Tag: clean energy

OM in the News: Greening the Economy Can Be a Dirty Job

In a decarbonizing global economy, metals may be the new oil. Demand for copper, nickel, cobalt and lithium is likely to surge in the next two decades because of their importance to clean energy technologies, writes Financial Times (Oct.26, 2021)

Cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo has problems with dangerous conditions and child labor

This will have wide-reaching implications for the countries that produce them. The Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, accounts for about 70% of global cobalt output. Yet cobalt mining there has well-documented problems that raise questions about the human labor required to help turn the global economy green.

The term “green jobs” summons up images of people planting trees, insulating homes and working in spotless factories to build electric cars. The investment industry also has a tendency to conflate “good for the environment” with “good for employees” in corporate ESG ratings. But if the term “green job” means any occupation which helps to restore or preserve the environment, then it applies just as much to someone mining cobalt as to someone making wind turbine blades.

The truth is that some jobs involved in greening the economy are dirty and dangerous, and not just the ones in mines. We tend to associate the word ‘green’ with safety — but what is good for the environment is not necessarily good for the safety and health of workers who are employed in green jobs.

The recycling industry provides an example. While it is important to reduce the amount of goods going to landfill, recycling jobs can be hazardous, low paid and insecure. The rate of fatal injuries in the sector is 17 times higher than the average across all industries. In the U.S., workers in e-waste recycling centers can be overexposed to lead and cadmium. (In one case, a worker’s small children suffered lead poisoning after he inadvertently brought lead home on his clothes and in his hair).

These problems could be improved by encouraging manufacturers to change the design of new products so that they can be disassembled and recycled more safely, our topic in Supplement 5 of the text. That means designing products so they can be repaired independently, providing manuals and making spare parts available. This should help reduce waste as well as provide new skilled jobs.

We are not making an argument against greening the economy. Many carbon-intensive jobs are dirty and dangerous too, and we will all suffer if we don’t tackle climate change.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. What does “design for disassembly” mean?
  2. Why is cobalt mining a part of green energy/

OM in the News: The Murderous Wind Turbines

We don’t see many power-generating wind turbines here in Florida, but they were ubiquitous as we vacationed out West a few weeks ago. The turbines and solar energy (more common in Florida) are cited as the future of clean energy and sustainability–our topic in Supplement 5 of your OM text.

wind turbines

But the wind turbines—some with 200-foot blades spinning up to 180 mph—are estimated to kill as many as 500,000 birds a year through accidental collisions, according to The Wall Street Journal (June 6, 2021). Wildlife researchers in 2013 estimated that the Energy Department’s 2008 wind-power target would push bird deaths to about 1.4 million annually. That figure hasn’t been updated to reflect the Biden administration’s plans to expand offshore wind farms.

Federal law has led to penalties for two wind farms.  Duke Energy agreed to spend $600,000 a year on a compliance plan, on top of $1 million in penalties, aimed at preventing bird deaths at several wind-turbine projects in Wyoming, where 14 golden eagles and 149 other protected birds had been killed. Also in Wyoming, PacifiCorp was fined $2.5 million for bird deaths.

Wind turbines, however, are far from the biggest hazard to birds; nearly 600 million birds die each year from crashing into windows. Both the National Wildlife Federation and the Audubon Society support the expansion of wind power on grounds that greenhouse gas emissions and climate change pose a far bigger threat to birds than turbines. Wind-turbine companies use several methods to deter bird deaths, including noisy devices that birds want to avoid, as well as locating the turbines in areas away from common flight paths.

One promising new technology dubbed IdentiFlight involves sky-scanning robots that use artificial intelligence and alert the company to stop the blades from spinning as birds approach. Duke Energy installed the IdentiFlight technology in 2015, after the bird-death fine, at a 110-turbine wind farm in Wyoming and it reduced eagle deaths by 82%.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Do the benefits outweigh the negatives of wind turbines?
  2. How does this relate to the triple bottom line (see page 195)?

OM in the News: Apple’s Sustainability Move

Apple’s new HQ features rooftop solar panels.

“Apple has just announced,” writes The Wall Street Journal (April 10, 2018), “that it has achieved a decade-old goal of having its facilities world-wide powered exclusively by renewable energy, an achievement that will shift the company’s sustainability efforts to its supply chain, where about 10% of suppliers have made a similar commitment”.

The tech giant said it has improved to be 100% reliant on clean energy from 96% last year in part by contracting renewable energy for the first time in India, Turkey, Brazil and Mexico. The figure covers all of its retail stores, offices, data centers, as well as its new California headquarters, Apple Park, the spaceshiplike structure that is one of the largest on-site solar installations in the world.

Apple is just one of many global corporations trying to cut energy consumption and shift to renewable power including wind and solar, both to cut costs and slow climate change. More than 100 companies world-wide, including Apple, IKEA, Anheuser-Busch and Starbucks, pledged in 2014 to shift to 100% renewable energy. Many of these companies are now trying to accelerate efforts to convince their suppliers to join them.

Environmental experts said the bigger challenge will be making the manufacturers of the more than 200 million iPhones and 43 million iPads it sells annually wholly dependent on renewable energy. “We’re not going to stop until our supply chain is 100% renewable,” said Apple’s VP. Apple, which set that goal two years ago, said 9 more of its suppliers have committed to powering all production with 100% clean energy, bringing the total to 23 out of more than 200 suppliers. Apple also will be challenged to keep its own facilities at the 100% level in the years ahead, especially as it looks to add a new campus in the U.S. and $10 billion in data centers.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Why is Apple’s drive an OM issue?
  2. Why is the firm’s movement so important to industry?