People, Planet, Profits & Projects

You know from reading our blog postings, whether here, at our website, or other guest posts we’ve contributed over the last couple of years, that we are neither “tree huggers” nor “Hummer huggers”, but fall somewhere in between.  We do believe that sustainability is the way of the future for a variety of reasons including, we assert, that it is the right thing to do.  Every once in a while we come across a project executed by one of the more radical factions that deserves a closer look.  In this case it is a project, a challenge, to the Information Technology (IT) industry.  The gauntlet was thrown down by Greenpeace.    It is called the Cool IT Challenge. 

According to the Greenpeace Internationalwebsite, and as we also believe because of the huge impact it has on the environment,  “The IT sector is uniquely positioned to help the world shift to a prosperous clean energy economy, and the Cool IT Challenge is urging IT companies to put forth innovation, mitigate their own carbon footprint, and advocate for significant policy changes in the mutual interest of business and the climate.”  Further, “Greenpeace launched the Cool IT Challenge in 2009 to call on Information Technology (IT) companies to power technological solutions needed to fight climate change.  In 2008, The Climate Group and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) issued a report, called SMART 2020: enabling the low carbon economy in the information age, which showed how the IT sector can reduce economy-wide global emissions of up to 15 percent by 2020.”

The Cool IT challenge pits global IT companies against each other to try to top the prestigious Cool IT Climate Leaderboard.  The “Leaderboard” is another metric that investors and concerned consumers can access to assess the different tech companies and their sustainability efforts.  Here is the link to look at the latest leaderboard.  Tech companies are compared using three categories; IT Climate Solutions, IT Energy Impact and Political Advocacy.  Climate Solutions are the “economy-wide technical climate solution” efforts that the tech companies are offering to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.    Energy Impact are the “initiatives” undertaken to reduce their own global warming emissions.  Political Advocacy, that we find very interesting, is the “active” engagement by these companies in the political advocacy and support for science-based climate and energy policies. 

While the latest leaderboard show that Google has topped the leaderboard and many of the companies are gaining ground.  But what it also shows is that there is a significant drop across the board on political advocacy.  As we said, this is one of the more interesting of the measures for us because without political support and advocacy thereof, changing the conversation will be difficult.  It is not only “talking the talk”, but “walking the walk.” 

A popular and fundamental axiom in project management is that in order to be successful a project must have top-down support.  Grassroots, or bottom up, can only do so much.  We need to continue to push these companies to include political actions in their projects, whether it is continuing to connect to the enterprises sustainability plan, communicating the need to do so with upper management, encouraging management ot become involved in the political proces of sustianabilty or with our buying habits by supporting the companies that support this mission. 

One thing that's always been interesting to us as consultants in project management is stakeholder identification and analysis.  One thing that's also interesting and often left out is the interaction between stakeholders. This could be a pair (or trio, or quad) of stakholders with similar interests, wildly different interests, or a mix.   In our opinion, one of the columns on a stakeholder register should be "Interactions", to capture this complex and important human aspect of your project.

This couldn't have been illustrated better than with this article featured on Earth Day in the Cape Cod Times.  In the article you'll discover  the interaction between potentially green-minded, well-intentioned folks, in a project involving installation of 3,150 solar panels.  The project also involved the clearing of a bunch of trees in what is one of the few remaining undeveloped plots of land in Hackensack, NJ, USA.

Last year, a similar situation occurred when 100 eucalyptus trees were cut down to make room for solar panels in a regional park.

Which "green" is better?  This is the question posed in the article.

We tend to side side with the considerations explained in the article by Ashwani Vasishth, of Ramapo College's Center for Environmental Studies, who explains that trees don't only sequester carbon - they provide habitat, capture rainwater to prevent erosion, help provide shade and cooling, and remove particulate matter.

So it's similar to our points about long-term  thinking in general.  Full consideration is important.  And this case it it's literally a matter of seeing the forest for the trees.

Recently, three North American Civil Engineering organizations - The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) and the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) came together and published a joint document, Civil Engineering for a Sustainable Future.

