Global Institute of Sustainability

April 30, 2012

Dear Board Member,

This month we feature Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army, Richard Kidd, the U.S. Army’s top executive for energy and sustainability. Following his commentary for our Thought Leader Series, please review our monthly briefing on recent sustainability news and activities at ASU.

thought leader series

Sustainable Army: Creating a Net Zero Bootprint

by Richard Kidd

Imagine the U.S. Army called to war with no fuel, no supplies, and no training.

You can’t. To safeguard against such a scenario, the Army embraces sustainability as a foundation of its global mission, operations, and strategic management. As a matter of preparedness, sustainability is integrated across the Army’s four lines of operation – material, military training, personnel, and services and infrastructure.

This is not a fad, but serious business. Army leaders have been working since 2000 to embed sustainability into the Army’s culture. Through collaborations with academia, federal agencies, and other organizations, and by emphasizing the key role sustainability plays in enabling operations at home and overseas, the Army has shifted its behavior. A strong culture of sustainability now ensures that the Army of tomorrow has the same access to energy, water, land, and other natural resources as it does today.

Net Zero is one of the Army’s signature initiatives in its move toward sustainability. Designed to manage energy and natural resources at Army facilities in an efficient and effective way, this initiative recognizes the value of sustainable approaches. Among the advantages are reduced cost, improved mission capability, healthier quality of life, better relationships with local communities, and increased future options. These are crucial to preserving choice on strategy and installations and to help the Army prepare for future contingencies.

Net Zero works by focusing on three interrelated areas: energy, water, and solid waste. The objective by 2020 is to avoid consuming more energy or water than is sustainably produced and to eliminate solid waste disposal in landfills. Army facilities have begun moving toward this goal. As of April 2012, 17 Army installations differing in size, geography, and mission have been identified as Net Zero pilot projects to test and demonstrate a variety of sustainable practices.

In parallel with Net Zero, the Army has launched the Operational Energy and Contingency Basing initiatives to incorporate sustainability in its contingency operations (actions potentially involving enemy hostilities). The Army clearly recognizes that sustainability on the battlefield is a force multiplier that, when implemented, can increase the combat potential of a military unit and enhance the probability of a successful mission.

The Operational Energy and Contingency Basing initiatives address sustainability in three vital areas: Soldier equipment, forward operating bases, and tactical vehicles. They focus on both increasing energy and water efficiency and also reducing energy and water needs as well as solid waste. By conducting energy-efficient and sustainability-informed operations, the Army reduces vulnerabilities and decreases its logistics tail. It also increases lethality by lightening the Soldier’s load and freeing up more Soldiers for mission-oriented, rather than logistical tasks.

Tracking results is also critically important to sustainability, and the Army has been a leader in both measuring and publicly disclosing its progress. Since 2008, the Army has published annual self-assessments using the criteria established by the highly respected Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). The Army was also the first federal organization to link its annual GRI report to the sustainability goals in Executive Order 13514, which requires reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, increases in energy and water efficiency, and continued reductions in the generation of solid waste.

To be relevant to the current and future Army, new concepts must be appropriate to its mission. Sustainability meets that standard. It is now both a way of thinking and a way of doing that improves the Army’s efficiency. This gives the Army more choice and flexibility, and that ultimately means greater effectiveness.

For additional information:
Net Zero
U.S. Army Energy Security and Sustainability: Vital to National Defense
Army Sustainability Report 2010

About the author: Richard Kidd serves as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Army (Energy & Sustainability) where he is responsible for overall program direction, policies, strategies, and oversight for implementation of all programs and initiatives related to energy security and sustainability within the Army. As the Army’s senior energy executive, he also coordinates and integrates both installation and operational energy programs and strategies. A 1986 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Kidd served as an Infantry Officer until 1991. After receiving a master’s degree in public and private management from Yale University, he joined the United Nations and served principally in war-affected regions of the world. He served in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Political Military-Affairs starting in 2001. In July of 2008 he joined the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy where he was responsible for leading the Federal Energy Management Program. In this position he helped craft federal-level energy policy and assisted all federal agencies in meeting statutory energy and sustainability requirements in order to promote energy security and environmental stewardship.

This commentary was prepared in collaboration with Marc Kodack, Kristine Kingery, Wanda Johnson, and Natalie Jones, all from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Energy and Sustainability.

Highlights of ASU sustainability activities

  • Sustainability Scientist Elinor Ostrom was named one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World for 2012. She was lauded for her work analyzing the governance of public spaces and insights on how society can sustainably manage public resources. Ostrom is the 2009 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences.
    Read more »

  • ASU earned recognition by the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) for its work promoting sustainability, particularly through its commitment to solar power. The ACUPCC acknowledged that ASU’s 57 solar photovoltaic projects across four campuses provide capacity for 15 megawatts, enabling ASU to reduce annual carbon emissions by 16,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.
    Read more »

  • ASU signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to offer internships, joint projects, and research opportunities to ASU students and faculty. The agreement will improve outreach to diverse students – particularly Native Americans – interested in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. It will also foster collaborative research projects, policy forums, and curriculum development.
    Read more »

  • Several Sustainability Scientists joined more than 3,000 world experts on climate change, geo-engineering, international governance, and other fields at the 2012 Planet Under Pressure forum held in London. The meeting culminated with its first State of the Planet Declaration calling for global sustainability goals based on scientific evidence and better links between scientific research and policymaking. Among ASU attendees were Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom, chief scientific advisor for the conference, and Michail Fragkias of the Urbanization and Global Environmental Change project, which convened urban-themes sessions during the forum.
    Read news » | Read declaration »

  • Two ASU student teachers have won scholarships to a yearlong science education program that is part of a collaboration between ASU and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. The program, called Desert to Rainforest, will take the student teachers to Panama to study rainforest ecosystems alongside K-8 teachers from Phoenix and Panama. The project is designed to create student research opportunities, expand cultural understanding, and bridge international borders.
    Read more »

  • Senior Sustainability Scientist John Sabo has been selected as director of research development for the Global Institute of Sustainability. In that position, he will lead the Institute’s proposal development team, which in 2011 submitted more than 65 research proposals on behalf of the university’s scientists and scholars for more than $79 million. Sabo, who is known for his work in riparian and river ecology, currently leads a group of scientists from about a dozen universities in a project to chart dwindling water supplies in the American West.
    Read more »

  • Entrepreneurial students at ASU continue to win awards. Two student startups won first and second place as Inc. Magazine’s America’s Coolest College Start-Ups for 2012. The 2nd place winner, a sustainable health care business, had previously been named College Entrepreneur of the Year by Entrepreneur magazine. Meanwhile, a multidisciplinary team of ASU students won the software design category at the Microsoft Imagine Cup U.S. finals and will advance to the world finals in Australia. The students developed technology and systems to reduce food waste and feed the needy.
    Read Inc. » | Read Imagine »

Please feel free to email or call us with any questions or comments about this briefing.


Best regards,

Rob Melnick

Sander van der Leeuw

Executive Dean
rob.melnick@asu.edu
480-965-5233

Dean
vanderle@asu.edu
480-965-6214

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