People, Planet, Profits & Projects

The following is what I consider a model, or best practice, for those of us in academia project management.  Not only do we teach project management and sustainability, in some cases, we are also participants in the university structure.  In other words we are part of the (sustainability) solution. And, because we have 401Ks and other investments, it is also good to know.

We’ve talked before about some of the drivers for wanting to be more sustainable.  One of the biggest drivers and most understood by upper management, is the bottom line, the (p)rofit part of the triple bottom line.  That part of the triple bottom line includes investments, particularly in public traded companies.  If people are more willing to invest in companies that are socially responsible than are in companies than companies that are not, where to do think the money will go?  What companies will have the most longevity?

Academia has a lot of money, at least some colleges and universities do.  Looking at some of the endowments it is clear that they have opportunities (and need) to invest to grow their money, just like you and I.  Boston University, the school I teach for, took their investment strategy one step further.  They set up an Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing (ACSRI).  According to their website, their mission is: “to (a) represent a wide spectrum of the community (trustees, faculty, and students); (b) be knowledgeable about relevant, socially responsible investing issues in order to be able to engage in informed, thoughtful, and collegial consideration and discussion; (c) provide continuity and institutional memory on relevant policy issues; (d) advise the Board of Trustees on socially responsible investment policy issues by proposing written policies for the Board’s consideration; and (e) coordinate and facilitate communication on relevant policy issues.”

The committee was formed from a more or less “grassroots” movement of faculty and students who asked that the administration look at their investment strategies and perhaps alter it based on socially responsible practices of the companies getting their investment dollars.  From time to time, the administration and Trustees of Boston University are urged by members of the faculty and student communities to alter investment holdings based on the company’s sustainability or socially responsible practices.  That is why the ACSRI was formed.  It is made up of trustees, faculty members and students “who are familiar with the University’s investment responsibilities.” 

Their responsibility is to look at a variety of information about issues that are brought before them to determine the best investment strategies.  The recommendations are then sent to the Board of Trustees for consideration.  The first investigation centered on the issue of companies that manufacture firearms for the civilian retail market. A lengthy study was undertaken reviewing existing laws, the Second Amendment and various high court rulings as well as the BU policy.  The results of any investigation by the ACSRI lead to direct recommendations to the Board of Trustees.

The second issue to be investigatedwill be whether or not to divest from fossil fuel interests.  This project is a great example of the voice of the customer, students and faculty, getting together with the administration to drive investment in socially responsible companies.  It is something that we, as project managers, either in academia or any other industry need to consider as it can affect our “bottom line.”

As a project manager – or simply as a curious person, you may have been interested in the idea of sustainability – what it is, what it means, is it meaningful, and can we do anything about it.

In today’s Boston Globe, on the front page of their Ideas section, you’ll find an interesting article which is actually an interview with author Jeremy Caradonna on his book, Sustainability – a History.

You may have been interested in sustainability, but Caradonna has been fascinated by it.

The book is full of great background information on sustainability, for example, the skyrocketing use of the word over only the past 20 years or so.  Does that mean that our ancestors were not interested?  Does that mean that sustainability is only the proprietary use of the radical, left-wingers of the past, present or future?  Not at all.  The interview (and of course the book) is not your average history book.

In the interview background, we found this:

 Among his surprising discoveries is that many of sustainability’s forefathers were far from radical tree-huggers. They were, rather, aristocrats and colonialists—people hoping to profit from the land—who began to fear that the heedless plundering of natural resources could jeopardize the economy. The philosophy has since evolved in various directions; some now believe that social equity is a key part of a sustainable society. What the different offshoots share is respect for the planet’s limits—though debate will no doubt continue on the best ways to implement that principle.

We’ve made this point for a long time – and will “sustain” it.  We covered this in Green Project Management and we will continue this theme in Sustainability in Projects, Programs and Portfolios, our upcoming book to be published in 2015.  The point: although it somehow now seems to be natural now to connect sustainability with politics, with culture, with social status, that’s simply not the case, nor has it ever been.  Not only that, stamping sustainability with any other attributes or ‘brands’ besides concern for the long term is not productive for anyone.  And that includes Mr. and Ms. Project Manager.

