Environmental concerns have been increasing over the past decade. The pandemic further…
Category: Analytics
The Importance of Writing Style Adherence
Following a particular writing style, like Turabian style, is important when writing…
Complex Environmental Challenges: Municipal Solid Waste
Municipal solid waste is an important environmental, health, and safety management issue.…
Improved NEPA Implementation
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires that the agency proposing an…
NEPA and Climate Change
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is not an appropriate tool to…
National Monuments and The Antiquities Act
The Antiquities Act of 1906 (the Antiquities Act) grants a United States…
Spanish Fork Wind Project
The Spanish Fork Wind Project is an interesting success story about how…
Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards
The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards are federal requirements that regulate…
The Public Participation Process for WA State’s Climate Commitment Act
Public engagement is a critical element in the implementation of environmental laws…
The Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act (ESA) has been a useful tool in protecting…
Sea Lions vs Salmon?
The Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and Endangered Species Act (ESA) were…
Successful Superfund Cleanups
The Lexington County Landfill in South Carolina was comprised of three landfills…
Superfund Liability Standards
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as…
The Precautionary Principle
The precautionary principle is a proactive approach to managing risk. New materials…
Regulating New Substances
Balancing the risks and benefits from the use of existing and new…
Judicial Analysis: Supreme Court’s Decision in West Virginia v. EPA
On June 30th, the United States Supreme Court released a ruling regarding…
Can Current Laws Keep Up With PFAS?
The Clean Water Act (CWA) and Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) were…
Are the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act Enough?
The goals of the 1972 Clean Water Act (CWA) were to “provide…
The Clean Air Act and Climate Change
The Clean Air Act (CAA) is the most appropriate legal mechanism to…
Is the Montreal Protocol a Good Model for Climate Change?
The Montreal Protocol helped reduce ozone depletion issues and is a useful…
Environmental Justice and Air Quality
Due to the dispersed nature of many pollutants, like NOx, VOCs, or…
Should Cost Be Included in Air Quality Standards?
On first look, the fact that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cannot…
Infographic: Regulatory Instruments: The 5 P’s of Policy Approaches in Environmental Law
This infographic was made with Piktochart to showcase the 5 P’s of…
Lucas vs South Carolina Coastal Council
In the legal case of Lucas vs South Carolina Coastal Council, the…
Managing Project Conflicts
There are a handful of techniques a project manager (PM) can use…
Project Closure Decisions
When considering whether to close a project, the decision process can fall…
Project Audits
When auditing a project, an organization can choose to use outside or…
Project Control Tools
In project management, project control is the effort to reduce the discrepancy…
Resource Constraints and Priority Rules
Resource constraints are a common issue that impact project managers (PM). To…
Project Critical Path
In project management, a project’s critical path is the sequence of activities…
Budgeting Types and Pitfalls of Cost Estimating
There are two primary methods of budgeting: top-down and bottom-up. In top-down…
What is “Principled Negotiation”?
There are three primary requirements to successful negotiations. The first is that…
Project Charter Elements and Work Breakdown Structures (WBS)
9 Project Charter Elements There are nine elements that all project charters…
The Four Basic Types of Project Organization
The four basic types of project organization structures are functional, projectized, matrixed,…
Local Government Organizational Structure
The structure that projects can take depends on the organizational structure of…
Cultural Compatibility in Project Management
One of a project managers (PMs) primary activities is to reduce conflict…
What are some sources of conflict a Project Manager (PM) must deal with?
