People, Planet, Profits & Projects

Note: Image above from CapeCod Times article referenced below.

On August 1, 2013, there was an auction to sell rights to 164,000 acres of federal ocean area southwest of Martha’s Vineyard (an Island off the coast of Massachusetts – see map).

The winning bid went to Rhode Island-based developer Deepwater Wind New England LLC, for a total of $3.8 million. This now gives Deepwater Wind the right to develop wind energy projects in the highlighted area.

It’s pretty big news.  From yesterday’s front page story in the Cape Cod Times, there is this quote from US Department of Interior Secretary Sally Jewell:   "When you think about the enormous energy potential that Atlantic wind holds, this is a major milestone for our nation".

Also from that story:

Deepwater Wind plans to build a 200-turbine wind farm on the parcels as well as a transmission system from Long Island to Southeastern New England, company CEO Jeffrey Grybowski said.

The transmission system will allow the company to sell into two regional electrical systems as well as providing those systems with greater reliability and flexibility when moving power around to meet needs, he said.

The 200 turbines the company plans to use — each 6 megawatts — would have a capacity of about 1,200 megawatts and the total cost of the project would be about $5 billion, he said.

The estimated amount of power that would be produced is significantly smaller than the federal government's estimates for the area because Deepwater Wind does not plan to locate any turbines closer than 16 miles from the nearest shoreline, limiting the number of turbines, Grybowski said.

The project could be under construction by 2016 and operational as early as 2017, he said.

We bring this to your attention for several reasons:

1. It’s an example of a “Green By Definition” project (a Program, really, because it is a collection of projects which are better managed together)

·   Our book, Green Project Management, defined projects along a spectrum, from those, like this one, which are geared specifically on renewable energy, saving species, reducing waste, and so on.  We like to illustrate that as projects at various points along the spectrum make news.

2. The project already seems to have incorporated ‘lessons learned’ from its neighboring and pioneering wind project, Cape Wind, about which we have blogged many times before.

·   Cape Wind, a 130-turbine project, has been greatly delayed for several reasons, one of which has been its closer proximity to the shore (though still in Nantucket Sound), and its conflict with a slew of stakeholders who have worked together in unexpected ways to delay the project.

3. From a very early review, and from admittedly limited information, the project team seems to have identified and analyzed stakeholders and seems to ready to deal with the risks (both threat and opportunity) that each brings to the table.

·   From the story: The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) still has concerns about offshore wind energy projects, said the tribe's historic preservation officer, Bettina Washington.  "Now this is off where we live day to day all the time," she said about the leasing area's location southwest of the Gay Head Cliffs at the heart of the tribe's lands.  In addition to concerns about the view from tribal lands, there are concerns about the impact on whales that use the area and on potential archaeological sites located on and below the sea floor, Washington said.  Deepwater Wind officials have already been in contact with the tribe about a five-turbine project the company is planning off the coast of Block Island and would work with the tribe on any concerns it continues to have, Grybowski said.  "They're a hugely important stakeholder in the process," he said.  Although the tribe would prefer the turbines be located at least 21 miles offshore, Washington said archaeological concerns are being taken more seriously following the debate over Cape Wind and the areas farther offshore are preferable to Nantucket Sound.

As you can see, Grybowski and Deepwater Wind have done at least some of their PM homework.  And that’s important.  1,000,000 homeowners may be soon counting on this program if they’re going to be able to reliably click on their TV sets to watch the Red Sox!

For a press release from Deepwater Wind, click on their logo below.

Look carefully at the shape above.

Most people see a "U".  And, indeed it looks rather U-ey, doesn't it?

But it's not symmetrical.  It goes up, sharper and further, on the right hand side.  Make a mental note of this.  Done?  OK, proceed with the post.

What you are looking at is the relationship between profit (net economic impact, on the vertical axis) as KLD score increases.  For now, think of the KLD score (the horizontal axis) as investment in sustainability, and of course, sustainable projects and project management.

If an enterprise chooses to "dabble" in sustainability, the money and resources invested are taken from their mainstream efforts, so of course, profitability suffers.  This reaches a trough at a particular point, and then starts to turn around.  But not only does it turn around and rise up, it rises up above the level at which you started.  In other words, if you go "all in" and integrate sustainability, it has not only an altruistic effect but a positive profit effect.

This is one of the reasons our blog is titled, People, Planet, Profits & Projects. 

• People need to make the decision to integrate sustainability into their enterprise.
• They do this for multiple reasons, but one would be for altruism - for a better planet.
• Doing this effects profit (as you see, not in a staight-line fashion).
• Doing this requires projects, affects projects, and is fundamentally different thinking for project managers who are focused by nature on the short term.