See how Caradonna responds when he is asked if sustainability is a ‘radical’ concept:

I would not say that the sustainability movement and its origins were radical. I would say in many ways they’re critical. They’re critical of deforestation, later on they’re critical of unchecked economic growth and deregulation, and they’re critical of pollution and social inequality. But in many ways, it’s quite conventional. I mean, one of the things I’ve noticed is that some of the early advocates for what we could call sustainable living were aristocratic bureaucrats, or imperialistic bureaucrats who are stationed on islands in the West Indies or the East Indies. Or someone like Hans Carl von Carlowitz, who’s part of the Saxon Dynasty, he’s part of the monarchy there. None of these people, as far as I can tell, are interested in the natural world, in and of itself. None of them. They’re interested in natural resources because they have an impact on the economy and they have an impact on the human realm, in one way or another....Perhaps counterintuitively, the sustainability movement has roots in good old-fashioned economic and monarchical self-interest.

And as we’ve said, project managers are about preserving precious resources ourselves.  Granted, they may be the resources of our project, but if we can get ourselves to think a wee bit longer, the resources that the PRODUCT of our project will consume should also be of concern to us .  It’s a valid idea – and this is a book worth adding to your project management (or just your general) bookshelf.

This blog post is coming to you from Cape Cod, indeed almost exactly from the location of the first Thanksgiving.  And it's from this location that we wish our American colleagues the best of this holiday season!

And one of the most traditional parts of the traditional meal served on this very American holiday is cranberry sauce or cranberry relish.

 However, there is concern that the state’s popular native fruit may be affected by climate change. Scientific research indicates that heat stress, insecticides, rising sea levels and other factors will affect the harvesting of this little blood-colored fruit with the distinctively tangy taste.  Botanists have, in fact, been working on projects to develop new cranberry strains that they hope will be hardier.

These are green-by-definition projects, as described in our book, Green Project Management, which, in honor of the holiday, we are renaming Cranberry Project Management.

 An article on the front page of today’s Cape Cod Times newspaper highlights these projects, and the research projects which examine the impact of climate change on cranberries - one of only three native cultivated fruits in the United States. The others are blueberries and Concord grapes.

From the newspaper story:

 Especially in Massachusetts, “we have a special feeling, I guess you’d say, for the little fruit,” said Susan Playfair, author of the new book, “America’s Founding Fruit: The Cranberry in a New Environment.”

 Playfair, whose interest in climate change stemmed from sailing around New England in her youth, gathered The United States produced more than 8 million barrels of cranberries in 2012, according to the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center.

 The cranberry is especially connected to Massachusetts, where it is the state fruit. Cranberry cultivation began on Cape Cod in 1812; Ocean Spray has its world headquarters in Middleboro. In the United data from bogs and researchers, reaching out to Boston University biologist Richard Primack. Along with Primack Lab researchers Elizabeth Ellwood and Caroline Polgar, they published the study “Cranberry flowering times and climate change in southern Massachusetts” last fall. The study found that cranberries flower roughly two days earlier for every 1 degree centigrade temperature increase, Primack explained.

 Complicating the temperature threat is a problem with pollination. A lot of pollinators are being killed by insecticides or fungicides, Primack said.

 “It’s a big problem with cranberries if they’re not getting pollinated enough, so often, their fruit yield is lower,” Primack said. “Growers are sometimes having to bring in honeybees to pollinate the crops. ... Temperatures are getting warmer, which is not so suitable for the bees.”

 Storms also are a problem, other cranberry experts say. As sea levels rise, storms have the “potential to move fertilizers off the farm in runoff, which is bad for the environment,” said Carolyn DeMoranville, director of the UMass Cranberry Station.

From a project management perspective, the issue is timeframe.  Currently there is a glut of cranberries.  So for the short term, it looks like everything is (excuse the pun) peachy.  But in the long term – thinking in terms of decades – temperature increases and sea-level rise also must be considerations and indeed have triggered the projects we’ve mentioned above.

Again from the article:

In a recent talk at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston, Playfair acknowledged that the effects of climate change on cranberries were long-term, not sudden. “I think what’s a little deceptive here is that we’re talking about something that’s gradually happening,” she said.

So our message to you: think long-term.  It may help in your current project and may be important to you in planning new projects.  Have a cranberry on us...right now, there's a surplus.  But it may not always be so.

