In fashion, it was once said that brown is the new black.

Here at EarthPM, we say that green is the new black – but we’re not fashion experts.

What we have learned a lot about, however, is the fact that reducing waste in projects – and in ongoing operations – and getting closer to zero waste – can have an infinite number of benefits for the organization (nevermind the environment), and it’s from this fact that we drew the name of this posting.

With this posting we’d like to point you to a particular blog entry from Andrew Winston’s great resource: “Finding the Gold in Green“.   The posting to which we direct you is about Sony and their efforts to get to a zero carbon footprint by 2050.

Here’s the press release from Sony about their “Road to Zero” program.

More importantly, and more interestingly, Sony’s actual Road to Zero site is worth surfing.  You’ll see many of the themes from our book threaded through the animations and details of their plan.  This reaffirms our idea that project management is (amongst other things) a microcosm of general business, and the advice and leadership shown by Andrew Winston and Sony with regards to business operations and the gold to be mined in green applies to project management and vice versa – a feedback loop of infinite benefit.

For your convenience, we put an extract of Sony’s press release below so you can see how they’re targeting their reductions to zero.

“Targets are based on four environmental perspectives – climate change, resource conservation, control of chemical substances and biodiversity – across all product lifecycle stages, from research and development to recycling. The mid-term targets will be implemented globally across the Sony Group beginning in fiscal year 2011 (April 2011), and will extend through the end of fiscal year 2015 (March 2016), at which time new targets for the following 5 years will be set.

Specific mid-term targets include:

• 30% reduction in annual energy consumption of products (compared to fiscal 2008)
• 10% reduction in product mass (compared to fiscal 2008)
• 50% absolute reduction in waste generation (compared to fiscal 2000)
• 30% absolute reduction in water consumption (compared to fiscal 2000)
• 14% reduction in total CO2 emissions associated with all transportation and logistics (compared to fiscal 2008)
• 16% reduction in incoming parts packaging waste (compared to fiscal 2008)
• Increase of waste recycle ratio to 99% or more
• 5% reduction in utilization ratio of virgin oil-based plastics in products (compared to fiscal 2008)
• Assessment of impact of resource procurement and facility construction on biodiversity, and promotion of biodiversity programs such as groundwater cultivation
• Minimization of the risk of chemical substances through preventive measures; reduction in use of specific chemicals defined by Sony; and promotion of use of alternative materials”

The bottom line here is the bottom line.

Whether your TV tastes run to Fringe, 24, or the serials, like My Friend Flicka, or The Lone Ranger, there is always a recap from previous episodes.  So here goes.  “In our last episode,”  I talked about how Steve Fludder from GE and Richard Cohen from Bank of America are embracing green efforts because they are good for the bottom-line.  In this post I will look at the view from “big oil”.  Peter Voser, Royal Dutch Shell, was interviewed for ECO-nomics.   U.S. CAP (the U.S. Climate Action Partnership); he believes that market-based energy legislation is needed in this country and others and only by participating with the other stakeholders will it be effective.   His thinking is that to be effective, “energy legislation (must) drive supply security, drive lower fuel emissions, drive new jobs and preserve old jobs.”   “We will quite clearly look out for natural gas developments, which we see as a long-term source of energy that has a lot of positives.” (new projects)

We all think of Shell as an oil company, but they are big in the natural gas industry, too, having started 30 years ago and continue with innovation. (new projects) “By 2012, we will have more (natural) gas production world-wide than we have oil.”  His answer to the question of what will be needed as far as answering our environmental problems, his answer is “From a global perspective, the demand for energy will double by 2050. So we will need most of the energy forms that we know today.” Look for my next post about an alternative source and it’s not wind or solar, but something very different.)

Finally, his thoughts about future transportation; Mr. Voser thinks that by 2050 we will go from 1 billion cars world-wide to 2 billion cars, and about 40% of those will be electric.  That leaves about 1.2 billion to be fueled by other forms.  So hybrids, low-carbon-fuel cars, and more efficient engines are needed (all new or continuing projects)

There is much more in this Wall Street Journal section that we find very interesting, including a view from “big oil”, and a top ten ranking of “clean-tech” companies.  Look to future posts for some more information on these and other topics.

This is no April Fools!  On April 1, 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Transportation (DOT), in response to an Obama Administration directive, established new, more stringent Federal Rules that “set the first-ever national greenhouse gas emissions standards and will significantly increase the fuel economy of all new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the United States. “  According to Lisa P. Jackson, EPA Administrator, “cleaner car standards will be 950,000,000 tons of pollution cut from our skies. They will mean as much as $3,000 dollars in savings for drivers of 2016 model clean cars. And they will mean $2.3 billion dollars that can stay at home in our economy rather than buying oil from overseas.”  She continued, “. We expect to reduce greenhouse emissions by the equivalent of 42,000,000 cars over the life of the program.”

Basically, the new rules establish more stringent fuel economy standards under several programs including the Clean Air Act for vehicles manufactured for 2012 – 2016 model-years.  It will require automakers to reduce gas emissions by approximately 5% per year and strengthen fuel economy standards to 34.1 mpg average by 2016.

