Cable and telecom operators have streamlined their operations and engineering organizations but the environment is still one of complex change. An external advisor can bring in the targeted resources to minimize operational impact and temporarily expand engineering resources to complete mission critical projects and tasks with no long-term impact on Opex...

At Coppervale, we understand the difficulties of running a cable system while also maximizing value from the energy you purchase. Our consultants have considerable experience working with major North American and International MSOs, specifically focusing on identifying energy efficiency, operational improvement and renewable energy opportunities...

Much of the general research about goal setting directs us to believe that reaching for the stars produces the best results (see Locke & Latham, 2002, 2006). Our sustainability consulting team at Coppervale Inc. embraces that perspective.

But there’s a catch. Goal setting ought not to be taken lightly. For example, when we consult with clients about setting GHG reduction targets, we use multiple data points, not least of which is one related to the organizations capacity for change. For other sustainability initiatives, we even advise that goal setting may even erode progress. 

If you remember from the previous blog, our fictional, recently hired Sustainability Manager was in the process of making a recommendation to the CFO regarding a GHG reduction goal for the organization. Right before leaving the office she remembered an article that she’d read in graduate school titled “Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Over-Prescribing Goal Setting”. 

To cue up the salient points from the article, here are a few questions that we ask our clients in preparation for setting sustainability goals: 

•What is the history of goal setting at your organization? 

•Are there any instances where goals caused problems, ethical or otherwise? 

•Is your organization overwhelmed and fatigued by too many goals?  

•How do you think a goal will change the way your company thinks, acts and performs in the future?

•How do you plan to manage goal execution?  

In addition to the questions above, we are inspired by the research compiled by Lisa D. Ordonez and others about the challenges that goals can create. Here is a top five list of things to consider when setting goals, all drawn from Ordonez’s “Goals Gone Wild” article referenced above: 

1.Specificity

When goals are too specific it is possible to overlook unintended but foreseeable consequences. 

2.Narrowness

Myopic targets make it tough to consider what’s being excluded.

3.Frequency 

When there is a litany of goals we still tend to focus on just one goal. Further, evidence shows that we pursue the goals that are more straightforward to “prove” using quantitative data and shirk goals that are difficult to prove. 

4.Inappropriate Time Horizon

If the deadline is too quick it’s possible to influence short-term behavior by sacrificing long-term institutional change. 

5.Difficulty 

When goals are too difficult, expect risk profiles to loosen, unethical behavior to increase and the likelihood of managing the psychological issues related to a missed goal to surge. 

How should our Sustainability Manager integrate this information into her GHG reduction target recommendation? At the very least it ought to suggest a cautionary and thoughtful approach to choosing the right target for her company. In addition, since she’s new, it might be worth her time to learn more about the history of goal setting within the organization.

The final blog post in this series will focus on GHG reduction targets associated with the cable and telecom industry. This should provide confidence to our character as she approaches her meeting with the CFO.

This is the first of three blogs regarding setting Green House Gas (GHG) reduction targets.  It begins with a common situation.

It’s your first week as the newly minted Sustainability Manager for a fast growing mid-size company and the CFO sends you a one-liner via email - “GHG reduction target – recommendation?...need soon” You’re smart and senior enough to instantly recognize that this is a fairly complex topic that includes a bit of art but also a strong dose of science.  Given that, you work to buy yourself a couple of days before you respond so that you can brush up on the recent literature. 

The first lesson you note is the difference between an absolute target and one based on operational intensity like revenue or units sold. While the difference is basic you sense that the implications are immense regarding the way your company would go about meeting either objective. 

You like the simplicity the absolute target provides but you’re immediately wary of how your company might meet an absolute reduction given the growth goals you’re privy to. Oppositely, you like the ability of the intensity metric to scale with that growth. Additionally, you appreciate the industry comparability an intensity target provides. But what happens if the nearest competitors choose a different intensity metric? 

Hmmm…Since you’re at a standstill you table the choice regarding absolute or intensity target setting and continue toward other important, interrelated components of setting a target. 

Probably the most obvious component of the equation is what reduction target to choose. Should you choose 5%? What about 10%? Will numbers that small make a difference? Headlines? Perhaps we should go big and see what’s possible. Why not 50%?  Well, it’s more complicated than that. The answer depends on at least two additional inputs. 

Another important component is how long your plan extends. In other words, what’s the deadline? Again, you could choose a short time frame, say 3 years or a deadline 50 years out. It’s up to you.

At this point, you’re beginning to wonder if you might need GHG experts for support in making this recommendation. You can see business disciplines making justifications in opposite directions and it’s not hard to envision conflict and confusion as this process works its way through the company and externally to your stakeholders. 