The Green Spectrum

In our last book, Rich and I talked about the spectrum of green projects, from green by definition, a wind farm project to green in general, like the compact disk from Big Kenney where the holder was made of compostable material and impregnated with wildflower seeds.  All projects have some aspect of sustainability.  Well, the same holds true for companies.  Companies that you would never expect to have a strong interest in sustainability do have that interest, serious interest!  It is not just interest in “greening up”, it is undertaking huge sustainability projects, and this company has the deep pockets to do it in a big way.

When one thinks of Lockheed Martin there is a tendency to think military applications only because they are the world’s largest defense contractor to a tune of $45+ billion in revenue.  According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Lockheed Tests the Water, Doug Cameron, November 14, 2014, Lockheed is looking to expand into other markets, due to cutbacks in US military spending.  Lockheed Martin’s sustainability mission is documented on their website “Lockheed Martin has long been driven by the concept of sustainability, a paradigm of corporate social responsibility. Our high standards for ethics, corporate governance and performance excellence distinguish our contributions to global security when it matters most. We define sustainability as fostering innovation, integrity and security to protect the environment, strengthen communities and propel responsible growth.”  So Lockheed’s sustainability mission certainly encompasses 2 of the 3 P’s, people and planet.  There’s no question that they are actively pursuing sustainability within their company.

I am talking about something different; undertaking actual “green by definition” projects.  Lockheed has a project in the works using ultrathin membranes used for desalinating water.  These membranes are measured in nanometer thickness.  Not only can it be used for desalination, but also for water purification.  Both applications have enormous potential to make lives better by provided ample and pure water, as well as water recycling.  

Also from the WSJ article, Lockheed is also working with Kampachi Farms and the Illinois Soybean Association to develop open-ocean fish pens, “intended to enable fish farming without the environmental and other drawbacks of inland or coastal farms.”  Lockheed’s contribution was in developing communications and control systems that allow land based operators to feed the fish and clean the pens floating on ocean currents.” 

The energy sector is particularly interesting to Lockheed.  There is a deal between Lockheed and a Chinese company, Reignwood Group, to develop a 10 Megawatt power plant in the Pacific Ocean “to generate electricity from the temperature difference between deep and shallow water.”  They are alos investigating nuclear-fusion and tidal power plants.  Fascinating stuff!

To gain the advantage going forward, project managers should understand both the “green spectrum” of projects as well as the green spectrum of companies.  

As project managers, we are all about baselining.  That is – determining a reference point from which we make rational judgments.  We baseline scope.  We baseline schedule.  We baseline the budget.  We do this so that we can make informed decisions about the actuals – comparing actual to planned and looking for variance.  It's from this information that we make decisions - important project decisions.

In projects, this is done in the relatively short term.  Even though projects can be decades long, we must remember that in the scheme of things, a 50-year project is – geologically speaking – a flash in the pan, if that.  And that’s where the forams come in.

Forams?  That's not a typo - we didn't mean forum.  Although, there may be a forum for forams.

So - what’s a foram?  They are simple marsh-dwelling creatures – technically called foraminifera, which are choosy about how much time they spend underwater, and so they turn out to be surprisingly precise indicators of ancient sea levels.  Here's a picture of some...

In this article from today’s Boston Globe, you’d find the story of Professor Andrew Kemp of Tufts University, who is studying the ancient climate, “using lessons written in the sediment to discern historical patterns that could help refine models of climate change and sea levels. Generally, local sea level rise is calculated by taking the overall changes predicted by climate models and then factoring in the local conditions. But those are complex and aren’t all understood — a knowledge gap that research like Kemp’s could help fill.”

In other words, they are baselining.

The studies being conducted by Kemp have taken him from North Carolina to Long Island Sound, and now he would like to extend that work to Massachusetts, to build a fine-grained portrait of how sea levels have changed over the last several thousand years in order to make more informed predictions.

We found this story to be interesting in the dual connection to project management: first, the baseline element and second, the fact that it is indeed a project – one that our book Green Project Management would call a “Green By Definition” project.

And there was another, perhaps even stronger connection.

We’ve always treasured one particular aspect of project management – the fact that we are silo-busters.  Read this quote from the article:

‘The work shows the importance in science of borrowing tools and insights from other fields. While biologists might be interested in forams and the ecosystems in which they live for their own right, geologists can use the different species of forams they find and their distribution in the sediment to extrapolate the conditions of the ancient marsh.”

Even within the field of science – there are clearly silos.  And it’s this project team that is breaking down the walls between those silos to gain a positive outcome.  That’s what projects are all about.

And you can use that line… as a baseline.