Category: Uncategorized

E105: Improving Government Services to Protect Children and Elections with Kerry L. Bass

In this podcast, I interview Kerry Lewis Bass, who has many years of experience improving processes in the corporate world and within government agencies. He has recently launched his consulting business to assist leaders in an organization to “develop, and successfully implement, assess and improve operational strategy and initiatives.” We discuss his work in government
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People, Profit, Planet 3-legged stool of sustainability

Book Review: The Sustainability Advantage

The Sustainability Advantage: Seven Business Case Benefits of a Triple Bottom Line by Bob Willard This book is dedicated to helping companies financially quantify the environmental benefits that a sustainability program can provide. There are seven areas of business benefit associated with sustainable initiatives (many overlooked): People Benefits 1) Easier hiring of the best talent
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Green Your Work by Kim Carlson – Book Review

Green Your Work was written by Kim Carlson, who has led several different businesses through a green transformation, and well before all the “cool kids” were doing it. Green Your Work: Boost Your Bottom Line While Reducing Your Carbon Footprint The book is very well organized, into three main section, for a total of 14
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Minitab Tutorial and Excel Data Tables for Utilizing the EPA’s Statistical Analysis at RCRA Facilities document

In March 2009, the EPA published the document called “STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF GROUNDWATER MONITORING DATA AT RCRA FACILITIES” The document is meant to provide support to RCRA facilities on how to apply the correct statistical techniques. It is essentially a statistics reference guide focused on groundwater contamination data. However, it is a good statistical reference
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Simple checklist to green your office or restaurant

Portland is leading the charge once again. In 2006, the Portland Office of Sustainable Development (now the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability) commissioned research with dozens of local small businesses. The research revealed that businesses will embrace resource efficiency and sustainability if those services are offered in an easy, one-stop approach. Sustainability at Work is the
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Quickly and confidently detect when your utility bills need attention

Managing energy bills can difficult, especially if you live in a climate with four diverse seasons in a year, and you work for a company with fluctuations in equipment usage. The changing weather and work load makes it difficult to determine when the numbers are too high, or there is an actual reduction in usage.
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How many times do you flush the toilet per day? You might be surprised!

5! Is that correct? It can’t be that many… In the book, Green Intentions, author Brett Wills discusses ways to reduce different environmental impacts by understanding the value stream of those processes within a business. Green Intentions Under the topic of water reduction, he explains how to estimate the amount of water coming from various
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Lean “Go and See” mindset also works on the environment

I’d like to share another example of Lean and Six Sigma application to environmental issues. Let’s start with a simple approach for reducing energy that doesn’t require a lot of technical expertise or outside consulting. Sometimes we don’t see wasted energy as a problem on the same level as product defects, excessive inventory, or over
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The paradox of efficiency improvements

One of the downsides of improvement projects that you need to be aware of is the possibility that your overall reductions may not actually occur. How is this possible? Let’s look at some common projects that should lead to reduction in overall usage… Upgrade HVAC system with higher SEER rating Install low-flow toilets and faucets
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Use simple meters to track electricity in your home or small office

Data is so critical to making decisions. Yet tracking electricity data can be frustrating, since it can be difficult to get your hands on the data you need. Most utilities don’t give you more than the monthly total. To address this problem in my home, I have been using the Black and Decker Power Consumption
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