Often times we talk about the Green Spectrum, particularly with respect to projects that are green in general, or appear to have no sustainability aspect, when, in actuality, all projects have a sustainability element. This time, we’ll look at a project that is Green by Definition, but is scrutinized through a sustainability lens. And, it is a very,very interesting concept.
As part of the “Smart from the Start” (that sounds like a good phrase for sustainability in projects, too) initiative by Secretary of Interior Salazar, there is a proposal for a 200 mile-wide wind energy corridor stretching from Canada to the Texas coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
While we don’t know yet about the other sustainable aspects being considered, we do know, at this point, that the US Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) will write an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). “Wind energy is crucial to our nation’s future economic and environmental security. We will do our part to facilitate development of wind energy resources, while ensuring that they are sited and designed in ways that minimize and avoid negative impacts to fish and wildlife,” said Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe. “This EIS process gives us an opportunity to evaluate impacts to dozens of imperiled species at a landscape level to ensure that wind energy development occurs in the right places in the right way.”
The reasoning behind the EIS is that in order to accomplish the project, an Incidental Take Permit (ITP) needs to be granted. Section 9 of the Endangered Species Act and its implementing regulations “prohibit the take of animal species listed as endangered or threatened.” It doesn’t allow the harassment, harm, pursuit, hunting, shooting, wounding, trapping, capturing, or collecting or, an attempt to engage in those practices when it comes to endangered or threatened species. However, Under Section 10 of the Act, it allows for people to obtain an ITP as long as they are pursuing otherwise legal activities. The permittee is then provided “incidental take” authorization.
The applicant must submit a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) containing the measures that it will take to minimize, avoid, or mitigate incidental take. The Service will then review the HCP and issue an EIS that considers the impacts. The Service will also identify “potentially significant impacts on biological resources, land use, air quality, water quality, water resources, economics, and other environmental/historical resources that may occur directly or indirectly as a result of implementing the proposed action or any of the alternatives. Various strategies for avoiding, minimizing, and mitigating the impacts of incidental take will also be considered. Sounds like risk management to me!
“The proposed Permit Area is defined as a 200-mile wide corridor determined by defining the center line of the whooping crane migration based on the database of confirmed whooping crane observations from the Cooperative Whooping Crane Tracking Program and buffering that line by 100 miles on either side. This corridor spans the Gulf Coast of Texas north to the Canadian border and encompasses such cities as Houston, TX; Oklahoma City, OK; Wichita, KS; Bismarck, ND; Grand Island, NE; and Aberdeen, SD. In addition, the permit area includes the current and a large part of the historic range of the lesser prairie-chicken which extends the covered area beyond the 200-mile wide whooping crane migration corridor to include parts of Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas.”
“Species currently considered for inclusion under the permit include the following: the endangered whooping crane (Grus americana); endangered interior least tern (Sterna antillarum athalassos); endangered piping plover (Charadrius melodus); and lesser prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus), a candidate species.”
There are two important points here for a project manager. The first is that this will be one heck of a program, involving a huge amount of projects, wind energy projects including; the wind power generators themselves, transmission, distribution, support facilities, etc. Secondly, it involves looking at the project through a sustainability lens. In above case, a very narrow view because of regulatory issues (specifically the Endangered Species Act) one of the “drivers” in our book. There will be more and more of these opportunities for the project manager who is not only aware of sustainability issues, vocabulary, and problems and drivers, but also uses that knowledge and considers greenality* when approaching any project.
* The degree to which an organization (project manager) has considered environmental (sustainable) factors that affect its projects during the entire project life cycle and beyond.
Project managers, already managing scarce resources, may be put in the untenable position of using those scarce resources for issues that may not appear to be directly related to the project’s success. As I said, that is some of the push back, certainly not our position. We’ve always 
That was the subtitle on an article, Building Green, by Dave Choate (dchoate@seacoastonline.com) in one of our local papers. The article focused on a local project, a newly constructed shopping center with 4.5 acres of porous asphalt and “an innovative gravel wetland that filters nutrients, oil, and metals out of the stormwater at the site.” The construction was controversial at the time because of the proximity to an already “impaired” stream. To some, protecting the environment is the most powerful driver, to others it is economics, to us they don’t have to be mutually exclusive. We consider both to be limited resources that project managers protect.
An ancient inspiration for sustainability thinking
It’s the time of year when the Jewish High Holy Days (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, literally “Head of the Year” and “Day of Attonement”) take place.
And this year, it yielded a connection between an Old Testament story, and our job of project managers.
Huh?
It’s possible, just give it a chance. C’mon!
Let’s start with a story, which comes from a book called Rosh Hashanah Readings, Inspiration, Information, and Contemplation.
The story goes like this:
Rabbi Menahem Mendle of Kotzk once put this question to his students: What was the hardest part of the Akedah (the episode where he was asked to sacrifice his son Isaac) for Abraham? Was it the initial call (where he was first told he had to do this task)? Was it the long walk to and up Mt. Moriah (the location where he was told to sacrifice Isaac)? Or was it the binding of his son?
The answer from the Rabbi – of course – was “none of the above”. The hardest part instead was coming down the mountain. As Rabbi Wolpe, the author of the referenced book, says:
In peak moments of our lives, the immediacy, the rush of adrenaline often carries us through (sound like some of your projects?). What happens afterward is the true test of sincerity, for afterward we must live with the consequences of our actions. Are we faithful to those peak moments? Dow we forget them, or disregard them?
He goes on to say:
“There is great drama in falling in love. But the test of a love is not in the falling; it is in the staying. The test of life is not in the moments of passion that can stir the blood and push even the sluggard to new swiftness and resolve. The test of life is after the crisis has passed. Our worthiness is not measured at the pinnacle, but in the persistence.
“In teaching (we substitute project management here), there are times when we are kindled by the task (project) at hand. Such experiences are wonderful, but ultimately it is in the daily work, when we come down the mountain, that our achievement (project) will be measured. In our [projects] we should recall that [projects] are not a parade of peaks but a long, loving walk together through valleys and level plains. We should treasure the summit of inspiration, but not live by it. Here below, once we have come down the mountain, our task awaits.”
The connection, if you haven’t got it yet, is that projects are often like the story of the binding of Isaac.
Think about Abraham’s Project – the binding of Isaac. As project manager, Abraham faced these project elements:
Sound familiar? Although human sacrifice is unlikely the product of your project, your project does have a product. Its product – the bridge, software package, coffeemaker, new pharmaceutical or biomedical device, is a quest. But don’t make the project the quest. Make the steady-state success of the product your quest. You indeed put your effort into bringing that end deliverable from idea to reality. But have you thought about its life? Have you considered the ‘long walk down the mountain’ and beyond? How does the steady-state use of the project’s product meet your organization’s stated strategies and mission statement? Because even if the project is successful and the product works, there may be some steady-state issues that, if taken into consideration now, could enhance your organization’s longer-term success. Yes, it means thinking beyond the project. But that’s what Rabbi Mendle was saying. Think sustainably.