One of the most valuable tools in the project manager’s tool kit is lessons learned.  It can give a twenty-twenty hindsight perspective of a project to help avoid the mistakes of the past.  George Santayana noted Spanish philosopher who, in Volume 1 of his Reason in Common Sense, coined the phrase “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”  Sometimes, while we don’t know whether or not a “lessons learned” was conducted, it is good to go back and look at a project to see what we can learn so we don’t repeat history.  Since the connection between sustainability and project management is a relatively new concept, we thought it would be interesting to take a look at an infamous project, Union Carbide’s Plant in Bhopal, India, from a sustainability perspective.

  Just after midnight on December 3, 1984, methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas began leaking from Union Carbide’s Plant in Bhopal, India.   Before it was all over, approximately 10,000 gallons of the highly toxic gas had been released forming a deadly cloud that covered 25 square miles and killed or injured over 100,000 people.  According to the Harvard Business School Case, “Bhopal became a symbol of corporate negligence and risk.”  According to Newsweek, December 17, 1984, “It was like breathing fire…..”  The following morning, while all the buildings were intact, it looked like a nuclear bomb hit.  Dead humans and animals littered the ground.  It was the worst industrial accident in history. 

It is interesting that the Harvard Business Case[1] is that the roots of this disaster could be traced back to the mid-1960s when India was in the midst of its “Green Revolution.”  In a socially responsible move, India wanted to eliminate chronic food shortages by boosting food production.  One of the ways they wanted to do that was to make fertilizers and pesticides more readily available, thus the need for a manufacturing plant like the UC plant that used MIC in the production of pesticides.

As always, we like to give the caveat that we were not in the room when the planning decisions for the project were conducted, so we don’t know for sure what did or didn’t drive the decisions that were made.  What we can do is look at the information available, which includes an organization’s reaction to the crisis, to provide some insight to not “repeat history.” 

So what could have been done that may not have been done in the initial stages of the planning process for this project, specifically, the environmental risk assessment.  Remember, we are looking at this as a retrospective and making some assumptions for the purpose of discussion.  The gas is known to be highly toxic, see warning label above.  UC’s name is on the plant.  A risk encountered is whether or not UC will have enough control over the design and construction of the plant to provide the proper precautions when building this facility in the area of a city with a population of 900,000.  The answer in hindsight is no, for a variety of reasons; vital parts of the plant including monitoring instrumentation and vent gas scrubbers manufactured in India by Indians (no control by US UC), limited safety training, employees selected and trained in India, many changes in design and configuration changes during the 10 years of construction, in other words, ceding of control to the Indians.  Is that a good scenario for a company that has its name on the door?  An observation we make because of the case study and other research into the disaster is that the executives of the US based UC seem to have felt that there was no liability for them because of the role of the Indian Government and the Indian engineers, builders, etc.  Can that kind of accountability be delegated?  We don’t think so.  Sure, some of the responsibility can be delegated, but if your name is on the door, your name is on the door, and some of the profits are being returned to the US.  You have no “case” for delegation of accountability.

Because of the toxicity of the gas, and the lack of control over some of the key safety factors, wouldn’t it be wise to take a very close look at the potential of a leak.  Even if the likelihood is low, the impact will be very high.  We conclude that there wasn’t much of a risk analysis done on the possibility of a leak by the circumstances surrounding the leak and the reaction to it.  The storage tank holding the MIC showed a dangerously high pressure reading, but by the time it was caught, it was too late.  At 2am (almost two hours after the tank started leaking) the plant’s emergency siren sounded.  Thinking that a fire had broken out, “hundreds rushed toward the plant” right into the path of the gas.  “The train station was littered with the bodies of railroad employees…tying up the station for 20 hours making it impossible to flee the disaster area.”  Those who were wealthy enough to have cars tried to escape but were blinded by the gas causing numerous accidents.  We would have thought that if the risk of a leak was more closely analyzed, a better plan would have been in place.

Looking back on the disaster, it is easy to speculate on what should have been done.  But isn’t that what lessons learned are for?  Some questions that could be asked:

• Did they consider their ability to produce pesticides without stockpiling MIC?
• Was the technology used in the Bhopal Plant inferior to that used in West Virginia?
• Did UC know of safety issues at the Bhopal Plant?
• Should the plant have been constructed further from a population center?

We have included sustainability as a criterion, which probably wasn’t as big a concern then as it is today and will be even more in the future.  However, then and now, the consequences are the same; consumer backlash, law suits, devaluation of a company's stocks, etc.  There are clear sustainability issues involved in this case, whether they called them that at the time, or not.  Looking back on some of these “environmental” disasters can give project manager’s valuable insights for the future.

One of the most fundamental and imperative things a project manager must do is to identify stakeholders.

We think this is best done by asking two thoughtful questions:

• Who cares about your project?
• Who cares about your project’s outcome?

We focus a lot on this last part – the outcome, because many times we’re so caught up in the project itself that we lose (in a forest-for-the-trees sort of way) sight of the steady-state operation of our project.  And this is where many of the issues of CSR (corporate social responsibility) and TBL (Triple Bottom Line) come into play.

