People, Planet, Profits & Projects

McDonalds - purveyors of millions and millions and millions of hamburgers, has been making some sustainabiilty moos (er... news) lately.  It drew our attention and we thought we'd share it with you because as project managers we love - or at least need - guidelines.

Sustainable beef.  Many would simply call that an oxymoron.  We're not going to get into that argument now, nor the argument over meat or vegetarian or vegan diets.  We realize that beef is a carbon-intense food.  However... this blog post is about guidelines for sustainabilty - and their connection to projects.  So when McDonalds says that they will begin buying 'verified sustainable beef' in 2016, they need to be able to say what that means.  And for that to happen, there need to be guidelines covering sustainable beef.

Well, sure enough, a guideline now exists.  Principles for Sustainable Beef Farming, linked here for your convenience and reading pleasure, organizes 39 principles into four categories:

• Sustainable Farming Systems, asking questions like these:
  • Are individual groups of animals fully traceable from birth?
  • Are the Principles being applied with a philosophy of continuous improvement?
  • Is feed produced/sourced in accordance with the Principles & Practices for the Sustainable Production of Arable & Vegetable Crops?
  • Is land use optimised?
• Economic Sustainability, asking questions like these:
  • Are effective biosecurity measures in place?
  • Are there long term business plans in place that consider, amongst other things,the long term viability of the farm?
• Social Sustainability, with questions like these:
  • Is the health of both consumers and the general public protected?
  • Is cattle health and welfare safeguarded?
  • Is the breed of cattle and choice of production system suited to the localclimate, soil, pests & diseases?
  • Are the health, safety and rights of all workers protected?
  • Are all workers sufficiently competent?
  • Is business conducted with integrity?
  • Does the farm positively contribute to the local community?
  • Does the farm manager act as a responsible steward of the rural environment?
• Environmental Sustainability   , with questions like these:
  • Are the natural resources soil, water and air being managed responsibly?
  • Are greenhouse gas emissions being measured and is action being taken to reduce them?
  • Are farm wastes managed responsibly?
  • Is biodiversity on the farm enhanced?
  • Are High Conservation Value lands (HCV) protected?

Although a farm is clearly an operation, we point out thatmaking a farm more sustainable is a project, and that there is still learning that can and should take place from these operational principles.

These are the sorts of questions that you can be asking your project team - preferably near the initiation - to integrate long-term thinking...sustainability thinking into your project.  We'll be discussing this much more during 2014.

Additional references:

This article from BusinessWeek

This article from GreenBiz

One of the ironies of the BP/Macondo well failure (also commonlly known as 'The Deepwater Horizon Spill" or "The Gulf Spill" or the "BP Spill") is that when it comes to sustainability, the spill itself gained a lot of attention but after just a few years, it seems to have fallen off the news radar.  Perhaps it's because of other major, important incidents, such as the Duck Dynasty controversy or Miley Cyrus' twerking capabilities.

But regardless of the attention the spill (and its effects) gains or doesn't gain, the effects do continue to impact the Gulf, its peoplle, and its ecosystem.  The irony, we suppose, is the sustainability (lastingness, in this case) of the oil and - on the good side - the continuing teachable moment we have in terms of integrating sustainability thinking in projects.

Just today, in fact, the US National Public Radio network posted this story about the continuing effects of the disaster.  In part, it says: 

This year, crews have collected 4.6 million pounds of oily material from the Gulf Coast shoreline. Coastal residents are asking how long they'll be living with the effects of BP's 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

"A lot of people don't realize that the Deepwater Horizon response is still going on," says Coast Guard Petty Officer 1st Class Michael Anderson with the Gulf Coast Incident Management Team. "It's been a marathon, not a sprint."

And here is another interesting piece:

Jonathan Henderson of the Gulf Restoration Network documents the ongoing impacts of the BP oil spill. On Elmer's Island, he's armed with a specimen jar and blue latex gloves — and picking through tar balls in the tide line.

"You can look in this line, you can see (tarballs are) everywhere. So there's literally thousands and thousands and thousands of them," he says. He filled his jar in about three minutes with tar balls ranging from the size of a dime to a silver dollar.

"You crack them open and you can see they're kind of brownish and sandy on the outside, but open, they're black in the middle. You can smell it right away once you crack it open, the fumes start coming out of them," Henderson says.

Henderson also does regular flyovers of the Gulf's oil production platforms, looking for evidence of leaks that might not make the headlines that BP did.

"Any time could turn into something bigger. Clearly one of the dangers of deepwater drilling like this is once you have a blowout the damage is really going to be done and it's going to stick with you for a long time," he says.

It's easy, we know, to be a "Monday morning quarterback"* and second-guess what BP did - and didnt't do - in their planning for the Macondo project.   But way back when the reports first started coming out, EarthPM focused on a scarcely-paid-attention-to Appendix from the Federal US Government report.  Our blogs from back in late 2011 prove this.  And now we'd like to re-focus your attention on this because as the oil continues to be discovered, and the 'sustainability' of the spill (in terms of its ongoing effects) still sometimes make the news, it's worth continuing to learn from this.