A family member (thanks Dipak!) forwarded this to us and we were quite pleased with what we saw.  Now.  Can you think of another discipline in which sustainabiity plays a key role?  Think about it.  I'm thinking of a discipline that - for example - works with civil engineers on - what shall I call them - hmmm, okay, projects, that's what I'll call them.  Now, what would one call the discipline used to manage these projects?

Let's see.  Manage projects, managing projects.... hmmm.  How about project management?  That seems like a logical name!

So wouldn't it be sweet if the key institutions that help codify, organize, and promote our discipline of project management would make this kind of statement?  We think so.  Maybe PMI and APM could do something like this?  Dare we dream that?

Click here to read the press release about this from the ASCE.

And below, so you can see what other disciplines - very project-intertwined disciplines - are doing, is the text of the statement:

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Statement of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering and the Institution of Civil Engineers Following the 2012 Triennial Conference

Background

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) and the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) believe that emerging global challenges over the last decade, including the financial crisis, population migration, and food and energy crises, have reinforced the need to secure and fulfill internationally agreed commitments to sustainable development.

The three organizations also believe that sustainable progress toward achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals is necessary to address water and food scarcity.

For such commitments to be realized, critical infrastructure must be adapted to the impacts of climate change and resilient to natural and man-made disasters.

The role of civil engineers

The three institutions commit to lead internationally on the delivery of sustainable infrastructure. Civil engineers of the 21st century are called on to play a critical role in contributing to peace and security in an increasingly challenged world. Civil engineers have an obligation to protect cultural and natural diversity, and they are central to the planning, design, construction, operation, maintenance and decommissioning of infrastructure networks that underpin civil society and economic activity and protect human health and welfare. Emerging challenges have reinforced the key role of these networks in enabling global societal resilience.

Approximately 75% of the issues outlined in Agenda 21, the main action document from the 1992 Earth Summit, involve engineering and technical issues. Action by civil engineers is essential. Society needs the skills of civil engineers to attain sustainable development, yet civil engineers require global political will to enable them to apply their knowledge and expertise to appropriately adapt infrastructure to attain meaningful progress.

While ASCE, CSCE, and ICE are committed to a civil engineering profession able to address the global challenge of sustainable development, they recognize that engineers cannot deliver this vision on their own. Civil engineers must develop new skills for a changing world, foster greater collaboration with other professionals, and promote multidisciplinary approaches. Civil engineers are committed to provide the tools and advice to governments and policymakers at national and supranational levels on the skills and infrastructure required for a sustainable future. 

Engineering priorities and action

Recognizing the central role of their profession in addressing global challenges, ASCE, CSCE, and ICE developed a Sustainable Development Protocol in 2006, agreeing to develop sustainable development strategies and action plans. This was followed in 2009 by a civil engineering and climate change protocol that further identified priorities for action by engineers.

The three organizations have since adopted and regularly reviewed action plans and undertaken a range of activities to advance sustainability in civil infrastructure. Progress in line with commitments is exemplified in adapting critical infrastructure, utilizing environmental accounting tools, addressing the water crisis and delivering on the UN Millennium Development Goals.

Environmental, social and economic impacts and costs—the triple bottom line
The three organizations are committed to improving methods for identifying and considering all of a project’s environmental, social and economic costs and impacts throughout its life cycle. Practical approaches should be developed that would alter conventional accounting practices to factor in the direct and indirect environmental costs of a facility through its life-cycle of operations.

Condition and capacity of infrastructure
Civil engineers create and maintain society’s infrastructure. Recognizing this responsibility, ASCE, CSCE and ICE are committed to collecting data on infrastructure both nationally and, through collaboration, internationally to provide informed opinion on the condition and requisite capacity of infrastructure for sustainable development.

Adaptation of infrastructure to climate change
To address climate change the engineering profession is applying the principles of sustainability, energy efficiency and innovation to the design, construction, operation and maintenance of infrastructure. Engineers must develop infrastructure capable of adaptation to the affects of climate change.
Engineers have relied upon historical data to design infrastructure. Such data is often incomplete and limited in duration. Now they must develop design and operational practices to withstand climate conditions — both extremes and gradual changes. They must accommodate increased uncertainties because the data about future climate will never be as precise as the historical data. This creates a challenge to existing infrastructure design approaches and practices.

