People, Planet, Profits & Projects

...but perhaps not for long.

At least...not without the help of many water-related projects and project managers with sustainability awareness in their arsenal of talents.  Read on - you will find that as a project manager, you may be a strategic asset!

According to a U.S. State Department document released on World Water Day last year, the need for fresh water will exceed the supply by 40 percent by the year 2030.

The document contains this interesting graphic, so if you learn nothing else from this post, here is one takeway with the latest facts:

From this, we see that only 2.5% of the world's water is fresh water.  And in turn, that is used for all of the items shown on the right part of the chart - agricultural, industrial, residential.

All of this points to shortages that concern us not only from an (important) ecological and business perspective but even as a security issue for the US.

Quoting from the document:

We assess that during the next 10 years,

"Water problems will contribute to instability in states important to US national security interests. Water shortages, poor water quality, and floods by themselves are unlikely to result in state failure. However, water problems—when combined with poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership, and weak political institutions—contribute to social disruptions that can result in state failure."

In other words, it can bring down whole governments.

Back to the U.S. State department report.  As a project manager, ever felt "strategic"?  Well, perhaps you should.  Here's a gem for you:

"we assess that states will also use their inherent ability to construct and support major water projects to obtain regional influence or preserve their water interests.". 

Where does that 'inherent ability to construct and support major water projects" come from?  Well of course, partially from the natural resouces of the state, but also, from....YOU.  You - as a PM - are part of the states' ability to support the projects.  So congratulations on your newfound strategic value!

Read more here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/03/22/world-water-day-a-forceful-reminder-that-the-u-s-is-running-out-of-fresh-water/

People always ask us, "do I need to be an expert in a field to manage projects in that practice area?".   Our answer is, of course, 'it depends'.  But if pushed, the answer is no.  No, one doesn't need to be an expert.  But what one needs is something critical and that is conversancy.  One needs to be able to talk intelligently and to know how to find out more and to find the expertise, even if it isn't directly part of your own capability.  I suppose we could say that one doesn't need to be an expert, but one needs to be able to apply expert knowledge.

To that end, we'd like to help you take advantage of some recent research which will provide you with increased conversancy on the topic of clean energy, improving your knowledge not only of the technical aspects of this area but an advantage in terms of knowing where the PM jobs are - and will be - as the green economy grows.

After all, Green Project Management, as we've written about in our book, is about the altruism of doing the right thing.... about PMs being the change agents and the ones who can help apply sustainability prinicples on their jobs... but it's also about the other green.  The money, the opportunity, the growth, it provides for your PM career.  And there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing the right thing for yourself, your career, your discipline of PM.

"Clean Energy Trends 2013" was just released by CleanEdge.  You can download the entire document here.

The 5 trends they identify in this brand-new report are:

• Smart Devices and Big Data Empower Customers, Open New Chapter in Energy Efficiency
• Distributed Solar Financing Comes of Age
• Under the EV Radar, MicrohybridT echnology Saves Big on Fuel Consumption
• In the U.S. and Overseas, Geothermal Picks up Steam
• Perfectly Natural: Biomimicry Makes its Mark on CleanTech

Here are some highlights from the report that shows a project manager how to "follow the money" in terms of clean energy project management opportunities:

• "Biofuels (global production and wholesale pricing of ethanol and biodiesel) reached $95.2 billion in 2012, up from $83.0 billion the previous year, and are projected to grow to $177.7 billion by 2022. From 2011 to 2012, global biofuels production expanded from 27.9 billion gallons to 31.4 billion gallons of ethanol and biodiesel. Market size growth over the next decade is expected to be driven by added production, but also by modest price increases.
   
• Wind power (new installation capital costs) is projected to grow from $73.8 billion in 2012, up from $71.5 billion the previous year, to $124.7 billion in 2022. Global wind capacity expanded by 44.7 gigawatts in 2012, a record year led by more than 13 GW added in both China and the U.S., and an additional 12.4 GW of new capacity in Europe.
   
• Solar photovoltaics (including modules, system components, and installation) decreased from a record $91.6 billion in 2011 to $79.7 billion in 2012 as continued growth in annual capacity additions was not enough to offset falling PV prices. While total market revenues fell 19 percent – the first PV market contraction in Clean Energy Trends’ 12-year history – global installations expanded to a record of 30.9 GW in 2012, up from 29.6 GW the prior year. Germany remained the top market, adding 7.6 GW in 2012, followed by strong growth in China, Italy, and the U.S., which each added more than 3 GW. By 2022, solar PV revenues are expected to grow to $123.6 billion.

Together, we project these three sectors will continue to grow over the next decade, nearly doubling from $248.7 billion in 2012 to $426.1 billion in 2022."

Here's a graphic from the report for those visual thinkers out there:

So if you're interested in building your conversancy in the area of clean energy, have a look at the report.

Do yourself a 'career favor'.

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.

As Pope Benedict XVI retires and the conclave meets at the Vatican, it's interesting to us to reflect on his leadership with respect to the environment - and the environmental projecs that he launched. 

Benedict, according to this article in the National Geographic online magazine, "approved a plan to cover the Vatican's Paul VI hall with solar panels, enough to power the lighting, heating, and cooling of a portion of the entire country (which covers, of course, a mere one-fifth of a square mile). He authorized the Vatican's bank to purchase carbon credits by funding a Hungarian forest that would make the Catholic city-state the only country fully carbon neutral. And several years later, he unveiled a new hybrid Popemobile that would be partially electric."

But these are (quite literally) surface-level changes.  If you will, in project management terms, these are 'operations' changes.  What's much deeper, and much more in line with our (I guess you could call it) preaching, is at the mission/vision/values level.

Remember, an enterprise is established, per the Stanford Execution Framework which we adopt to describe it, so that at the top level is "Ideation" which includes mission, vision, and values, in the center is "Strategy:, at the bottom is "Operations" (the steady state) and connecting strategy to operations is an entity with which you'll be familiar: projects, programs, and portofolios.

So we - as project managers of any denomination - care a great deal about the strategy, mission, vision, and values 'above' us.

And what Benedict, and Pope John Paul VI before him did in this area is not insignficant.

Again, according to the article, which we recommend to you, "As Benedict begins his retirement today, the better way to judge Benedict's influence might not be in how many solar panels he had installed at the Vatican or how many gallons of gasoline he saved with the Popemobile, but in how he harnessed the influence of his global church to act on the sort of change he advocated. Many national dioceses around the world now include "environmental stewardship" on their list of advocacy topics. In the U.S., bishops have created curricula for discussing sustainability in school and pushed local officials on issues like clean air."

An additional article on this topic from the UK's Telegraph can be found here.

Also, if this posting intrigues you, the book which we used to illustrate the post can be found here.

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?