Appendix J of the report from the then BOEMRE department of the US Government is the actual Macondo well risk register.  It has real people's names and real dates and real entries, just like the risk registers you use on your project.  And it has risk categories and a risk rating guide from the Risk Management Plan just like you have on your projects (you DO have them, right?).  The thing is, although BP's corporate ID guidelines allowed for Safety and Environmental risks to be captured (and coded in a light green color), you can see by scanning through the risk register that the only ones identiified (and thus the only ones with a chance of being treated) are blue and purple - Cost, Schedule, Production, Reserves, and NPV.  Zero - yes, that's right - zero risks related to Safety and/or Environment were identified.  Zero!

We pointed out then, and we think it's important to point out again now, that THIS is one of the key ways you can take just a little time now to integrate sustainability into your projects.  It's a gift that keeps on giving.  It's a thought, a wisp of a plan, that can save you gigantic, perhaps even life-saving problems later on.  Simply including these risks (identifying them!) would have helped immeasurably.  Decisions would have been taken differently.  We cannot - nobody can ever - know for sure whether it would have made the difference and saved 11 lives at Macondo.  But we can take the lesson to heart - and give the gift that keeps on giving: Sustainability Thinking.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year from EarthPM!

*See a definition of this admittedly US-centric term here.

No, that's not a typo, I was acually referring to IKEA, the big box seller of RIKTIG ÖGLA  and FLÄRDFULL.

We want to send you off to a great new TED talk.  It's by Steve Howard, a sustainability professional who now holds the position of Chief Sustainability Officer at IKEA.

This will be a short post.  Why?  Because Steve says what he says so well.  We do, however, want to make one very subtle, quiet point, delicately, and carefully...

YOUR BUSINESS LEADERS ARE 'GETTING' SUSTAINABILITY!  NOW IT'S OUR TURN AS PORTFOLIO, PROGRAM, AND PROJECT MANAGERS TO GET IT, TOO! 

Now, enjoy the show.

In the US, it's almost Thanksgiving, a major family holiday.  Mom, Dad, family, and friends - kids of all ages -  gather to give thanks for all that they have and to celebrate this 'harvest' time of year. 

And so we choose this timeframe to talk about the important role that Mom and Dad play as project managers - and/or leaders in general - when it comes to integrating sustainability thinking into the mindsets of their families.

We'd like to draw your attention to Project Sunlight.  This is a project created by Unilever targeting parents as the key influencers for their families, and thus communities.  They invite, and we also invite you to first  watch a film online which aims to both inspire and motivate parents to then act by doing a number of small things which, added together, will contribute to a better society and environment. Unilever, the parent company of well-known brands like Ragu, Hellmans, Lipton, Popsicle, and Ben & Jerry's, is trying to get the public to join a movement and become part of a growing community of sustainability-minded people and organizations.

We know how hard it is to start grass-roots, ad-hoc movements.  As a company of two people, EarthPM is finally seeing some success in this area but only after years, hundreds of blog posts, and scores of presentations at PMI Global Congresses, PMI Chapter Meetings, and PMO Symposia as well as in local sustainability organizations, constantly pushing the message that there IS an intersection of Sustaianbility and Project Management and how we as project managers can contribute to lasting success - triple bottom line success - of our projects' products.  But this is Unilever, a large multinational corporation.  They can make a quicker, deeper, broader difference.  We urge you to help them.  At least watch the video, and as you do so, consider the Project Management role that Mom and Dad have in influencing the world around them.  Most likely, you - as a project manager who is the child of Mom and Dad and a Mom or Dad yourself, are at least at that intersection: the intersection of parent and project manager.  Now, just extrapolate that to the intersection of project management and sustainability.  Of course, if you're having trouble extrapolating or just find this idea intriguing we invite you to read our book, Green Project Management, which covers the topic well, so we're told.

Unilever's Project Sunlight lets you take action locally as a Mom, as a Dad, as a child, as a Project Manager.  And by definition, if you take on one of these challenges, you are a Project Manager!  Check out what you can do in the USA on this Facebook link.

Happy Thanksgiving to our USA-based readers.  We're thankful to have this opportunity on Projects@Work to share our thoughts and hope you have a terrific holiday week and weekend!

We've just returned from the West Coast (sometimes called the 'left coast") of the USA, after a great week at the PMO Symposium in San Diego, California.  Our presentation, "Should Your PMO Serve as a Chief Project Sustainability Office" was well received, and although the visit was good, it was short, and it was time to fly back over our magnificent continent and return to the East (right) Coast.

And just around the time of our visit, the Pacific Coast states of California, Oregon, and Washington, along with the province of British Colombia, did something that the corresponding national governments have failed to do. 

They agreed on something.

But hey, what's the big deal?  How big are these few states and a province?  Well, combined, they would be the world's 5th largest economy.  That's why it's a big deal.

And what does this pact mean?  Further, since you're probably a project manager, what does it mean to you?  To us?  To your PMO?

Actually, you can easily find out yourself.  The document is surprisingly succinct, given that it comes from 4 governments and 2 countries.  Have a look at it here.

In this two-page document, the word, 'program' appears explicitly four times, the word 'project' appears explicitly four times and both are implicitly woven through almost each and every paragraph in the document.  Here are a couple of paragraphs to illustrate our point: