay.  Boston is a foot-friendly city and even though we stayed across the river in Cambridge, we were able to walk everywhere we wanted to go. 

Some small businesses choose to take on sustainability projects.  We had made reservations at a small restaurant in Beacon Hill for the holiday dinner.  At the time we made the reservations I had no idea how “green” the restaurant is.  At our table was a card printed on 100% post consumer recycled paper, FSC Certified.   The front of the card read “Green Thursdays, Come and celebrate our planet with your friends and neighbors.”  They offered “organic martinis, specials from renewable and sustainable foods, and recycling tips.” 

But the back of the card were the most poignant messages.  It had two boxes, “Did you know…?” which is the commitment the restaurant makes, and “How can you help?” which is self-explanatory.  The “Did you know” box contained things like; recycling of just about everything, including catalogs, cardboard, computer printouts, cell phones, metals.  It also included composting of food wastes, environmentally friendly cleaning products, energy efficient equipment (programmable timers and thermostats, motion sensing lights, low energy lighting, recycling waste oils, seasonal herb garden, two-way totes for delivery of merchandise, educating staff and the public on sustainable practices, and more.

The “How can I help?” box included advice to install low-flow shower heads to reduce  water use by as much as 50%,  and by turning off the water when you brush your teeth could save as much as 9 gallons of water each time.  It also included some facts like 40% of the energy used in your home is for heat, 1 ton of non-recycled newsprint uses 12 trees, Americans discard 4 million tons of office paper every year – enough to build a twelve-foot high wall of paper from NY to California, and glass never wears out-it can be recycled forever. What isn’t said here is important as well.  How much does this effort make “cents”?  Let’s just look at lighting.  Here’s a little table I took from one of my student team presentations:

That is a very short pay-back period and significant savings!  75 Chestnut, Beacon Hill, is an example of a small company doing what they can to execute sustainable projects.  That is certainly not “greenwashing.”  Besides that, the atmosphere and food were excellent.