Projects are unique and involve constraints regarding scope, budget, and deadlines. To…
Patagonia: Sustainability Review
Patagonia Works, aka Patagonia, is a private benefit corporation in the apparel…
Energy, Business, and Society
Reducing carbon emissions will be one of the largest challenges that humanity…
Society, Business, and Corporate Responsibility
Integrating societal concerns around sustainability into business thinking is not only possible,…
Sustainability Links to Natural Resources
Natural resources are often the primary stock of resources that drives economies…
Smart Growth Initiatives
Smart growth initiatives can not only make communities more attractive and socially…
Sustainable Policy Efficacy
Sustainable policies, like any policy, can be useless and ineffective if overly…
Analysis of Corporate Sustainability Reports: Target, Citi, John Deere
Reviewing different corporations’ sustainability, corporate responsibility, or environmental, social, and governance (ESG)…
Integrating Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, the United Nations released the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a…
Top Sustainability Topics and Relevance
When reading news articles or perusing social media, often there are topics…
Sustainability Meanings & Issues
Sustainability often has different variations in definition and application when the phrase…
A System Perspective on Carbon Capture and Storage Technology: Bridging a Clean Energy Economy
As the impacts of climate change become more apparent, a portfolio approach…
Plastic Pollution – DPSIR: Drivers, Pressures, State, Impacts, and Responses
Plastic pollution makings its way to the oceans is causing development issues…
Hazardous Chemicals in Useful Products
The City of Spokane, along with 2,500 other public entities, had filed…
Addressing Global Climate Change
The global demand for reliable and affordable energy has led to an…
Leveraging System Traps in the Global Energy System
In the global energy system, a trap that has often been overlooked…
Carbon Tax: Efficient, Effective, and Elusive
An article in the Atlantic last week stated that near-term prospects for…
Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) Storage Locations in the United States
Human’s need for affordable, reliable, and accessible energy. This has led to…
Global Energy System – DPSIR: Drivers, Pressures, State, Impacts, and Responses
Analytical frameworks for assessing complex systems can be useful in understanding relationships…
Ocean Acidification and Carbon Capture
A 2020 article from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) explains…
Isn’t 8 Million Deaths a Call to Action?
A recent article from earlier this year, put out by Harvard’s School…
Oceans as Critical Elements to Carbon Sequestration
The Earth’s surface is nearly 70% water, and of that water over…
Trophic Cascade: Whales and Well-Functioning Systems
The video “How Whales Change Climate” by Sustainable Human on YouTube showcases…
Western U.S. Drought Issues
The lack of rainfall for a long period of time can lead…
Environmental Science Approach
A subject-specific approach to solution building has been an important element of…
Low-Carbon Concrete: NY Bill S542A
Concrete is one of the most widely used materials in buildings and…
The Four Main Spheres of Earth
Understanding the complexity of our planet can be simplified by viewing the…
U.S. Policy Recommendations for Net Zero Emissions
This proposed U.S. energy policy report provides an overview of the pressures…
The Largest Emitters: China and the U.S.
The United States and China are the largest emitters of greenhouse gas…
Should the U.S. Have Signed the Kyoto Protocol?
Global warming and climate change are issues that span the entire planet…
Do Humans Cause Climate Change?
Global warming and climate change are terms that are often interchanged but…
Updating the Energy Grid
With an already outdated and aging electricity transmission grid, the United States…
Aging Transmission Grid
The United States has an aging and outdated electricity grid that over…
Nuclear Energy Overview
In the United States there are 94 operating commercial reactors that represented…
Land Footprint vs Other Energy Generation Considerations
Transitioning to an energy system that is carbon neutral will take a…
Fossil Fuels for Energy Independence?
Fossil Fuel Reserves The United States’ reliance on fossil fuels has enabled…
Is the U.S. Utilizing and “All-of-the-Above” Energy Policy?
While the United States has more untapped fossil fuels than any country…
Why is the U.S. Still So Dependent on Fossil Fuels?
There are several reasons why the United States is still dependent on…
Sustainability Reporting Analysis: Quorn
Project Objectives and Focus In Quorn’s 2019 sustainability report, plans to develop…
Effective Visualizations: What Point Do You Want to Convey?