According to the EPA press release, “Climate change is the single greatest long-term global environmental challenge. Cars, SUVs, minivans, and pickup trucks are responsible for almost 60 percent of all U.S. transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions.”

The projects envisioned for this change include those within the auto industry that will ripple throughout the business community; more efficient engine design, new materials for all of the parts that go into making vehicles; glass, structural panels, interior parts, whatever.  Less weight means less energy to push (or pull) the vehicle along, so saving ounces adds up.  I’m sure that you can think of lots more projects that could enhance the vehicle’s performance; tire design, even new design for roads and road materials to make vehicles roll with less friction, new testing equipment and testing facilities.  While something like road design won’t make the vehicle more efficient per sec, in the long run, it may add to the reduction of carbon emissions and the overall point of these regulations.  More importantly to the project manager is the awareness of these problems and drivers of the “Green Wave”, will lead to identification of areas of need a vigilant project manager can step in and manage.  After all, we, as project managers, do want to be leading the charge, not trailing it.  For more information on the new regulations, see: http://www.epa.gov/otaq/climate/regulations.htm

If you have had doubts about this intersection of Project Management and green that we assert, check this out.

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development has created a transformational document called Vision 2050. In this February 2010 report (so we’re talking brand-new) they identify something they call a critical pathway to success.  Hmmm.  I have heard that term… critical pathway…somewhere before, haven’t you?

Under the Vision 2050 project of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), 29 WBCSD member companies developed a vision of a world well on the way to sustainability by 2050, and a pathway leading to that world – a pathway that will require fundamental changes in governance structures, economic frameworks,
business and human behavior.  It emerged that these changes are necessary, feasible and offer
tremendous business opportunities for companies that turn sustainability into strategy.

The Vision 2050 project addresses three questions:

• What does a sustainable world look like?
• How can we realize it?
• What are the roles business can play in ensuring more rapid progress toward that world?

To skip to the end of the report, and we quote, “In a nutshell, that outcome would be a planet of around 9 billion people, all living well – with enough food, clean water, sanitation, shelter, mobility, education and health to make for wellness – within the limits of what this small, fragile planet can supply and renew, every day.”

Sounds good to us.  Like most project managers, we’re skeptical but interested in this whole concept of sustainability, what it means, and what we as business leaders (and make no mistake, as PMs, we are business leaders) can and should do to get to that outcome.

Oh, so on to that critical pathway.  Here it is (from the report):
• Addressing the development needs of billions of people, enabling education and economic empowerment, particularly of women, and developing radically more eco-efficient solutions, lifestyles and behavior

• Incorporating the cost of externalities, starting with carbon, ecosystem services and water

• Doubling of agricultural output without increasing the amount of land or water used

• Halting deforestation and increasing yields from planted forests

• Halving carbon emissions worldwide (based on 2005 levels) by 2050, with greenhouse gas emissions peaking around 2020 through a shift to low-carbon energy systems and highly improved demand-side energy efficiency

• Providing universal access to low carbon mobility

• Delivering a four-to-tenfold improvement in the use of resources and materials

Now, we’re not sure of all of the subtasks and dependencies, nor do they provide a full Work Breakdown Structure, detailed schedule, and/or Earned Value Technique metrics… but this does indeed illustrate the connection we’ve been discussing here at Earth PM.

To see either a summary or the entire report (no charge) in PDF format, visit these handy links:

• Main site
• Executive summary of Vision 2050 (PDF)
  
• Full report, Vision 2050 (PDF)

Link to Footprint Chronicles is in the posting

One of the things one starts to see when we use an “environmental lens” is the full lifecycle of a product.

One company that’s always been considered a leader in environmental responsibility is Patagonia.  Patagonia was founded by environmentalist Yvon Chouinard in 1973.  An excellent story about the company can be found on Fast Company’s web page.  Here is a deep link to that story.  The applicable piece for this blog posting is below:

In May 2007, Chouinard challenged a group of 10 employees to track five products from the design studio to the raw-materials stage to Patagonia’s Nevada distribution center. His gumshoes canvassed the globe, observing yarn spinners in Thailand, visiting a 50,000-employee footwear factory in China, touring a fiber-manufacturing facility in North Carolina. A microsite at patagonia.com, featuring short videos (also available on YouTube) and detailed information, quietly went live last fall. The paths of 10 more products, including the Nature USA organic-cotton T-shirt, will go up this year.

Patagonia has put together a very engaging, interactive site loaded with videos and slideshows that track a product from its sources all of the way through distribution.

Here is a link to the Footprint Chronicles.  For Project Managers, we recommend that you watch the  video “Digging Deeper – Episode 2, What comes next?”.  Notice the number of times you hear the word project in the interviews.  As another plus for EarthPM fans, you’ll also hear from Andrew Winston, one of the authors of Green to Gold, a key and inspiring book for us here at EarthPM.

For those of you who want to go right to the Footprint Chronicle videos, we provide links directly to a selection of those YouTube videos below.

Nano puff pullover

Unifi – soda bottles into yarn

Polartec of Lawrence, MA

Enjoy these, and if you like the idea of featured companies who are doing the right things – which helps them do things right, you can look forward to a special chapter of our upcoming book devoted to this theme!