We recently came across a great comedy clip from the August 2, 2011 rendition of The Daily Show (a Comedy Central Network TV show, staring Jon Stewart).  In this clip, The Daily Show’s Aasif Mandvi interviews a stakeholder in a proposed wind farm in south Florida, USA.  Here, a stakeholder appears and is very concerned about the project’s steady-state use and its effect on a natural resource – ducks.  We hate to give too many details because it may spoil the comedy of the clip.  So watch the clip and come back here.

Here's the link (below):

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-august-2-2011/fowl-wind

So if you saw the clip – and we hope you did – here are the learnings from our perspective:

• Think broadly and deeply about who may be stakeholders  while the project is ‘under construction’.
• Now, imagine the project is done.  It’s running.  It’s working.  It’s perhaps a year into operation.  What happens to your stakeholder set?  Acknowledge that it will change. Feed that back into your stakeholder identification process.
•  Know thy stakeholders!

            -know – and expose as necessary - their true objectives and concerns (not always their spoken ones)

            -understand drivers of their behaviors

• Know the interactions of stakeholders with each other

To shift a bit from comedy to reality, check out the actual sites of the involved parties here:

http://sugarlandwind.com/Environment.html

http://www.unitedwaterfowlersfl.org/

We’re interested in your feedback here.  What did you think of the video?  Did the stakeholders’ interests surprise you?  Where did you see hypocrisy?  How would you have dealt with this if you were the wind farm project manager?  How would you have dealt with this if you were the Waterfowl representative?

We know that this is a difficult part of any project, and so, with tounge firmly in bill, we wish you the best of flock.

(snicker)

Believe It!

In 2009, Brett Willis wrote a white paper for High Performance Solutions (HPS) entitled The Business Case for Environmental Sustainability (Green), Achieving rapid returns from practical integration of Land & Green.  He wrote “It is a myth that being environmentally responsible is injurious to profitability.” To read the entire white paper, click here.  “Environmental Sustainability must be as commonsense as Lean – it must enable us to quickly identify and eliminate wastes that may well include energy consumption, landfill avoidance, and much more.”  Mr. Willis goes on to say that to be effective you need a process like Green Value Stream (GVS), a formalized and common sense approach to sustainability with its roots in Lean.  He is not necessarily advocating any one approach, but he is advocating that to really be effective, one needs a systematic approach.  “Even more good news is the notion that the larger Green initiatives are taken out of altruism is fading as the returns from their implementation are totaled. Many of these have become great revenue generators. Today's leaders understand that sustainability is now a critical part of the core value of the company. Employees are equipped, and given the freedom, to be creative and look for alternatives they may not have seen before.  You unleash creativity when you give people a vision like we have for suatainability." 

 Still not convinced?  Then let’s look at some real numbers.  According to The Economist Magazine in a 2008 study “DuPont cut costs by $2 billion since 1990 through energy reduction initiatives alone.  In addition, 3M saved $82 million between 2001 and 2005 and reaped another $10 million in savings in 2006.”  Since executing on their climbing of “Mount Sustainability”, Interface Global has added more than $400 million to the bottom line.  Bob Willard, an internationally renowned leader in sustainability practices, research has shown that large enterprises can additional yield profits in the order of 38% in five years by executing on sustainable practices.  

As we’ve said before, and are confirmed in Mr. Willis’ article, there are other benefits, not as clearly definable, but as influential to the business case.  In a 2008 survey conducted in conjunction with the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship showed that 68% of the respondents  said that if the company had a strong environmental reputation for environmental commitment, it positively influenced their decision to buy the product or service, market share increase.  Cone Inc conducted another survey that found that 83% of the Millennials (born between 1979 and 2001) trust a company more if it is environmentally responsible, and 68% said they would refuse to work for a company that is not socially and environmentally responsible.

One more important point that Ray Anderson makes is that the commitment to sustainability is organization wide, from the executive suite to the factory floor.  To be truely effective, it has to be that way.  That systemic approach is also voiced in Brett Willis' article.

For the Green Wave, the tide is rising.  Business cases are being influenced by both real numbers and those not so easily quantifiable issues.  It is real.   Interface Global had to put together a consulting arm because they have been bombarded by requests from companies who are interested in how Interface has done what they’ve done.   Because projects are the linchpin in any organization between business as usual and change, the project manager plays a key role in the execution of an organization’s sustainability practices.  Stay in the forefront of your organization’s sustainability efforts.  When armed with the facts that there are many ways sustainability leads to an increase in the bottom line, it is an easy sell!

From Ray Anderson: "I'll see you on the way (the journey to sustainability). We'll do this together because it is the right thing to do."  From Earth PM's Assertion #1; "A project run with green intent is the right thing to do, but it also helps the project team do the right thing."

This post is about an important problem which is being exhibited in several important fishing areas in the US and around the world.  It's from a great (and short) article which we assert that you should read.  It happens to be from a public TV station based on Cape Cod, but the subject is much more far-reaching and definitely includes a "project management spin".