Without a doubt, this decision carries many implications. 

To make some sense of the broader situation you put together a table of the top 10 performers from the Newsweek 2012 Green Rankings. You make a note of whether an absolute or intensity metric is used, what the reduction target was and the amount of time the companies allotted to meet the target. Your preliminary research returns the following information:

While the average, min and max of the first two columns are interesting you’re thoughts are directed toward the final, normalized column. In particular, you notice the small variance between the first seven companies (prior to Accenture’s big jump) which works out to a GHG reduction average of 2.1%/year. 

Feeling good about your ability to tease this data point out, but with even more questions than answers, you decide to call it a day and begin to sign out of your computer. Checking your email one last time you see an article from your MBA alma mater that reads: “Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Over-Prescribing Goal Setting”

and wonder if the article could influence your reduction recommendation. You bookmark it, close your browser and head home. 

Be sure to read “Finer Points of Greenhouse Gas Goal Setting” in blog two of three to see what our character learns.

This year the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) met in Rio, Brazil.  At the conference, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon highlighted a global initiative launched late 2011 that focused on achieving Sustainable Energy for All.  The initiative calls on private sector and national participation to meet three energy objectives by 2030 - energy access, energy efficiency and a focus on renewables.  In the wake of this conference, a new report has been released by the United Nations Global Compact and Accenture, titled “Sustainable Energy for All: The Business Opportunity.”  

The report, while focused globally, highlights industry specific opportunities and trends.  It reports that of industry CEO’s surveyed, 91% will employ energy efficiency measures to address sustainability issues over the next five years.  This correlates broadly with consumer perceptions which also indicate a growing trend in renewable awareness and efficiency, with 79% of consumers worldwide reporting a more positive perception of brands produced with wind energy, and 50% of consumers worldwide willing to pay extra for products based on renewable energy.  

While the report offers broad recommendations, it also focuses on 19 subsectors and advises on the impacts renewable energy can have on the bottom line.  It suggest that renewable energy can acts as a hedge against volatile energy costs, while also offering a potential regulatory hedge against carbon restrictions imposed by governmental actors.   An executive summary focusing specifically on the Information and Communications sector was published and provides insights on actions the sector can take to become more energy efficient and advance business opportunities. A few of these include recommendations on the improved energy efficiency of operations, as well as the development of services to improve the energy efficiency of travel and logistics.

In spite of the reports lack of specifics on precisely how to implement efficiency recommendations for advancing business opportunities, a variety of tools presently exist to identify key areas for development.  A first step in the process is to identify present energy usage in the form of a carbon audit.  Viewing energy usage through the lens of a carbon audit allows for companies to assess their energy usage, while simultaneously addressing their carbon footprint.  

A carbon audit provides baseline data to assess current energy consumption, offers insights into areas of potential energy and financial savings, and allows for the creation of baseline energy/carbon reduction targets. Armed with the potential for energy and financial savings, companies can leverage their corporate sustainability efforts with positive communications to consumers and improved brand imaging.  The combination of these often results in an improved bottom line.

A PricewaterhouseCoopers article, "Do Investors Care About Sustainability? Seven Trends Provide Clues" gives an overview on whether the sustainability of a company impacts investment decisions. Seven trends in finance are examined to provide a basis for the ansewer to the question: Does it matter? Below is a short summary of each trend.

1. Susainability shareholder resolutions are gaining traction: Investors are coming together and voicing concern about climate change and its effect on business. Many investor groups are also lobbying for governments worldwide to adopt international climate change treaties.

2. Steady growth in sustainable investment: One out of every eight dollars under professional management in the US is in sustainable and responsible investing according to the Social Investment Forum Foundation.

3. Positive relationships between environment, social governance factors and financial performance: Those who participate in environmental and social stewardship are seeing benifits in stock performance, lower volatility and other measures.

4. Financial institutions forming sustainability research departments: They are developing benchmarks for performance and screenings for those who are best in thier class.

5. Entry of well-funded financial information providers: Making it easier to compare corporate financial and sustainability data and the relationships within the data.

6. The use of ESG data: Individual investors are actually paying attention to this data in combination with the traditional financial measures that are used to evaluate company performance.

7. Growing interest amoung institutional investors: It's not just individual investors anymore; institutional investors are requesting carbon disclosure.

The bottom line is that more and more investors can see that community well-being is connected to corporate performance. Appreciation for corporate disclosure is increasing and it does matter to investors. See the article from PricewaterhouseCoopers for more details on each topic and the research background.

For those on either side of the political debate on climate change, the economics of reducing emissions is beginning to make good financial sense. Market realities, high fuel costs, and decreasing costs of alternative fuel vehicles, are all contributing to an environment where by conversion to alternative fuel vehicles (AFV) is becoming increasingly attractive. Add to the mix U.S. tax credits up to $7,500 per vehicle, and the numbers start to add up.

