People, Planet, Profits & Projects

So reading through the magazine, I came across a short article by Sam Rauch, acting director of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS – “nimfis” as it is know in the marine fisheries arena).   The title of the article is “Crossing the border to successfully manage fish stocks.”  He starts out by saying “U.S. and Canadian fishermen and natural resources managers face the same challenges.”  But he really had me at “Driven by our common interest in sustainability (my emphasis), we have developed a close working relationship over the years with a long record of success.”

It only goes to show that we cannot do this alone, even if we wanted to.  The resource does not know the boundaries.  They just wander all over the place crossing into other jurisdictions, international waters that may have little regulation, or wherever the food supply or migratory patterns take them. 

A couple of the examples of working together that Mr. Rauch cites are a shared commercial fisheries resource, the yellowtail flounder, and protected species, like the Atlantic sturgeon.  As to the yellowtail flounder, joint Canadian/U.S. legislation was passed to increase the U.S. flounder fisherman’s catch limits, while still protecting the transboundary stock.  For the sturgeon, there is a developing Canadian caviar industry in the St. Lawrence River, and the U.S. and Canada are planning a strategy to be able to sustain the stock of sturgeons while accommodating this new interest. 

Mr. Rauch ends the article by saying, “As we face threats from climate change and growing interest in offshore siting of alternative energy projects, a strong working relationship with Canadian fishermen and resource managers will be key to ensuring that marine species and their habitats are protected and fishing opportunities maximized.”  It has to be a balance between the factors of the triple bottom-line in order for people, planet or profits to sustain.  That message is clear to us, but needs to be shouted from the roof tops or shoreline as the case may be.

The LDI Corporation  of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, just received an award of a grant from Green Launching Pad (GLP).  LDI manufactures upholstery fabric for architects and designers who are looking for green products for their facilities.  According to LDI VP of Sales and Marketing, John Dame, “We have developed an energy efficient environment and environmental-friendly process that will allow us to offer a wide variety of decorative print patterns to our customers.  The GLP funding will be used to help us purchase some of the required equipment to launch this new initiative.”  Last year LDI experienced a 3o% growth that Dame attributes partially to a changing market place.

GLP is an effort funded by federal stimulus funds through the Department if Energy and hosted by the University of New Hampshire.     On GLP’s “about” page, they say that they want to be the hub of green activities and under the heading of “community” even has a button for “find a project”.  This round of GLP funding was specifically targeted for manufacturing companies.  This is a state effort, funded by the feds, and by targeting manufacturers, the message is that manufacturing is an important segment to New Hampshire’s economy.  According to John Lynch, New Hampshire’s governor, “It only makes sense to do what we can to bolster this important sector of our economy, and that’s exactly what we are doing by working aggressively….” 

To LDI, it validates that the work they are doing is important, because there were 18 companies that applied for the grant.  The application and review process was rigorous and LDI is one of 3 companies to  received a grant

Bottom-line or should I say quadruple bottom-line, is that there are grants available out there to help defray some of the costs of greening your company.  Make sure that you explore all of the options, local, state, federal, as well as private funding. 

Half a trillion dollars.

That's a lot of money -a lot of projects - and clearly a lot of opportunity for project managers.

And that is the amount of money (about 3 trillion yuan) to be spent over the next 5 years on clean energy initiatives in China, such as a solar power generation system covering 100 counties in the country.

According to a nice feature article in PM Network magazine by Sarah Fister Gale, China has the dubious distinction as the leading contributor in the world to CO2 emissions.  So it is launching a program to cut its carbon intensity by 16 to 17 percent by 2015.

Using a combination approach - both of which launch projects and programs - to reduce pollution and increase efficiency of existing plants (power and otherwise) and to initiate more renewable energy creation, the country is launching projects to:

• update coal-fired boilers
• improve effieciency of the energy-supply network
• promote green buildings
• install lower-carbon-impact public lighting systems
• increase the percentage of energy generated by solar and wind sources

We suggest you read the whole article here.

And, as we have for years, we urge all project managers to develop their conversancy in the area of sustainability - because many of the projects, not just in China, but in the world, will be triggered by efforts such as this.

Half a trillion dollars is a pretty good incentive!  Or as our Chinese colleagues may say:

Click here for translation.

In this nifty article from this past Sunday's Boston Globe, you can read about several companies in the Boston area and the projects they've initiated to harness the power of microbes.

As you remember from the infamous H. G. Wells story, The War Of The Worlds, microbes have helped us before (in fiction) and now they are helping us again (in fact).

These micro-organisms are being engineered and "hired" to clean waste water, produce fuel, or to sterilize hospital equipment.

Project development time has increased orders of magnitude, even since the 1990s.  Where it used to take 10 or 15 years to develop a new biological product, this can be done "at a much more accelerated pace", challenging not just the scientists and engineers invloved, but of course the project teams and necessarily the project manager.

The companies involved here are  Manus Biosynthesis, Cambrian Innovation, Ginkgo BioWorks, Novophage, and others.

Cambrian, for example, is cultivating colonies of naturally-occurring bacteria that can serve as catalysts for chemical reactions, making them significantly more efficient.  They activate with electrical impulses.  These microbes were only discovered in 1999.

When the microbes are grouped, they can convert CO2 into methane, making it easier to collect and therefore preventing CO2 from escaping into the air, and can also, in turn, generate electricity.

Read the story.  You can see the implications for large numbers of projects, and it reinforces our assertion that project managers should become more attuned to the language of sustainability and understand the opportunities it provides for PMs in fields such as this.

Oh, and one more thing.  Don't let the idea of engineered bio-products scare you too much.  It was beginning to creep us out a bit as we read through it, but the authors make a really good point.

Sitting in your house, or one very close to it, is an example of a genetically-engineered organism.  There's a picture of one below:

Yep.  Dogs are just genetically-modified wolves.  And we (generally) trust these even with our little kids.

In any case - check out the article and continue to build your knowledge in sustainability and project management; you may find yourself leading a project just like the ones in the story!

To date, about $80 million dollars have been committed to the project.  This is really an unprecedented collaboration between industry, universities and a state government.  One of the major drivers for the increase in datacenters, and by extension increased energy use, is the need for scientific and engineering computing.  To do that properly requires a massive amount of computing power.  According to the Green High-Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC) website, the facility will include “33,000 square feet of computer room space optimized for high performance computing systems, a 15MW power feed, and a high efficiency cooling plant that can support up to 10MW of computing load. The on-site substation includes provisions for expansion to 30MW and the MGHPCC owns an 8.6 acre site, leaving substantial space for the addition of new floor space. The communication infrastructure includes a dark fiber loop that passes through Boston and New York City and connects to the NoX, the regional education and research network aggregation point. Boston University initially will have a pair of 10 GigE connections from its campus to its resources located in the Holyoke facility.”  Some of the features will include:

• Modern, controlled data center facility for research computing
• 8.6 acre site and 90,000 sq. ft. building provide for future expansion
• High-performance networking between the campuses and the resources in Holyoke
• Inexpensive, renewable and clean power
• Efficient, low power usage effectiveness (PUE) design with a low carbon footprint
• Brownfield cleanup and remediation of an old mill site
• Economic development and revitalization in Holyoke, MA
• Opportunities for shared facilities and services
• Opportunities for collaboration with other institution

This is a phenomenal undertaking and a giant leap forward to green data centers utilizing clean, renewable power, lower carbon footprint, collocation, virtualization, and all the other things that go into a comprehensive greening of IT.  Hopefully, MGHPCC will be a model to emulate.