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60 • Green Project Management

variations between summer and winter, the benefits of generating electricity
in desert regions will more than outweigh the cost of long-distance trans-
mission. More than 90% of the people in the world live within 3,000 kilome-
ters of a desert and may be supplied with solar electricity from there. 7

green By ProjeCt imPaCt (or the laCk thereoF)
Projects that are green by impact include those that may not have a green
outcome, like an electric car, but do have an immediate (positive) impact
on their environment. It can be argued that every project has an immedi-
ate impact on their environment, and that statement would not be wrong.
However, what we are referring to here are those projects that have an
immediate and significant impact on their environment. These projects
may or not be intended to be green, but by nature, they will significantly
affect, positively or negatively, the environment. These are also projects in
which both the process and the product will have significant and immedi-
ate environmental impact. To clarify let’s look closely at a couple of proj-
ects—one on the sea and one under the ground.

on the sea

There is an enormous project being undertaken in the port of Dubai in
the United Arab Emirates. The need for the expansion of Dubai’s facilities
to accommodate an increasing number of cruise ships visiting their port
is the driving force behind the project. There was the option of physically
changing the harbor, filling, and relocating businesses, thereby reconfig-
uring the port, or coming up with a new solution. Either way, the project
would involve significant impact to the environment of Dubai. The result
was to propose a new solution that would not involve reconfiguring the
existing port, but rather building a floating cruise ship terminal. Koen
Olthuis of Waterstudio.NL, a Dutch architectural firm, came up with a
unique solution. Based on technology used in his native Holland, that of
floating houses, Koen proposed a triangular floating terminal 300 × 300
× 300 meters. The Dubai government responded with a request that he
design a floating terminal 700 × 700 × 700 meters with one corner being
35 meters high. Having that corner so high would allow water taxis to pass
underneath the raised lip to enter the inner harbor. The outer edges of the