People, Planet, Profits & Projects

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) “comes in many forms“and that is not just what we say in our Green Project Management.  One of the brief examples we use in defining CSR is City Year.  Timberland, one of the companies we chose to highlight in our chapter “At the Top of Their Game”, is one of the early supporters of City Year.    Our book was published in 2010, so we felt it was time to revisit City Year to see how the initiative was progressing.  We were not surprised that it is doing very well, thanks for an expansion of programs and continued support from some major corporations.

One of City Year’s programs is National In-Link Sponsorship.  Timberland continues to provide extraordinary support according to City Year’s website;  "Over the past 20 years, the relationship between City Year and Timberland has grown from official footwear provider to a partnership in helping students and schools succeed. For the past 10 years, we have seen first-hand the energy, dedication and idealism of City Year New Hampshire corps members as they shared our headquarters as home base. City Year’s red jackets have become symbols of service and a mutual commitment to our communities. As City Year begins a second decade in New Hampshire, we are thrilled to see City Year expand to have a greater impact on the schools and communities where they’re needed most. Their presence and influence in our community are deeply felt – and valued – within Timberland." - Jeff Swartz, Former President and CEO, The Timberland Company. 

City Year is now a partner in IBM’s initiative World Community Grid (WCG), a program that has “more than 600,000 volunteers, and hundreds of companies, associations, foundations, nonprofits and academic institutions.”  The program focuses IBM’s greatest resources, “technology and talent to develop initiatives that enrich the lives of communities across the globe.”  The effort uses “surplus power of more than 1.5 million personal computers to advance humanitarian research projects.”  For more information see WCG.

KPMG, the international firm that provides audit, tax and advisory services, provides City Year with audit and tax review counseling at a discounted rate.  Microsoft, another of our companies we felt were at the top of their game in 2010, continue to support City Year with software and technology.  And, WilmerHale® provides legal representation to City Year.  “The firm generously donates its time and expertise, providing critical legal services to City Year on an ongoing basis. In 2006, WilmerHale was officially named City Year's ‘National Legal Counsel’ and in 2010, WilmerHale received a ‘20th Anniversary Leadership Award’ for its extraordinary, long-standing partnership with City Year.”

In 2010 we made a choice to include City Year as an example of what companies can do to support CSR.  It is always a danger to commit to paper something that could be fleeting and just a “fad” or something just to satisfy the latest “buzz words.”  We are happy to report that City Year is not one of those “fads”, but an enduring and expanding corporate social responsibility effort that is good for the world!

I am continuing to rewrite my course on Green IT for Boston University using a new text book, Harnessing Green IT, Principles and Practices, Wiley @2012, edited by San Murugesan and G. R. Gangadharan.  I keep finding gems within the text.  In Chapter 9, written by Edward Curry (Digital Enterprise Research Institute, National University of Ireland, Galway) and Brian Donnellan (Innovation Value Institute, National University of Ireland, Galway) entitled Sustainable Information Systems and Green Metrics, they talk about the different levels of sustainability information and what is included in each level.

In the Product Level Information, “Understanding the impacts of a product or service requires an analysis of all potential impacts associated with a product, process or service for its entire life cycle.  This is achieved by using a technique known as life cycle assessment.”  Those of you who are familiar with us (EarthPM) and our book, Green Project Management, are aware of the emphasis we placed on life cycle assessment.  We dedicated a full chapter to it and mentioned it in other chapters.  That is how important we feel it is to that intersection between green business and project management.  Looking at the product level, there are four stages of LCA; goal and scope definition, determining what type of information to give to decision makers about a particular product; inventory analysis, data collection “include all data related to the environment (e.g. CO₂); impact assessment, the contribution to selected assessment categories (e.g. energy usage); and finally, interpretation, determining confidence levels of results to communicate to stakeholders.

At the Individual Level, it is necessary to understand all of the aspects of sustainability resulting from impacts by individuals.  It included the life cycle assessment of products and services we purchase, materials we use in various construction projects, operations of our primary residence and “private travel,” especially longer airplane flights. 

The Functional Level includes such things as data center efficiencies, data center power metrics, the standard Power Usage Efficiency (PUE) (PUE = Total facility power/IT equipment power) and data center infrastructure efficiency (DCiE) (DCiE = 1/PUE = IT equipment power/total facility power x 100%) and new data center measures like Carbon Usage Effectiveness (CUE) (CUE = CO₂ emitted (kg CO₂) eq /unit of energy (kWh) x (Total data Center Energy/IT equipment energy).

The Organizational Level Information includes establishing sustainability performance metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) like; investment in environmental protection, GHG emissions, water usage, etc.  One can also get to the Regional/City Information Level taking into account quantitative and qualitative criteria around buildings, transportation, water and waste on the city or regional basis.

We believe that by looking at sustainability in “chunks” or level, it will be easier both to convince people of the “why” for sustainability”, and the “how” once there are logical ways to measure it.

We talk about greenhouse gases and global climate change in our book.  We know that there is much controversy surrounding global climate change and the contributions made by green house gases (GHGs).  It is clear from the scientific evidence that key contributor to GHG is carbon dioxide (CO₂).  It is also clear that the use of fossil fuels is the primary source of CO₂ emissions.  To that end, nine northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states have decided to get together and strengthen their limits on CO₂.  It is called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), although I may have named it differently like maybe the Regional Green House Gas Reduction Initiative, but I get it.

Anyway, the “Initiative” is targeting the reduction of CO₂ emissions fromthe current of 165 million tons to 91 million ton – a 45% reduction from 2005 levels.  The cap would be lowered an additional 2.5 percent per year from 2015 – 2020.  According to a recent article by AP writer Bob Salsberg, “The RGGI cap-and-trade program is the nation’s first market-based regulatory program for greenhouse gases.  It requires power plants that generate more than 25 megawatts to purchase an allowance for each ton of carbon they emit.  The allowances can be bought and sold among plants, giving companies a financial incentive to operate more cleanly.”