This sort of "baked in" sustainabiilty requires that the right flour, eggs, water, milk, and so on, are used and that the recipes, utensils, ovens, and serving platters are coordinated to the overarching goals of a sustainable enterprise.  Sound like project management could help?  You betcha!  Did we take the analogy too far?  Now you're cookin'!

You'll find a great (and concise!) article on this finding at this site on the Network for Business Sustaianbility.  In the article you will learn what KLD stands for and much jore.  The Network for Business Sustainability, by the way, is a tremendous resource for anyone interested in people, planet, profit, and/or projects, which is probably anyone who has read through this posting so far!

Is it okay to be a sustainability poser?  Interesting question if I do say so myself.  I was reading a short interview in our local newspaper recently.  The interviewer was questioning Tim Gaudreau, an “eco-artist”.  You may ask, as I did; what is an eco-artist?  According to his website, “Tim Gaudreau, works in collaboration with like minded colleagues, communities and schools to create public art work meant to challenge conventional thinking and catalyze action around environmental issues.”  That’s about as good as any definition of an eco-artist.  Challenging thinking and catalyzing action around environmental issue as they relate to business and project management is what EarthPM is all about, too. 

Anyway, one of the questions asked of Mr. Gaudreau was “Has environmentalism become a marketing gimmick?”  His answer was; “Yes, but there is a positive side to that, because it advances awareness of these green and social issues.  Corporations are starting to realize it is better for the bottom line if their perceived as caring.”  For the most part, I take exception to the use of “marketing gimmick”, although I understand the implication.   The implication is that ‘the end justifies the means.’  In other words, even if it is a marketing gimmick, it’s okay because it furthers the cause.  I guess that is where I differ some.  I don’t believe that, in this case of environmentalism (or the overarching term ‘sustainability’), the end justifies the means and that perceiving sustainability efforts as marketing gimmicks turns people off.  “It’s just a marketing gimmick therefore; the organization is not really being sustainable.  They just want our money.”  If that is truly the sentiment then “green and social issues’ will not garner much attention.

The more telling of his statement, in my mind, is; “corporations are starting to realize it is better for the bottom line if their perceived as caring.”  I would change that a little to say that most organizations are sincerely trying to improve their sustainability.  Their justification may be the improvement to the bottom line, and one of the drivers, that we at EarthPM have always advocated, is that a major driver of sustainability for an organization is the stakeholder’s increasing awareness of sustainability, whether it be the environment, corporate social responsibility to employees, the community and the world, as well as the sustainability or profits of the organization.  That driver is very real and stakeholders are very smart.

So I would say that environmentalism has become a marketing necessity, rather than a gimmick.  Organizations must use their sustainability efforts to further their cause in a truthful and sincere way.  Or, don’t do it at all because stakeholders are smart and will see it for what it is.

Chapter 4 of our book, Green Project Management, is titled, “A Rainbow of Green”.  In that chapter, we make what we think is one of the most important points of the entire ‘sustainability in PM’ thought process: all projects need to have sustainability thinking integrated.  But we acknowledge that there is a spectrum of projects, some of which don’t have an intuitive sustainability element (perhaps the project of upgrading an accounting software package) and some which have a noticeable sustainability component (perhaps the project of building a new highway segment).  Still others are “green by definition” – that is, they are projects dedicated to reducing contaminants, saving species,  creating better working conditions, or producing renewable energy.

The cover story of UMASS magazine, the magazine for alumni and friends of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, has a cover that caught our attention.  Their Summer 2013 issue features a major story on “Climate Change: Searching for Solutions, Local and Global.

If you’re interested in science, technology, engineering, and/or management, you’ll enjoy the story.  As individuals involved in all of the above – plus being on staff at the University level in teaching PM, International Business, Qualitative and Quantitative Decision Making, and of course Sustainability courses, it’s even more intensely interesting to us.

We won’t duplicate the story, but we do encourage you to read it.  What we would like to do is to underline the connection between projects and sustainability in this story, but before we do we want to warn you that this is at one end of that ‘rainbow’ we talk about in our book.  Do not – repeat – do not forget that the aspects of sustainability so obvious in these projects still deserve attention if your project does not (on face value) have any sustainability elements in it.  So we recommend you see these intersections as inspirational but NOT as an excuse that your project is exempt.

First of all, the word “project” is prolific in the article.  The simple fact that the word comes up repeatedly is a reminder of the fact that as PMs we contribute greatly in the efforts at the University level to research, discover, and act on climate problems.

To illustrate this, we zoom in on Rick Palmer,  Head of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UMass and Director of the Northeast Climate Science Center, of which UMass is a part.  We adapt this text from the article:

Since coming to UMass five years ago, the head of Civil and Environmental Engineering has gotten involved in several new projects. 