The article focuses on how Cape Cod deals with its waste products (or doesn't) and what effects can be expected when water systems are overburdened with certain chemicals.

Here's the link to that article..  It's short, it's interesting - please read it.

But just in case you don't - here's a clipping.

"The Environmental Protection Agency has mandated that Cape Cod clean up its act (quick aside: Congress is currently considering legislation to curtail EPA’s authority and leave water quality standards up to states). The need to reduce nitrogen loading of coastal waters has sparked heated debates around the Cape, primarily because the leading solution – municipal sewering – is extremely expensive; cost estimates for sewering Cape Cod range between $4 and $8 billion. Opposition to what some have called “the big pipe solution” has grown, giving rise to events like this weekend’s Eco-Toilet Summit (the second of its kind) and increasing demands for deeper exploration of alternatives to sewering. Given the cost and controversy involved, it will likely take a decade or more to enact any solution."

Read that paragraph and note the connections to project management 'science'.

First, we see references to why a project is triggered or selected (regulatory pressure).  Then we see the importance of stakeholder identification, analysis, and management, with the opposition to the solutions.  But the two BIG reasons this is important to project managers - beyond the altruistic reasons of caring for the planet, that is - are:

• Your environmentaland sustainability context - vocabulary - fluency - is increased by reading about these things.  Wherever you stand politically, whatever your view on climate change, we urge you to be conversant on the subject.  It's going to be important to you.  Beleive us!

• Related to the above...Projects are likely to come out of this, I'm sure you can see.  Billions of dollars are involved.  Again, it can (positively) affect your career to know that this is a source of programs and projects - and thus a source of work for us as project managers

In our book we actually (along with EPA director Mary Ann Curran)  covered the topic of hypoxia. This article shows how it is not only still relevant - it is (unfortunately) accelerating as a problem, and it's intertwined with other issues such as carbon dioxide (carbon footprint), in a complex way.  That's why the article asserts that "nitrogen is the new carbon".

So we leave you with the encouragement to learn about hypoxia - it may not be your main job - but (excuse the pun) it will help put you in your element.

This is a great depiction of balancing project risk (walking the tight rope) yet having the safety net (pillow) of risk management.  The concept is particularly important when a project management views their project through an environmental lens.  Viewing a project through an environmental lens doesn’t mean “pursing environmental solutions above all else.”  What it does mean is; first, there is a balance to be struck between planet, people, and profits, and second, it is the management of environmental risks that will provide the “pillow”. 

So, how do we achieve that balance?  How do we manage environmental risks?  In order to find the balance, we first need to find the risks.  The project’s charter is the first place to look for environmental risks.  Is there an enterprise-wide environmental (sustainability) policy?  This is a decision point.  It there is one, is it connected to the project’s goal and objectives?  This is another decision point.  If there is no connection, we need to push back to ensure that the connection exists.  If the enterprise does not have a sustainability policy*, then there should be some push back to establish one. 

If there is a deficiency in either the enterprise’s sustainability policy and/or the connection between the project and the enterprise, why should it be the role of the project manager to push back?  Because we are where the “rubber meets the road”.  We are where “ideas become real.”  Everything an enterprise does is a project.  Project managers are business leaders.  I realize that we sometimes think of ourselves between some restrictive boundaries, after the project charter and at the turnover to ongoing operations.  It is time we break out of those boundaries and take a more prominent role in the enterprise.  After all, isn’t that what the chief project officer (CPO) is intended to do?  The concept of CPO says that project management has a place at the “executive table", as a contributor to enterprise strategy.  Let’s say, for argument sake, that this is the future of project management.  Even if it is not, there are good reasons to consider the sustainability risks in project risk identification.

There are stakeholders (people) who strongly believe that sustainability should be part of any project.  Companies are pushing back on suppliers, insisting that if they want to do business with the company, that they produce some proof that they are using sustainable practices.  Government regulations, mandates, and standards have to be considered.  A big consideration is financial.  It makes “cents” to become more sustainable.  Greening your projects will save dollars.  Whether those dollar savings are immediate or long-term will depend on the nature of the project.  The risk, here, or rather the consequences, of not considering the environmental aspects of the project, could mean that the project costs (profits) could be adversely affected.  There are stakeholders (people) who will be directly affected by the project, like the fisherman of the Gulf Coast. 

The risks of not considering the regulations, mandates, and standards are that the project could be delayed, shutdown, or become obsolete because the output is considered damaging to the environment.  The risks of alienating or damaging stakeholders are obvious.  In some instances, the environment (planet) will be affected, no matter where the project lies along the “green spectrum”; green by definition (wind farms), green by project impact (off shore oil drilling), green by product impact (K-cups of single service coffee makers), or green in general (software packaging).   In no way are we advocating that every project decision, and these decision are not made just in the concept and planning phases of the project’s life cycle but are made throughout the life cycle, be made in favor of sustainability.  What we are saying is that it is extremely important to at least consider those risks in the usual process of risk management; identification, quantification, assessment, response, monitor, and control.

*Note:  Don’t forget to look for a corporate social responsibility (CSR) statement.  CSR and sustainability are inextricably connected.