Often, here on EarthPM, even though we’re intentionally very project-centric, people ask us about how they – as individuals – are doing, and how they personally could do better to ‘green up’.

This posting is just a simple link to a new survey put out by Philips NV which helps you determine your “energy color” based on a set of questions which are accompanied by stunning photographs and slick sound effects.

http://www.asimpleswitch.com/b2c/survey/intake

On the site, you’ll find some interesting facts about your own personal consumption that will probably surprise you, and that you could extrapolate to your project work as well.  Consider this (from the above site):

“How much water is needed to make one cup of coffee? You might say anything from 30-50 milliliters for an espresso to, let’s say, up to half a liter for a supersized latte. While it’s true that this could very well be the amount of liquid that ends up in the cup, the actual number of liters (yes, plural) used to brew precisely one standard cup of coffee is a staggering 140. Hard to believe? Perhaps, but ever so true.

This is how it’s calculated: it costs roughly 21,000 litres of water to produce 1 kilo of roasted coffee. A standard 125 ml cup of coffee requires 7 grams of roasted coffee, so that single ‘cuppa’ costs 140 litres of water to make. And it’s not just coffee that takes a lot of water to produce, the same goes for other stuff we eat or need. Rice: 3,400 litres for 1 kilo. Cotton: 2,700 litres for 1 cotton shirt. Beef: 15,500 litres for 1 kilo. If you didn’t know it already, you’ve just learned something about the size of our water footprint. We’re not walking this planet leaving Cinderella-sized footprints; we’re leaving marks that would make Godzilla’s seem petite.”

So visit the site,  get your own personal color reading, and enjoy the wealth of information available on the site as well.  It may not be directly project related, but we bet you can make at least one discovery if you spend some time looking at your own energy usage!

That was the title of a recent article in our local paper (The Portsmouth Herald).  It was subtitled “Timberland (one of the companies featured in Top of their Game in our new book) achieves profits while helping the environment.”  It is a good news environmental story for a change and it points out what we are saying, green projects make cents.  According to Timberland sources, “broad corporate social responsibility is the essence of good business.”  We can’t agree more.

“Business success, for us, is defined not not only by the return we earn for our stakeholders but also by the positive impact we have on our community and environment,” said Betsy Blaisdell, Timberland’s senior manager of environmental stewardship as quoted in the article.  Further she says, “Bottom-line results are obviously critical – if we cease to be profitable, we cease to exist – but if we earn them at the expense of our values and commitment to be responsible corporate citizens, we’ve failed.”

Projects like reducing energy, chemical, and resource use at Timberland-owned and operated facilities worldwide are being executed.  Timberland’s goal is also to engage employees, the public, and even challenge competitors to do the same.  Timberland continues to grow in spite of a weak economy.  “Success for us comes from a business model in which commerce and justice are inextricably linked,” Blaisdell explained.  Learn more about Timberland’s environmental stewardship.

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.

Baby steps were taken yesterday to overcome the stall of the climate bill.  It really comes down to the order in which two controversial bills (one on immigration and this one on climate change) are handled.

Below, from AP, is the top of that story, and below that, you’ll find some links for more detail.  At least here at EarthPM, you can count on us to have things in order…but what else would you expect from a project management blog – sequencing tasks in the proper order for efficient execution…

By Matthew Daly
Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday he is willing to bring up climate change legislation ahead of an immigration bill, the first step toward resolving a dispute with Senate Republicans that threatened to derail a bipartisan effort months in the making.

Reid said the long-delayed climate bill “is much further down the road in terms of a product” than the immigration measure, which remains unwritten.

“The energy bill is ready. We will move to that more quickly than a bill we don’t have,” the Democratic leader told reporters. “I don’t have an immigration bill.”

Reid’s comments were intended to help resolve a dispute that emerged during the weekend when Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham threatened to withhold support for the climate bill if Reid pushed ahead first with an immigration legislation.

The full AP news story.

New York Times coverage.

NPR’s version of the update.

“Clean tech is always in a boom-and-bust cycle,’’ said Matt Moscardi, manager of investor programs at Ceres, a green investment coalition based in Boston. “Without a price on carbon, or some other mechanism by which you measure pollutants and emissions, the playing field will not be level.’’ [Reference: Boston Globe article, 9-Mar10]

The ’tilted playing field’ or unfair advantage alluded to by Ceres is also referred to as clean energy’s “competitive conundrum”.  Since clean energy costs are higher than those available from conventional sources, what is going to convince a typical consumer to pay that higher price?  And, are those lower prices from conventional sources truly reflective of the true ‘price‘ of their service, including emissions?  It’s not easy or convenient for consumers to think of it this way, but when they ’save’ money on low energy costs, they’re paying for it later in tax dollars and cleanup efforts that result from the dirtier sources of power – not to mention the ‘intangible’ loss in ‘quality of life’ for this and future generations.  I know… it sounds a little preachy, but it’s true.