SunRidge Farms, a snack food maker in Royal Oaks California recently told Jennifer Wang of Entrepenuer.com, “We save 33 percent on fuel costs off the hybrids alone.” SunRidge began conversion to an alternative fuel fleet in 2004, as part of an overall sustainability strategy. Conversion to AFV typically reduces fuel consumption, which immediately reduces fuel costs. In addition to this, switching to alternative fuels such as electric or compressed natural gas (CNG) also reduces carbon emissions.

While the conversion to alternative-fuel vehicles may not suit every scenario, the increase in AFV sales is undeniable. U.S. sales in August nearly doubled, as automakers across the board are developing AFV technologies to compete with the ubiquitous Toyota Prius.

Chart Credit: Clean Cities Alternative Fuel Price Reports

The 2012 SCTE Cable-Tec Expo has already come and gone, but the follow-up activities arising from the week-long event are only just getting started. 

Besides serving as a venue for continuing professional education, SCTE’s Expo also makes for a great setting to develop new business opportunities. Hundreds of vendors, MSOs and other cable professionals pack the conference hall to check out the latest in cable technology, products and services. Content is tailored for technical workshops, exhibits and specialized pavilions to attract like-minded individuals to connect and find opportunities for collaboration.

This year, I had the opportunity to participate on the Expo Program Committee and moderate a panel under the SEMI track titled “Exploring Best Practices and Strategies to Achieve Efficiency in Fleet Energy Management.”  The panel featured industry veteran and President of opXL,LLC,  Mr. Tom Gorman, the Senior Manager of Tech Ops at Time Warner Cable, Mr. Jack Sheehan, and the Fleet Testing and Analysis Team Leader at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Mr. Kevin Walkowicz. These three gentlemen represent different walks of life in the cable industry but worked well together to provide their audience with critical insights and strategies to capitalize on fleet management tools like GPS and workforce management, an idle-time reduction program and open-source data-focused tools from the Department of Energy (DOE) designed to enable lower vehicle energy use.

A typical MSO’s fleet is the second largest contributor to its carbon footprint besides facility and network electricity. The fleet also represents a significant portion of the MSO’s operating budget, costing tens millions of dollars for fuel consumption alone. Given the important role fleet energy management has to play in reducing an MSO’s costs and emissions, I believe that this topic will receive even greater attention at the upcoming SEMI 2013 spring event and also at next year’s Expo.

The SCTE Cable-Tec Expo was a great opportunity to meet face-to-face with potential clients, customers, and industry experts. Meeting in person allowed for the opportunity to connect on a more personal level while encouraging creative business modeling and future planning. The next Expo might be a year away, but we’re already looking forward to another week of networking and growth in the Big Easy in September 2013. 

Here in the Pacific Northwest it is easy to take the local passion for conservation for granted because most local residents and business take sustainability very seriously. This last year my husband and I moved into a new apartment complex. To our surprise recycling service was not offered in conjunction with the bi-weekly trash pickup. Instead we were treated to an ominous brown trash compactor filled with everything from cardboard, cans and bottles to kitchen scraps and plastic grocery bags. The owner was proud of the trash compactor because he saved so much money by going to biweekly trash pickup, but he neglected to spend the extra money saved on recycling service.

We loved everything else about the apartment complex, but were horrified by the prospect of throwing away that many recyclable materials. I let the recycling pile up for weeks while looking for a solution.

A relative heard about my dilemma and mentioned a local recycling center run by the city’s private school system. I looked into it and found that the recycling depot was in the middle of town and was run exclusively by volunteers. They took most of the traditional recyclables such as cans, cardboard, and paper. In addition, they took many difficult to recycle items such as cheese wrappers, cereal bags, pens, markers, candy wrappers and ink cartridges. My problem was solved, plus I began setting aside many of the other items that would ordinarily be put into the trash even if I did have recycling pickup.

The school works with a company called Terracycle. The mission of the company is to eliminate the idea of waste. They take waste that is sent to them from organizations or individuals from all over the country (and other countries) and use it to make a wide verity of products. In additional, those who send in items also get credits for what they send. These credits are them converted to cash and donated to the school or charity of your choice. This explains the schools desire to set up a depot in the middle of town.

I definitely encourage anyone who does not have recycling pick up to see if there are other recycling centers located in your city. Even if you can’t find a center in your city, you can go online at www.terracycle.com and register to submit items on your own. It would also be easy to set up a small processing center at your business. Pick a couple items that you want to collect. Then, place collection bins in your office for your employees to bring in products from home for your submittal.