Effective visualizations are critical to conveying information to diverse audiences to enable…
Visualizations in Sustainability Reports
While reviewing sustainability reports that have achieved various awards, I found a…
Sustainable Business Model Hurdles: Fighting Short-termism and Valuation Problems
Firms looking to develop a sustainability-based business model may run into challenges…
Food Packaging and COVID Safety
One of the largest drivers of change involves resource constraints. However, with…
Resource Constraints and Analytics
The most significant driver of change that can challenge a sustainable organization…
Environmental Frameworks Overview and Analysis
Financial reporting does not provide enough information to fully represent a corporation’s…
The Issue of Materiality
The term “materiality” has been used in accounting for over a hundred…
Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative
The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Stock Exchanges (SSE) initiative standards integrate environmental,…
United Nations Global Compact Standards
The United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) standards are a set of five…
Climate Disclosure Standards Board Framework
The Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) framework for reporting environmental information is…
Natura – A Sustainable Cosmetic Company
The Brazilian cosmetics multinational Natura began operations in 1969 and has become…
Sustainability Accounting Standards Board
The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that…
International Integrated Reporting Framework
The International Integrated Reporting Council’s (IIRC’s) release of “The International <IR> Framework”…
Global Reporting Initiative Standards
The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards provide a good framework for sustainability…
SEC Mandatory Reporting
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires companies to submit annual…
Historical Development of Environmental Frameworks and Standards
Historically, the most important factor defining business activities have been focused on…
Behavioral Finance
Even with useful tools and techniques, cognitive errors in human nature can…
The Equator Principles
The Equator Principles are a collection of 10 different principles focused around…
Green Financial Services and Social or Ethical Banking
How are Financial Services “Going Green”? While there is no clear and…
ESG Business Evaluation and Investments
The common adage of “voting with your dollar” is an important concept…
Environmental Economics and Climate Change
The focal problem Dr. Joseph Stiglitz identifies in this 2011 posted video…
Regression Analysis of Weather Impacts on Spokane City Crime Rates
Project Overview By combining historic Spokane Police Department crime incidence data and…
Text Mining Sentiment Analysis – Intermountain West Cities
Project Overview By utilizing text mining tools, insights can be gained around…
The Future of Analytics
Over the past ten years, analytics has grown so much. I think…
Framework of Communication for Data Analytics Projects
Data analytics projects can provide value to organizations, however, without proper communication,…
Using Analytics in Business
Analytic projects can be helpful for businesses to gain more value. Businesses…
Text Mining for Local Governments
For local governments, there are many different situations where text mining could…
Data Science Techniques – Ensemble Modeling
In addition to the standard techniques in data science, ensemble modeling is…
Starbucks’ Data Analytics Integration in Business Strategy
Many companies are now starting to integrate data analytics into their business…
Analytical Engineering Approaches
Similar to how engineering and science work together, analytical engineering is the…
What Are ROC Graphs?
Receiver Operating Characteristics graphs, or ROC graphs, can be a useful approach…
Naive Bayes and Bias in Data Science
A key aspect of science, including data science, is the ability to…
What Does Similarity Mean?
Similarity is a concept that is well experienced in everyday life, however,…
Nearest Neighbor Analysis
A nearest neighbor analysis can be a useful type of predictive modeling…
Avoid Overfitting Models
Good data models can be used to generalize and predict future observations.…
Understanding Classification vs Regression Analysis
As a general rule of thumb, I think that identifying the difference…
Information Gain
A key aspect to data mining is understanding the data available. Not…
Data Science Algorithm Types and Sustainability
When performing data mining, there are a lot of different algorithms that…
Cross Industry Standard Process for Data Mining (CRISP-DM)
The Cross Industry Standard Process for Data Mining (CRISP-DM) is a formalized…
Finalization of “Paris Rule Book”
In December 2018, global leaders met in Katowice, Poland to finalize the…
Ethical Issues in Analytics
For me, the largest ethical issue that is most concerning is data…
Self-Service Analytic Tools
Data software that allows interactive and real-time exploration of data and visualizations…
Is Excel Still Useful?
Microsoft Excel has been used for multiple decades and has been a…
Value Management Strategies
Selling the value of analytics within an organization is a key to…
Evaluating Success of Analytics Projects vs IT projects
Like information theory, IT projects typically involve collection, storage, and retrieval of…
Structured vs Unstructured Data
Structured data consists of formatted data fields that hold pieces of information…
Bad Data is Hazardous
In a 2001 study, The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI) estimates that poor…
Sustainability and Data Analytics
I found an excellent GreenBiz article that listed a variety of AI…
Caution Advised With Data – Watch for Nonlinearity
The cautionary advice that stuck out to me the most in the…
Business Intelligence vs Data Analytics
Often the terms business intelligence and data analytics are used interchangeably in…
Correlation vs Causation Real-World Example
Occurrences of mistakenly tying correlation to causation are commonplace in society. Correlations…
Select Metrics Wisely
A point in the Harvard Business Review book, HBR Guide to Data…
Asking the Right Questions
When Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments, announced he was going to…
Data Projects – Start Large or Start Small?
Both large and small analytics projects have their place in organizations. The…
Are Data Scientists Jobs Targets for Automation?
While I think quite a few jobs and activities are optimal targets…
Analytics and Business Strategy
Analytic projects can come in various sizes, big or small, as well…
Wells Fargo Utilizing Data Analytics
Wells Fargo is making large investments in not only analytics but also…
Open Source Big Data Project From NOAA
Having worked in an atmospheric research lab during my undergrad back in…