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.

According to today’s Portsmouth Herald, in an article by Rich Beuchesne headlined “Chief: Go Green”, Chief Almir Narayamoga Surui, of the Surui tribe indigenous to the Amazon Rain Forest, is on a high tech quest to help stop climate change and global warming by protecting the rain forest.  “A green economy, we believe, can bring great benefit, clean air and water, and it can also deliver the food we need.”  He further states, “So we’re not saying that the forest has to be untouchable, but it needs to be used sustainably to bring a better future for our people.”  That is what we are saying about project management, and this effort is certainly a project; we’re not saying that greening projects is a must, but what is a must is that sustainability be considered all along a project’s journey.

The Amazon leader has teamed up with Google (Earth), one of the companies we deem “At the Top of Their Game” in our new book.  Google Earth is  mapping  the tribe’s sacred and cultural sites where tribe members hunt and fish as a “way to show the world my culture.  Information is power” says the chief.  The philosophy is spreading to other tribes in the region, too.  The chief also teamed up with Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) to create an economy based on sustainability practices”, something else we at EarthPM strongly believe in.  “Three years ago, my people began discussing carbon credits as part of this sustainability message,” said Chief Almir. “Many people believe this will not work, but I see it as an opportunity to better manage our forest and, by extension, to manage the world.”  Exactly!

A couple of more things he said that particularly resonate with us, “There’s been a lot of deforestation in the name of development of our country,” he said. “When we sat down and talked about our future, we saw how important it was to bring our knowledge to the rest of the world.”

Many people “do not believe in the message of sustainability, so we bring scientific research to prove it can bring a healthy economy and well-being to the world.”

Chief Almir’s 1,300 tribe members are all vested in a green future, he said.  “We get courage and strength to do what we do in the belief that in the long run, we are right in what we are fighting for,” he said, “to create that green consciousness for our future. Resistance can be done through armed struggle, but we believe it works better through awareness.”

We’ll be listening and watching for more information coming out of the region.  You can also check out ATC’s website, and here’s more information on Chief Almir Narayamoga Surui, including a video.

As a resident of The Netherlands for a couple of years, I caught a slight football (for Americans, soccer) fever and follow the sport somewhat.  So of course I’m excited about the World Cup and the good (and lucky) start by the USA as well as the just-ended match in which the Dutch team has opened Group E with a win over Denmark.  Hup, Hup, Holland!  Go USA!

Building on this theme, we thought we’d also share with you two other resources in the larger planetary competition – that is, which countries are most aware of, most capable of, and most active in reducing their contribution to global climate change?

The other World Cup – who’s doing the most in the area of environmental sustainability?

We found two interesting measurements of this.

National Geographic’s Greendex(TM) – a survey of sustainable consumption

First, we found Greendex(TM) – a program run by National Geographic

Greendex is made up of four components:

1. Qualitative survey of experts
2. 17-country quantitative survey
3. Greendex calculations
4. Market Basket

So Greendex gives significant detail, but on a limited number of countries:

• Argentina
• Australia
• Brazil
• Canada
• China
• France
• Germany
• Hungary
• India
• Japan
• Mexico
• Russia
• South Korea
• Spain
• Sweden
• United Kingdom
• United States

We encourage you to check this out.  As a project manager, it’s important for you to understand the context and full spectrum of stakeholders in the countries in which your project is taking place.  In fact, you can make this personal by taking the quick but challenging 5-question Knowledge Quiz on the National Geographic site and compare your score with colleagues worldwide.  The link to Greendex is here and also in the title of this section.  Find a PDF summary of the Greendex survey here.  OK., you want the bottom line?  India is in first place, and the United States is in last place in 2010.  Stunning.

Yale University’s EPI

Secondly, we found the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) which is run by Yale University.  Taken directly from the EPI site, here is the description of this index:

The issue involving Great Bay, the Piscataqua River, and the City of Portsmouth, New Hampshire is a microcosm of what is going on around the country.  The Piscataqua River is my “home” river, forms the border between New Hampshire and Maine, and I wrote a article for Fly Fisherman Magazine (September 2009)  about fishing Great Bay and the Piscataqua River.  So both areas, are connected and are very special places for me.   The problem is that Great Bay, while a tremendous natural resource, is dying.  According to state and local officials, more stringent standards are needed to “reverse years of decline in eel grass populations and water quality.”  In a 2009 report, of the 12 indicators of environmental health used, like dissolved oxygen, clam concentrations, etc., 11 of the them are either classified as cautionary or negative, up from 7 of 12 in 2008.  Something needs to be done, however, according to an article in the Seacoast Sunday edition of the Portsmouth Herald, the city of Portsmouth is concerned their tax payers may have to shoulder the bulk of the burden to comply with those standards.  While the project of improving water quality in the Piscataqua, one of the major rivers contributing to Great Bay, may be necessary, the cost of the project of upgrading Portsmouth’s wastewater treatment plant in this economy may be prohibitive.  (Downstream, but caught in a dilemma.)

While most agree that the projects are necessary and inextricably tied together, with the budgetary shortfalls facing most cities, and Portsmouth, NH is no exception, paying for the $63-100 million dollar upgrade to the wastewater treatment plant seems like a pipe dream.  Rough estimates say that the sewer bills for local residents could jump from $600/year to $2000/year immediately.  For those who are just making it now, those who are unemployed or underemployed, that would be disastrous.  But no one said projects didn’t have trade-offs with quality, cost and time, did they?  After all, that’s what project managers are all about, managing those project constraints.  How these projects and the other similar, environment protecting projects, fair in this time economic uncertainly will go a long way to determine not only the persistence of environmental issues, but also the sustainability of the environment itself.  

PM Network magazine is the monthly publication of the Project Management Institute, or PMI.  Its circulation is somewhere above 320,000 – and rising.

This month, they published their Fourth Annual “Trend Report”.  These trends, says the article, are “forcing companies to look at projects in radical and revolutionary ways”.  In fact, the subtitle of the cover story is, “The trends jolting the new business landscape”.

There are 5 trends identified and two of them fall squarely right here – at the intersection of green and project management.

The trends are:

• The New New World Order
• Practical Innovation
• Truly Sustainable Sustainability
• Complete Connectivity
• Perpetually Lean

Strangely, zebra boots are missing from the list.  But we got your attention, so they served their purpose.

The two trends we’re talking about as being here at EarthPM, you can probably guess, are Truly Sustainable Sustainability and Perpetually Lean.  In fact, these are two major threaded themes of our upcoming book.

In fact, really these two trends summarize EarthPM’s First Assertion: “A project run with green intent is the right thing to do, but it also will help the project team do things right.”

One could also argue that the other three are aspects of green PM, and in fact themes from the areas of the flattened world, innovation in process and product, and improvements in the way project teams can connect also are woven into our book.

So, we feel a sort of affirmation in seeing that our book has, for the lack of other words, a certain trendiness to it.  We’re honest, we don’t mind being a little trendy.

Have a look at the new PM Network magazine, linked here.