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108 • Green Project Management

Recycling one ton of paper saves 17 trees, two barrels of oil, 4,100 kilo-
watts of energy, 3.2 cubic yards of landfill space, and 60 pounds of air
pollution.

The first place to look for project risks is in the objectives and goal of
the project. Has the SMARTER technique been used to develop the proj-
ect objectives? Particularly, has the environmental responsibility of those
objectives been fully identified? That will go a long way to identifying
project green risks. Offshore oil drilling has long been a target for envi-
ronmentalists. But let’s look at it as a project. Until we are independent
of fossil fuel, oil and oil exploration will continue. A complete worldwide
independence will be highly unlikely. So the demand for oil continues,
and offshore drilling will continue. One of the objectives of offshore oil
drilling is to distribute the oil. Looking at it from SMARTER, that is spe-
cific. We consume approximately 80 million gallons of oil per day, we’ve
been distributing oil from offshore drilling enterprises, and the goal is to
supply oil; so we can put a measure on how much we can supply from one
offshore rig. It is doable, it is related to the goal, and we know that it has
to be done as quickly as possible. That covers SMART, but how about the
environmental responsibility? How reliable is the delivery system with
respect to environmental damage? What indigenous species could be
affected? What type of environmental damage can occur from the piping
needed to transport the oil from offshore to a shore-based storage facil-
ity? These are just a few of the risks that can affect the greenality of the
project, in this case the product of the project. However, these are just the
negative risks.
Here are some examples of opportunity (positive risk):

• A vendor offers you a substitute material that is not only cheaper but
greener and yet provides exactly the characteristics you need.
• Funding becomes available from the government for your wind tur-
bine development idea.
• You make an altruistic decision to use electric vehicles for your
project and at the same time, the manufacturer, based on stimulus
money received, offers $1,000-per-vehicle rebates.

Negative risks to the project in its early stages include lack of management
commitment, or overt opposition to greenality, lack of an organization-