An old (2012) story with lessons that are still important today

I had at some point bookmarked this 2012 article containing a story from BP about reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and saving money. I’m posting it here now because the lesson it teaches is still important and relevant. BP thought its efforts to reduce GHG emissions would cost money, but instead those efforts generated a positive return.

Here’s the key paragraph:

“How could there be that much value available that was only uncovered after the initiative to cut greenhouse gases, in effect to use energy more effectively, and reduce emissions of gases such as methane and halons?  Simply put, almost everyone was busy with other things, and not looking for these savings.  And perhaps more to the point, people had accepted a certain way of doing things that was not optimal, but was the way they had been done for a very long time.  When you reset the context for the operation, which is what the greenhouse gas target setting did, smart operators find a more attractive solution.”

I wrote about this general lesson in Cold Cash, Cool Climate:  Science-based Advice for Ecological Entrepreneurs back in 2012, talking about the power of the general approach of “working forward toward a goal”. In BP’s case, the goal was modest GHG emissions reductions of 10%, and setting that goal helped the institution realize possibilities it hadn’t seen before. This approach “frees you from the constraints embodied in your underlying assumptions and worldview” and prompts you to assess ideas that wouldn’t normally come up in the course of normal operations.

Another insight is that the opportunities that arise from this approach are a renewable resource:

When I asked my friend Tim Desmond at Dupont whether his Six Sigma team (which is responsible for ferreting out new cost-saving opportunities across some of Dupont’s divisions) would ever run out of opportunities, he said “No way!” Changes in technology, prices, and institutional arrangements create opportunities for cost, energy, and emissions savings that just keep on coming.

Just because companies operate in a certain way doesn’t make it “optimal” for the current situation. There are always ways to improve operations, cut costs, and reduce emissions. We just need to look.

Finally, it’s important to set such goals in the context of whole systems integrated design, in which we start from scratch to re-evaluate tried and true ways of performing tasks. Rocky Mountain Institute has for years championed the power of “Factor Ten Engineering”, which allows us to create new ways of accomplishing the same tasks with substantial improvements in efficiency and emissions.

For more on how to combine “working forward toward a goal” with “whole systems integrated design”, see Chapter 6 of Cold Cash, Cool Climate:  Science-based Advice for Ecological Entrepreneurs. Email me if you’d like a PDF copy of that chapter.