Millennium Development Goals
ASCE, CSCE and ICE support the internationally agreed upon development goals contained in the Millennium Declaration as they apply to improving the quality of people’s lives around the world through science and engineering. The three organizations will work with each other and with domestic and international organizations to engage engineers in addressing the needs of the poor through capacity building and the development of sustainable and appropriate solutions to poverty.
By helping meet the goals of the Millennium Declaration, the engineering profession contributes to a world where all people have access to the knowledge and resources to meet their basic human needs and promote sustainable development. Included are such areas as water supply and sanitation, food production and processing, housing and construction, energy, transportation and communication, income generation, and employment creation.

Commitments

Within the following areas of leadership with respect to sustainable infrastructure, ASCE, CSCE, ICE commit to:

• Collaborating on their national sustainable infrastructure action plans.
• Encouraging engineers to engage in building sustainable engineering capacity in the developing world and continuing to work with national development organizations such USAID – US Agency for International Development, DFID – UK Department of Foreign International Development and CIDA – Canadian International Development Agency and other related assistance organizations.
• Working through national representatives to coordinate civil engineering views within the World Federation of Engineering Organizations to enable WFEO to influence programs on sustainable infrastructure and communities in conjunction with UNESCO, the United Nations, the World Bank, international financial institutions and other bodies. 

Signed by:

Andrew W. Herrmann, P.E., SECB, F.ASCE
President
American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)

Richard Coackley, BSc, CEng, FICE, CWEM, FCIWEM
President
Institute of Civil Engineers (ICE)

Randy Pickle, P.Eng, FCSCE, FEC
President
Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) 

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The highlighting is ours.  But you can clearly see that these organizatoins GET IT.  We am hoping that over the next few months, greater and greater numbers of project managers will GET IT.
 

Talk it up at your PMI chapter meetings, and if you're involved with APM, IPMA or any other PM umbrella organizations, propose that this is something we could and should do just as well as our colleagues in civil engineering.

There are many projects that can lead to a more sustainable product.  I received a rug the other day from Pottery Barn.  We were looking for a sustainable product and this rug fills the bill.  It originates from Obeetee, a company founded on sustainable principles.  Shortly after World War I, a couple of British entrepreneurs decided to create an enterprise by partnering with group of local artisans in the rug making area of Uttar Pradesh, India.  Those artisans had a tradition of weaving high quality rugs for centuries.  But what makes it sustainable?

One thing that they do is vertical integration.  The company works directly with over 15,000 weavers so that the loom owners have close ties to the factory.  Those close ties allow for mutually beneficial relationship to form.  That relationship resulted in the “coveted” SA8000: 2001 Certification for Social Accountability which examines 8 core elements including; worker health and safety, working hours, child labor, forced labor, discrimination, freedom of association and collective bargaining, wages and discipline. 

Additionally Obeetee carpets are made with safe dyes and chemicals and “is the first in the industry to set up water effluent treatment plants and air pollution control systems.”  They majority of their power is generated using gas derived from biomass.  It is eco-friendly way to recover heat and power from the biomass and is utilized to run the power turbines.  Obeetee contributes to surrounding communities by planting trees and developing parks.  Even though the hiring age in India for labor is 14 years old, Obeetee’s hiring standards are a minimum of 16 years old. 

Looking at the labeling on the rug pad we also purchased at the same time from Pottery Barn, it states that it is “made from recycled polyester and nylon needle punched fibers, attached to a pad of natural and synthetic rubber.”  It also states that it is “made from recycled materials that are safe to use on all types of floors.”   

It is always interesting to find a company, in potentially a fossil fuel intensive industry, carpeting, and seeing that the projects along the way have lead to a very sustainable company.  One that we’ve mentioned before is Interface Global, “the worldwide leader in design, production and sales of environmentally-responsible modular carpet for the commercial, institutional, and residential markets, and a leading designer and manufacturer of commercial broadloom.”  Global Interface intends to be 100% sustainable by the year 2020. 

