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Project Ideation • 73

that suggestion, does some market research to see if there is a need for a
product like that, and then decides to produce a seedless raspberry jam,
the launch of which would be another example of a G-G project. While
the project is G-G, the company continues its green efforts. According to
Laura Duncan, director of marketing for Stonewall Kitchen, “Stonewall
recycled 65% of our wastes, over 2 tons in 2009,” including recycling
cardboard, metal, plastic, fiber drums, office paper, glass bottles, veg-
etable oil, and ink cartridges.
Market demand is another of the principal reasons projects are initiated.
Something in the market has changed. Market demand is a broader appli-
cation of customer demand. It differs from customer demand in that it is
more of an aggregate demand from all (or most) participants in a mar-
ket segment. One only has to look at the demand for more-efficient auto-
mobiles (hybrids) to see the effect of market demand on car makers. First
introduced as a concept car in 1995, Toyota began delivering them to the
U.S. market in January 2002, but couldn’t fulfill all the Internet orders until
mid-2002. As this book goes to press, the demand for the Prius continues
to outpace production. The Prius, in addition to being an example of a
2
market-demanded product, is also an example of a project that is Green by
Product Impact. And now, we’re on the verge of the introduction of the first
fully electric cars such as the Chevrolet Volt and the Nissan Leaf.
Projects can be initiated within the business environment: the company’s
product is obsolete, competition has forced a change, a new “visionary”
has taken over the company and wishes to take it in a different direction,
or the business is being restructured by merger or acquisition.
Projects can also be initiated because technological advances force the
company to react, just to keep up. Alternatively, the company may want to
be on an industry’s leading edge and proactively initiate a new technology.
New regulations may be a driving force behind project initiation. New
funding may be available for certain new products or services (this is actu-
ally the case for many thousands of green projects as we write this book).
With the advent of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability
Act of 1996 (HIPAA), the health care industry has had to initiate many
projects. In the telecom business, local number portability (LNP)—the
FCC ruling that as a consumer you had the right to keep your same phone
number even if you changed carriers—was a stimulus for hundreds of
infrastructure projects. No matter what the impetus, organizations must
respond to them with projects if they are to survive.