 | Rich Maltzman, PMPUsername: earthpm |
Location
Andover, MA, USA
Role
ConsultantJob Title
Co-FounderCompany
EarthPM.comRecent Discussions
Packaging Projects
A colleague and I, realizing how important "green" really is, have started a new effort to bring this awareness to those people responsible to getting things done: project managers. Our site, EarthPM.com is right there at the intersection of Project Management and "green". With that in mind we know that green packaging is critical, and would be interested to learn how green packaging *projects* are being undertaken. We're interested in featuring key projects on our site, so if you would like to be interviewed or featured, contact us at info@earthpm.com .
Posted July 17, 2009
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earthpm
Drop in our site if you'd like at www.earthpm.com. There's lots of information there about us, what we are up to, and the introduction to our new book to be published in September by CRC Press, Green Project Management; Planet, Projects, Profits, People. Look for an announcement tomorrow (St. Patty's Day). You may be interested! We'd be happy to fill in the blanks and answer any of your questions. The website is a good place to start. Thanks for your interest.
Recycling vs. Biodegradable
I don't think it is really much of a choice because as stated, it will not "not truly" biodegrade in a landfill environment. Does that mean that it is compostable? Anyway, we at earthpm.com, at the intersection of green and project management, are encouraged by the product because of just what you did, redesign. For us, it is reduce, redesign, reuse, and recycle, in that order. We put recycle and biodegradability in the same category. I guess the question for us would be, who will recycle this? Can it be put into a municipal recycling effort? Some recycling efforts are not as successful as others. You can see our dilemma. But we also understand that this is more or less a commodity item, widely used and probably not conducive to a program like a manufacturers recycling effort for ink cartridges for example. Until biodegradable is really biodegradable or it can go into a personal compost bin eventually becoming someone's loam, a product that can be reused and then recycled after its useful life would be our recommendation to our green PMs.
Dean, Your comments and
Dean, Your comments and insight are appreciated. We are just getting warmed up, and would appreciate any help we can get with launching EarthPM. One thing that may help people get a handle on our thinking is a (very draft) set of 5 assertions that we are making. I think they apply quite nicely to packaging projects. Here they are: 1. Smart project managers seek first to understand the green aspects of their projects, knowing that this will better equip them to identify, manage, and identify financial, environmental, and overall project risks 2. Having an environmental strategy for a project provides added opportunity for success of both the project and the product of the project. 3. A project run with green intent is the right thing to do, but it will also help the project team do things right. 4. Looking at a project through an environmental lens increases the Project Manager’s (and the project team’s) long-term thinking and avails the project of the rising “green wave” of environmentalism. 5. Project Managers should think of the environment in the same way that they think of quality. It must be planned in, and the cost of “greenality”, like the cost of quality, is more than offset by the savings and opportunities it provides. Any other green packaging folks want to comment on how PM and Green intersect? Rich Maltzman, PMP http://www.earthpm.com info@earthpm.com