The states, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, my state, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont participate in the initiative.  Auctions of the permits will fund green energy projects.  Maryland plans to use their revenue for programs for energy efficiency, low-income energy aid, and renewable energy.  RGGI predicted that the program will generate approximately $2.2 billion by 2020.  While intended as a national model, it has failed to take hold in other parts of the country.  The opponents tend to believe that it will increase the cost of power generation which will be passed on to consumers.  But according to RGGI, it is expected that carbon allowances will rise from $4 to $10 resulting in an approximately 1% increase in electric bills.

Environmental groups as well as scientists applaud the new rules and urge other regions to adopt similar programs.  It is just one of the many proposed solutions that in concert could help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and by extension, help to mitigate future effects of global climate change.  It is clear that global climate change is happening.  Recent snow storms in the northeast are adding fuel to that argument.  However, even late night comedians still wonder if there is global warming as John Stewart said recently,  “It's all a conspiracy of those darned 'fat cat' scientists’  It’s cold where I live.”  It may seem that way, but the two recent storms we’ve had here in Maine have been heavier and blizzard like, a potential consequence of global warming.  "Shorter snow season, less snow overall, but the occasional knockout punch," Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer said. "That's the new world we live in."  Can we change it?

Boston, like Interface Global that we’ve talked about before, is “climbing Mount Sustainability” with the same intended timeframe for completion of its goals, 2020.    Here is a little background on Boston for context.  Founded in 1630, it is one of the US’s oldest cities.  That means that there is a lot of old infrastructure.  There are about 625,000 people in Boston, a relatively small city.  It covers a little over 48 square miles and has a population density of almost 13,000 people per square mile.  Contrast that with New York City which has a little over twice the density.   So the less density of population may make it a little easier to implement some sustainability efforts because people are not as crowded together.  What are some of those sustainability goals for Boston?

One of the major 2020 goals is to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 25%.  There is a lot of mass transportation infrastructure in and around Boston that could make it happen.  Additionally, by 2050, the goal is to reduce GHG emissions by 80%.  Another, and we believe very smart goal, is to” incorporate projected climate change into formal planning and project review process. “There are two things that can be said about this effort.  The first is that there is an acknowledgement of climate change at the highest levels of city government.  The second, we believe, is that new construction/renovation projects will include the “risk” of climate change, like taking into consideration severe weather and other changes to the climate.  In June of 2011, I was in Boston teaching when a huge tornado touched down in western Massachusetts and a smaller one hit closer to the city of Boston.   That night, and I was a witness, the city suffered some severe thunderstorms not seen before.   So it is just smart that Boston look to protect its citizenry by accounting for that type of climate change risks.

The city is also intending on a city-wide effort to get the community and community leaders involved in the effort.  Finally, another very smart initiative is to “develop innovative businesses and workforce skills to take advantage of climate action opportunities.”  This is not unlike the message we have in our book and what we have been saying for more than three years now, project managers need to be aware of sustainability efforts because of the potential job opportunities, not just building a wind farm or adding solar panels to a roof top.  The potential is that all projects have some aspect of sustainability, and by being aware of those aspects, a project manager can broaden his or her horizons.  For further information on how you can help your city, big or small, see Boston’s green game plan.  For more information on our efforts please visit our website.

Inspiration: Suffolk Law, Alumni Magazine, Winter 2013, Shades of Green

Whether it is feedback from our website or feedback after a presentation, we’ve often heard “I’m a code writer or a software developer, how could my project be 'green general*.' There are no aspects of sustainability that I can affect with my code.” Our answer is - you’d be surprised how much you, as a programmer, can affect sustainability or greenality (the degree to which an organization has considered environmental (green) factors that affect its projects during the entire life cycle and beyond). 

For instance, and I am sure that the software geeks out there know this, but the way you write software can influence the power used by the computer's processor.  If you can reduce the “energy” required to execute your instructions, you can reduce the overall energy required to run a data center, therefore saving precious resources.  So how does one do that?

I have written and am teaching a graduate course at Boston University called “Green IT”.  I am using a new book this semester called Harnessing Green IT: Principles and Practices, edited by San Murugesan and G.R. Gangadharan, @ 2012 John Wiley and Sons Ltd.  In Chapter 2, Bob Steigerwald and Abhishek Agarwal from Intel talk about some energy saving software techniques.  As an example, for DVD playback applications, “you could implement read-ahead buffering methodology and allow the optical drive to take breaks rather than continuously spinning. “  They also talk about; computational efficiency - using more efficient algorithms and multi-threading, data efficiency – effectively using cache memories, and idle efficiency and evaluating a monitoring software impact to platform power - using the PowerCfg utility in Windows7 to determine whether an application has increased the platform timing resolution, thus decreasing the amount of idle time used to reduce power consumption.

Just when you thought that what you do doesn’t have any effect on greenality, you find out that using some software methodologies, designs and development tools, you can have a positive effect on reducing the energy required to process data.  That is a positive effect on the environment and it reduces costs, all the while people are “doing the right thing”, plant, people, profits.

* In our book, we have cover the “spectrum of green” from Green by Definition – building a wind farm, Green by Project Impact – Boston’s Big Dig, Green by Product Impact – Keurig’s K-Cups and Green General – a new software release.

I just love this picture, and I realize the caption is a little small so I will explain the jist.  This a a mock up of what the RAND Corporation thought the home computer might look like in 2004.  Looks like this was published in the 1950's.