People, Planet, Profits & Projects

When I was in high school (along with George Washington), a long time ago, I was required to memorize a poem and present it in class.  I chose the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Coleridge.   To this day, I can still recall bits and pieces.  One piece I remember vividly is:

"Water, water everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink."

Of course there are many interpretations of the meaning of this, but literally, it is a pretty scary thought, but yet, it may be a reality.  We’ve talked before about freshwater being the next oil, a limiting resource.  There’s lots of saltwater, like in the Rime, but you can't drink it as is.  We’ve seen Wall Street bet on water becoming scarcer in the future resulting in a supply and demand situation and the cost of water rising to some expensive level like gasoline.  We can live without gasoline; we can walk, we can ride a bike, we can seek alternative energies.  But we can’t live without water.  We can live longer without food.  According to livescience.com there is a “rule of three”.  You can live 3 minutes without air, 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food.  Of course it is all situational, but one can see that water is critical.

According to an article[1] in a recent issue of Outside, “In ten to twenty years, unless the drought breaks or everyone in Los Angeles starts recycling their own pee, Lake Mead will run dry and the Southwest will have to pack up its playthings and move in with its relatives back east.”  That is because there are legal requirements (Law of the River) that govern water release to Mexico, California, Arizona, and Nevada, and those allocations of water are unsustainable given the current situation.  The original document was created during the “wet” period early in the twentieth century.  We all know what has happened since and most recently; fires, droughts, water rationing, and more.  However, I do believe that with the help of projects and competent project management, that there are ways to mitigate this risk.  Remember, nothing gets done without projects and project managers who are aware of all of the issues, including life cycle assessment and sustainability, will be the ones to bring us into a “sustainable future.”

So, what can be done?  According to Mr. Rowan, we need to be smart about our water usage, “Children of Dune smart.”  The article suggests many projects to help the low water conditions.  I will highlight a few here. Phoenix uses 165 gallons of water per person per day, Tucson uses 128 gallons.  The difference is that Tucson embraces the desert look, while Phoenix likes the lush lawn look.  Project – move at least all industrial and commercial sites in Phoenix to native (desert) landscaping.  Incentivize individuals to do the same.  All new homes are required to recycle their grey-water (shower, sink) for irrigation. 

Using Las Vegas as a model – project – all drain and toilet water is treated and pumped back into Lake Mead (except for evaporation) 100% recycle.  LA project – paying LA residents $2.00/sq. ft. to remove their lawns.  Australians have been dealing with a lack of water longer than we have, and they have successfully adopted processes to greatly reduce their water usage.  Australians use about ½ the water per person as we do.  If they can do it, we can.  All it takes is projects to move ideas to reality.

One of the larger projects undertaken will be with the agricultural industry.  According to the article, agriculture uses at least 70% of the water in the Colorado River basin.  An interesting fact is that each hamburger produced takes about 500 gallons of water.  If we all eat 1 less hamburger per year, we can save a generous amount of water.  Isn’t an advertising campaign to make people aware of some of these statistics a project?  I didn’t know, however, that we have a “use it or lose it” policy when it comes to water usage.  In other words, there is no policy where a farmer can sell back surplus water.  Instead, the current policy encourages farmers to use their allotment no matter what.  As a result, farmers over grow alfalfa, as an example, then ship the excess overseas.  That policy needs to change!

We need to be creative.  We need to develop projects that will both encourage conservation and create new ways to use water in a more sustainable way.  Those projects need to be managed by competent and sustainably savvy project managers.  The second piece we can’t forget is that sustainable savvy project managers also are aware of the way they manage their projects so that they are managed in a sustainable way.  We approach it this way. It is a two-pronged approach; sustainable project managers manage both the product of the project and the project itself, both in the short term, and for the entire life cycle of the product.  That is why we encourage all project managers to continue to “get smart” on sustainability.

The theme this week is up.

Our 21-September-2014 post on EarthPM is called "Up, Up, and Away" .  Today also, hundreds of  thousands of people were filling UP New York City to draw attention to climate change.  And finally (and the reason for today's post at P@W) is something way, WAY up in the sky - the MAVEN spacecraft, which, as this post is being written, is supposed to supposed to fire its six main engines, slowing down enough so it can be captured by the gravity of the red planet and go into orbit.