1. With the Nature Conservancy, he’s studying the effects of climate change on the Connecticut River.

2. With faculty in Environmental Conservation, he’s helping to design better fish passageways.

3. With researchers at Columbia and Drexel University, he is studying the impact of climate change on urban areas.

4.  Recently spearheaded the successful effort to have UMass lead and host the Northeast Climate Science Center (NECSC).

5. His engineering career began with a project calculating the number of drinking water reservoirs needed by Washington, DC to meet its future needs.

6. The CSRC (Climate System Research Center) faculty is working on a project to examine the impact of Tropical Storm Irene in 2011.

7. Another CSRC project is to analyze sediments on the Japanese coast to descover the record of fierce Kamikaze Winds which twice destroyed the Mongol fleet when it attempted to invade Japan 1,000 years ago.

Project, project, project, project, project, climate change, project, sustainability, climate, project, sustainability.  All are incredibly intertwined here.

 “Our primary goal is to help people come to grips with the changes from global warming, plan accordingly, and make good decisions,” Palmer says.

Think about that one powerful paragraph for a moment.  Think about the connection to our discipline no matter what type of PM you happen to be.  The elements are striking:

·         Collaboration between diverse organizations

·         Collaboration even between competitive universities

·         “Coming to grips with changes”

·         Aiding managers and policymakers in making good decisions

Sound familiar?  Isn’t this what you already do on your projects?  If not, you may be in the wrong career.

But remember – this is a spectrum, a rainbow.  As the projects move towards the ‘Green in General’ side, the effort to find the linkages, the integration, the interworking with longer-term thinking needs to increase significantly.  And we assert that it’s you – the change-agent project manager that can bring that integration, the gold at one end of the rainbow, to the other side.

Once in a while a book comes along that warrants specific mention.  One book that surely meets that criterion is a recently released book edited by Gilbert Silvius and Jennifer Tharp, Sustainability Integration for Effective Project Management, IGI Global (2013), subtitled A Volume in the Practice, Progress and Proficiency in Sustainability Series.

This book contains 24 chapters of current and important information on sustainable project management.  It also provides an overview of literature on sustainability in projects and project management and a compilation of references.  It a wealth of information.  The unique thing about the book is that Dr. Silvius and Ms. Tharp are joined by some of the most influential thought leaders in the sustainability project management world like; Roland Gareis, Ron Schipper, Tom Mochal and Andrea Krasnoff, to name a few,.  Those people with other thought leaders in the field contribute chapters to the book.  Rich and I were privileged to be asked to contribute a chapter, which we did entitled Project Manager as a Pivot Point for Implementing Sustainability in an Enterprise.  Our contribution highlights the “special importance of the project manager with respect to implementing sustainability at their enterprise.” 

No doubt, it is a weighty tome, physical as well as content.   It is 454 pages (large, textbook type format) including the appendices, index and CV of the chapter authors.  Again, the chapter author’s list reads like a virtual who’s who of sustainable project management authority.  Since we began researching our book in 2007, and ultimately published it in 2010, there have been many books written about sustainable project management, some very good, like Kevin Wilhelm’s Return on Sustainability, How business can increase profits & address climate change in a uncertain economy (Dog Ear Publishing 2009) and as lead author, Dr. Silvius’ Sustainability in Project Management (Gower 2012), and some not so good.  The ones that are not so good do not forward the topic, but rather rehashed know concepts.  As Sgt. Phil Esterhaus of the old TV series Hill Street Blues was fond of saying “Let’s be careful out there.”   There are imitators “out there” with very close titles, so make sure you are getting the real deal!

Sustainability Integration for Effective Project Management is the real deal.  This book ranks in the highly contributory category, with chapters on stakeholder perspective, significant case studies, practical applications of sustainability to projects, and much, much more.  It is well worth the price to add to your personal library or at the least, recommend it for your organization or school’s library.  The front cover says “Premier Reference Source” and that it is.

 If you want to connect with the thought leaders in sustainable project management, all you have to do is review the section “About the Contributors.”  I am not saying that all of the thought leaders in the field are represented there, and I am saying that it is a good place to start.  Most contributors have websites and/or blog sites that are store-houses of information on sustainability in project management.  Anyone of them would be glad to direct you to webinars, seminars and classes for legitimate sustainability in project management training.  As with any subject, it is good to have a guide to help you with your decisions for pursuing additional information.  Again, any one of the experts listed can help, including me and my partner Rich Maltzman.  It is all about forwarding the practice of sustainable project management, or as we say, being “at the intersection of green (or even better, sustainability) and project management.”