In our book, we were lucky enough to work with an EPA scientist on our chapter on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), and put projects in the broader sense of their outcomes and the longer-term operation of the project’s product.

But…you can read our book to get more about that…

What we’re writing about today is a resource we think you’ll like.

It’s free.

It’s simple.

It’s educational.

It’s from Sustainable Minds, creators of software which helps designers kick off their projects with the long-term thinking that we discuss in our book.

We got to see their software in action as applied by students at the Rhode Island School of Design, in very nice presentation by Craig Provost of that school.

Co-founders Dave and Rich attended an educator’s conference this week at Sustainable Minds’ headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

And so…on to the resource.  Sustainable Minds is providing a free webinar on the subject of the Life Cycle Assessment and how their software works in this area.  We think that as project managers you should avail yourself of the opportunity to learn about this.

Here’s a description:

Through this orientation and software demonstration, learn about EcoDesign and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and see what’s inside the software.

The webinar is scheduled for 27-July, 2PM to 3PM Eastern US time, and will have live participation from experts at Sustainable Minds.  It will be repeated each Tuesday.

Here is the link:

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/985394193

Enjoy!

In our book, we use the example of an earthworm as almost perfect sustainability.  GIGO, only in the earthworms case, the garbage that goes in as it eats its way through the earth, comes out the other end as better “earth” than what went in.  That is sort of the way GPGT works.  A garbage truck picks up at curbside.  After it makes its rounds, the truck heads to the landfill where the garbage is dumped and covered.  The garbage decomposes and forms, among other byproducts, methane.  The methane is tapped off, processed and used to fuel the garbage trucks.  Sounds simple, doesn’t it?  When you put it that way, it is, however, there were lots of complex projects undertaken to make it happen.

There’s plenty of stuff to decompose in a landfill, from food scraps to lawn trimmings.  It has been happening for years and as natural gas and propane become more and more expensive, a project to recover methane from landfills became more attractive.  From the altruistic point of view, not allowing methane to escape into the air, or being burned off to contribute to green house gases improves air quality.  But face it, the incentives from the government, and the savings from not having to buy fuel on the open market are pretty good project drivers.

According to  Jennifer Andrews, Director of Communications for Waste Management Inc, there are more than 300 trash trucks (the industry likes the name trash truck rather than garbage truck) fueled by garbage, or rather the methane produced by “trash”.   Waste Management (WM) Inc, the country’s largest provider of waste management services, along with Linde North America, a world leading gases and engineering company, built a liquefied natural gas (LNG) landfill gas designed to purify and liquefy the landfill gas at WM’s Altamont Landfill near Livermore, California.  It has a capacity to produce up to 13,000 gallons/day of natural gas to fuel the WM’s trash collection vehicles.

This project is also part of the company’s environmental sustainability initiative to double its waste-based energy production from the equivalent of 1 million homes to 2 million homes by 2020. WM is also directing capital spending of up to $500 million per annum over a 10-year period to increase the fuel efficiency of its fleet by 15 percent and reduce fleet emissions by 15 percent by 2020 as well as investments in new technologies to enhance their business according to their website www.wm.com.

WM and others are continuing to explore landfill gases as alternate fuel sources.  We’ll keep you informed of other projects in the future.  WM is certainly going to make our next “At the Top of Their Game” list for companies who are doing their sustainable best.

We’ve all heard the buzz about alternative energy; clean coal, wind power, tidal power, solar power, and nuclear power to name a few.  Traveling around Ireland last year, there was a noticeable increase in wind farms.  The talk around the county is to try to get most, if not all, of the power from the wind.  Everyone in Ireland and those who visit know that it is a windy country, surrounded by the North Sea, in an area of constantly changing weather patterns.  Power generation by wind is still in its infancy.  It may work in a small, unique area like Ireland, and generally on a smaller scale, we need to look to other alternatives for larger applications.

In today’s article in the Wall Street Journal On-line it states that, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), “Nuclear energy is one of the key low-carbon energy technologies that can contribute, alongside energy efficiency, renewable energies and carbon capture and storage, to the decarbonization of electricity supply by 2050, said IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka. I could provide as much as 25% of world-wide energy requirements by 2050. ” That would mean that “nuclear generating capacity to more than triple over the next 40 years.”

Nuclear energy is a proven technology, unlike some of the alternatives.  Director General Luis Echavarri of the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) , a specialized agency within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organization of industrialized countries, based in Paris, France, says  “Nuclear is already one of the main sources of low-carbon energy today. If we can address the challenges to its further expansion, nuclear has the potential to play a larger role in cutting CO2 emissions”.

To achieve these numbers, there will be a multitude of projects throughout the world requiring project managers.  Beside the project management jobs in the nuclear power plant construction industry, there will be PM jobs in support of nuclear power like plant design, accident prevention and development of safety features.  Just like the oil industry, there will be risks.  Who better to help manage risks than a project manager?

Because we are all interested in the “next best thing” in terms of what the future job market looks like, EarthPm will continue to identify those areas, whether the projects are green by definition, project impact, product impact, or green in general.  We’re not advocating one source of power generation over another, but we do believe that you must be aware of all the alternatives and where the potential future jobs may be.

In our upcoming book, we make several assertions, which seem to prove themselves over and over again with real stories from the news.

Assertion 3 is that an environmental strategy for a project provides added opportunity for success of both the project and the product of the project.

In the book we also express our opinion that projects are really a microcosm (and the “business end”) of business.

So it’s not really a surprise to us that private equity firm KKR (owners of brands such as Sealy mattresses), which put several of its companies into a “Green Portfolio”, avoided 345,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, 8,500 tons of paper, and 1.2 million tons of waste, and, oh-by-the-way, in addition also saved $160 million in reduced operating costs.

Don’t take our word for it.  Have a look at the video below from The Deal.

You can also read more about it here.

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.