You can (and should) read about the MAVEN project here and here.  You can even follow a live stream of the mission at that second link from NASA.  The bottom line (I know, I know, we said "up" and we're referring you to a bottom line...sorry) for MAVEN is that its misison is to understand the history of the climate on Mars.  Why?  Because the climate of Mars changed radically sometime in the last billion years and understanding that change will help us understand climate change here on Earth as well.

Besides the obvious project management connection inherent in any space mission, we also want to point out that in this particular case there is another key theme: pointing to facts.  When thee is a disagreement between project stakeholders, it's often the project manager that's called upon to referee.  This NASA mission is one that will help provide more science to the discussion about climate change, by providing impartial, factual data about what happened on an entirely different planet as a basis for comparison with what is happening now on our planet.

We applaud NASA for doing what we need to do as project managers - bringing clarity and new, impartial information to bear for a better project outcome.

We wish NASA - and MAVEN - the best of luck with their mission, and we hope that you as project managers embrace your responsibility to be that arbitrator of fairness and fact - and to do it when called upon but also when your 'expert judgment' says, "it's time to step UP".

Putting their (our) money where their mouth is, President Barack Obama signed Executive Order (EO) 13423 into law.  For those of you not familiar with United States law, according to http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Executive+Order, an executive order is “A presidential policy directive that implements or interprets a federal statue, a constitutional provision, or a treaty.”  EOs do not require congressional approval and are often, as in this case, used to set policy.  EO 13423 is used to strengthen federal environmental, energy, and transportation management.  It created and still creates lots of projects within the federal government as well as providing direction to private companies who choose to institute more environmentally (green) projects.   A wealth of information can be found (for free) on the US EPA’s website, Greening EPA.

EO 13423 sets some significant goals for the government, one of the larger consumers of natural resources, thus the need for those significant goals.  The purpose of those goals is to limit and reduce the amount of resources used.  Now doesn’t that sound just like what project managers do?  At this point you must be rubbing your hands!  Some of the projects undertaken to reduce consumption are: 

1. Reducing energy intensity 30% by 2015, compared to 2003 level.
2. Related to the reduction in energy intensity is the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 305 as related to the 2003 baseline.
3. Procurement (a word we all know very well); expand purchases of environmentally sound goods and services, including biobased products.
4. Increase purchases of alternate fuel, hybrid, and plug-in hybrid vehicles.
5. Reduce water consumption by 16% compared to the 2007 baseline.
6. 95% of electronic products purchased must meet the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) standards where applicable and enable Energy Star® features on 100% of computers and monitors; and reuse, donate, sell, or recycle 100% of electronic products using sound management practices.
7. Construct or renovate buildings in accordance with sustainability strategies, including resource conservation, reduction, and use, siting and indoor envrionmental quality.

Of course, we all do not work for the federal government.  So what does that have to do with us, as project managers?  Well, what that does give us, sustainability responsible project managers, guidelines to work with for our companies to become more sustainable.  Remember, external projects are not the only ones usually undertaken by organization.  Given all the reasons that companies are becoming more and more aware of good reasons to become more sustainable, internal sustainability projects will become priorities.  As well as being the “right thing to do”, they are also fun project to work on with long term results. 

Executive Order 13423 has a lot more to it than I presented here.  However, just scratching the surface can provide an abundance of sustainability oriented projects for your organization.

When we stsarted out many years ago pointing to the intersection of green and project management, we didn't notice too much in the popular PM journals on the topic.  Sure, from time to time there would be a story about a wind-farm project, or a story that lightly touched on broader definitions of project success, but we rarely found coverage of sustainability as an 'integrated idea'.

And that still holds pretty true.

But we are beginning to see an uptick in a more holistic view of project success, more of a buy-in into project managers (or at least program and portfolio managers) as "benefits realizers", with the inherent patience and metrics to measure project success not only on delivery of a project product, but on the longer-term benefits of continued econommic success for that product, fewer ecological impacts from the steady state of that product, and the broader social impact of that product (in operation).

Case in point: this month's PMNetwork magazine, which, as you can see in the picture - and perhaps coincidentally - has a cover that features the color green.  But beyond the cover, deep inside the issue (without it being dubbed any sort of special 'sustainability' or 'green' issue) are many articles and features on renewable energy projects, on aligning sponsors more closely with project managers, even on the "long haul" 'sustainabile' careers of old crow project managers like your authors here at this blog.