It is worth noting that whatever the product of your enterprise may be, it will fall somewhere in the “green spectrum," green by intent to green in general, from developing a wind farm to putting out a new software release. Defined in Green Project Management, greenality “is the “degree to which an organization has considered environmental (green) factors that affect its projects during the entire project life cycle and beyond.”  Obeetee has certainly done that from the beginning.

At EarthPM, people from IT departments of every sort always ask us - perhaps challlenge us is a better way to put it - how they can help. 

"We're in IT", the story goes. "We aren't an energy-intense organization.  Are you telling us to turn our computers off and keep the lights and heat off when nobody's there?".  And the answer is, of course, yes.  These things will help.

But it is bigger than that.  And IT (Information Technology) is bigger than that.

Bigger, in terms of size, and bigger in terms of maturity.

Witness the press announcement we share below, from a non-profit consortium called GreenTouch.  Established just a few years ago, it is "dedicated to fundamentally transforming communications and data networks, including the Internet, and significantly reducing the carbon footprint of ICT devices, platforms and networks."

They have set lofty and worthy goals which hopefully help answer some of the edgy questions we get from our IT colleagues:

By 2015, our goal is to deliver the architecture, specifications and roadmap --and demonstrate key components -- needed to increase network energy efficiency by a factor of 1000 from current levels. We'll accomplish this by designing fundamentally new network architectures and creating the enabling technologies on which they are based.

In reaching this goal, GreenTouch members and the global community will benefit from:

• A reinvention of today’s telecommunications networks
• A sustainable future for data networking and the Internet
• Unprecedented collaboration with leading experts from around the world
• Participation in fundamental research in exciting new areas
• Access to network models and studies examining key energy related issues
• New information on network power consumption, traffic growth, and energy trends

So now to the news.  Here is their press release about this latest development and fiinally, the connection to the streets of San Francisco.

The GreenTouch Consortium, a global research initiative dedicated to dramatically improving network energy efficiency, introduced a major breakthrough for optical access -- Bit-Interleaved Passive Optical Network (Bi-PON) technology. GreenTouch estimates Bi-PON ultimately could deliver power reduction of 30 times over current technologies while improving performance and reducing cost.

In a webcast, researchers from Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs, France's INRIA research lab and France Telecom Orange, described how the bit interleaving passive optical network (BIPON) leverages a new protocol that cuts energy consumption in time division multiplexing (TDM) PON optical network units (ONUs) by a factor of 10 compared to today’s protocols. The key observation is that 99% of data is unnecessarily processed in ONUs today. By modifying the protocol, an order of magnitude improvement in ONU performance can be attained.

The bit interleaving protocol reduces energy consumption in the ONU by reducing clock speed requirements, data processing requirements, voltage requirements, and memory requirements. The bits are spaced in time to match the clock rate. The bit interleaving protocol frame structure includes a header and a payload section. The header contains a synchronization code word and a unique identifier for each ONU on the PON. The header also contains information that allows the ONU to know where its payload bits are — at what offset and bit rate they are being sent in the payload section.

The consortium members said Bi-PON represents the next major leap in passive optical network (PON) technologies. It is expected to be a necessity as electronic processing will increase with future 40GPON systems.

“With this demonstration, GreenTouch again shows why it is one of the most ambitious collaborative environments in sustainable network technologies,” said Gee Rittenhouse, GreenTouch chairman. “We are committed to reducing energy consumption across all ICT networks and Bi-PON is a huge and critical step in helping us achieve that goal. The impact is clear and wide-ranging including wireless backhaul and fiber to the home. Implementing Bi-PON over current technologies will have the energy savings equivalent to the carbon impact of permanently taking all the cars in a city like San Francisco off the road. We are making great progress toward our goal and are planning to make advances like this across all of our 25 research projects that are currently underway.”

If you're prepared for a rather detailed technical description and demo of this BiPon technology, watch the video below:

So next time you wonder whether or not IT can make a difference, flash back to (if you are old enough) an episode of The Streets of San Francisco.