It's a thread through the issue and it's increasingly a thread through issue after issue of PMNetwork, and we applaud the work of PMI to continue to weave that thread into the fabric of project managers.

Some other examples: the Finalists for the 2014 Project of the Year includes the Energy Systems Integration Facility being built by the US Department of Energy.  There's a feature on the creation of an artificial oyster reef in Matagorda Bay, Texas, to revive an ecosystem lost with the eventual erosion of the Half Moon Reef.  It's a project that involves collaboration between government and the Nature Conservancy.  The story on the emergence of Tanzania as a leading African economy features stories on the challenges it faces with energy.  Speaking of energy, Chile is also featured as a country with a promising set of renewable energy projects.  There's a sidebar describing renewables projects in that country.  And to top it off, there is a feature on REDD (not LEED, but REDD - Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degredation) projects for which the USAID and the World Bank has funded US$6.27 billion, and "that's a far cry from what the UN says is needed to combat climate change". 

All in all, it's reassuring to see the thread of sustainability - or at least a focus on sustainability-oriented projects - become more prolific.

It's now time for the next step: raise the level of coverage to include how projects - ANY kind of project - can have a connection to the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) objectives of the parent organization.  Show how a software project, a bridge, the launch of a new coffeemaker - ANY project - can benefit from long-term, holistic thinking.  

We're impressed with the change.  But we're still not satisfied. I suppose we could say that our passion for a true intersection of PM and Sustainability is...sustainable.

I thought I posted this earlier in the month.  I guess I didn't.  Must have been a "senior moment."

Google X is the research and development arm of Google.  Google has a value of almost $400 billion.  When you are Google, you have a serious critical mass of resources to be able to research and invest in new technologies.  Google is one of those companies that we considered “at the top of their game” in our 2010 book (Green Project Management), because of their commitment to creating a sustainability friendly company, socially, economically, and environmentally. 

My reading habits are rather eclectic, from the Wall Street Journal to various fly fishing magazines, to Real Simple, to Outside as examples.  In the recent Outside Magazine, there is a story about a new project coming out of Google X.  While it is an alternative energy project, it is different from previous projects.  While it is a wind power project, it is unusual.  Also, like some other revolutionary products (projects), Post-its® for example, this new project from Google X started out as something else.

According to the article by Megan Michelson,   The Sky’s the Limit, about 10 years ago; kiteboard pioneer Don Montague “hatched a plan to become the fastest person to circumnavigate the globe.”  He proposed using a 65’ catamaran with a parafoil cruising at 250 feet above the earth.  He happened to preview the idea with Sergey Brin and Larry Page, founders of Google and friends of his.  He was showing them how much power was available at higher altitudes and explained that he could actually generate electricity.  At that point, Sergey and Larry said “Don, don’t waste your time sailing around the world.  Let’s save the world.” 

Initially, Google invested about $15 million into the project, but last May the project was sold to Google X.  Using the enormous resources of Google X, the project continues with aspirations of building a 600-kilowatt wind turbine capable of powering 300 homes, the equivalent of modern land-based wind turbines.  One of the reasons that this type of wind generating technology could be so successful is that it streamlines the generating equipment.  Rather than the large, cumbersome land-based turbines, the equipment required is much more elegant.  The article has a quote from a professor at Delft University in the Netherlands, a university on the forefront of sustainability.  Professor Roland Schmehl is quoted as saying “While classic turbines are facing physical and economic limits, airborne wind energy shows interesting potential.” 

From Google’s website the challenge we are facing with wind generation is “Wind turbine architecture is at a plateau.  Conventional wind power systems are reaching the limits of their technology. To generate more wind power, turbine structures have become taller and heavier. On average, onshore turbines require 100 tons of steel, fiberglass, concrete, and other materials to produce a single megawatt of capacity to power 500 U.S. homes. Large structures like this are expensive and complex to construct and therefore can only be installed economically where the winds routinely travel between 20-28 kilometers per hour. Less than 15% of all land around the world meets this criterion.”

The good news is that a company like Google and their R&D facility is attacking this project.  Ideally, a significant amount of our energy needs could be generated using this new technology.  According to Don Montague, “Is it a race?  It doesn’t really matter who’s first.  If anyone is in production in 5 years, we all win.”