DoD discovers whether sustainability and better performance go hand in hand
"We look at the vision in the department to maintain the ability to operate into the future without decline," said David Asiello.
The Defense Department has launched a program to pressure test what it calls sustainable technologies in operational settings. The idea is to discover whether something sustainable also improves performance or reduces costs. It’s called Sustainable Technology Evaluation and Demonstration – STED. The director of sustainability and acquisition, David Asiello shared more details on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin.
Interview transcript:
Tom Temin And give us an example, I guess, of the types of contexts that you are testing sustainable materials here. So give us kind of the universe we’re operating in.
David Asiello Well, just to give it a little bit of context. Sustainability in general is something that the department has been embracing for a while now. And really what that means, it’s a kind of a mission imperative. If you look at the strategic nature of sustainability in general. We look at the vision in the department is to maintain the ability to operate into the future without decline, either in the mission or in the natural manmade systems that support it. And by that we mean the natural systems would be the air, the land, the water, the energy we need to do our job. And the manmade systems, of course, would be our weapons systems and platforms, and then the people are the ones that operate those. So bringing this all together in a sustainable fashion is a really important objective of the department. Going up more into a tactical nature, we look at, well, what kinds of things can we do? Well, we can procure goods and services that are more sustainable, that enhance mission readiness, are cost effective, achieve compliance, prevent pollution, ensure availability as things get harder to get because of various restrictions, and minimize impacts to the warfighter, negative impacts. And do that, we need to test and ensure that these products work. And that’s what the program is all about.
Tom Temin And you’re looking at the types of consumables that might be in operational settings or tactical or combat settings.
David Asiello In some cases, yes. Often yes. They’re mostly consumables, as you said, they’re technologies that typically we can get and utilize in our operations and maintenance activities and in our buildings and other less tactical operations as well. So it’s across the board is what we’re looking at.
Tom Temin And in the military setting, you can’t just pick something out of a catalog and say, well, this is sustainable and just give it to the troops, because it’s too crucial. That setting to be able to deploy it without thorough testing.
David Asiello Exactly right. We need to make sure that the products do work, that these technologies do work. If they don’t work, we’re not going to pursue them. And more often than not, we’re finding that the sustainable technologies work just as well, in some cases even better, with a lot of intangible benefits that aren’t just about environment and the protection of the warfighter, but enhancing performance. Yes, that’s true.
Tom Temin And what are typical of the products this particular STED program deals with? Because the military is looking at grids that are self-sustaining for bases, really big types of strategic types of things or jets that can run on biofuels and so forth. You’re looking at more of the day to day type of stuff.
David Asiello Yes, exactly. We have other programs. Look at larger types of research and development. What we’re trying to do is take things that maybe even off the shelf that have not been proven in a military environment. Take them to the warfighter, let them try it out. Let them tell us, does it work? Do they like it? What doesn’t work about it? And then try to implement that and going through the process, which can be time consuming and a little bit labor intensive to try to get these alternatives into the system so the warfighter has availability.
Tom Temin Well, give us an example of such a product.
David Asiello One that’s been really successful recently as a cleaner lubricant preservative for firearms. It’s a bio based COP, and it’s been tested now for a while at various installations. We worked with the military specification owner. It picked any arsenal, it controls and owns that spec, and over time working with our sister Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP), we’re able to validate that these alternatives do work and even better. And then over time we were able to change the spec. It wasn’t easy, the spec is very, very restrictive, but we had to meet all the requirements to make sure we could get it in the system. And once we’ve done that, now we’re eliminating the non bio based spec.
Tom Temin Right. And just a couple of detail questions here. Chemical lubricant preservative, that’s one liquid that does all three of those things?
David Asiello Yes, sir. Years ago, the military determined that having three different chemicals or a cleaner, a lubricant and preservative was not logistically effective back in the 60s. So they moved and developed a product that has all three of those properties.
Tom Temin Right. And I guess that would be good for anybody then, if it serves, say, the Marine Corps or the Army in the demands they put on weapons, it’s probably good for the average hunter, too, I imagine.
David Asiello Absolutely. We’ve actually worked with the other federal agencies, like some of the security agencies to their weapons and the police force. And it’s for all that and definitely outdoors. It’s one of the products they do like a lot.
Tom Temin We’re speaking with David Asiello. He’s director of sustainability and acquisition in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations and Environment. And once you discover something like this could be a commercial product, this particular liquid that does all of those things for weapons, then you have the challenge of getting it into the system. Would this be normally supplied by the Defense Logistics Agency or does it come under the ordnance acquisition, which is not DLA, but some other branch?
David Asiello Yeah. In this case it comes under the Defense Logistics Agency, but there are a variety of other products, is why we work very closely with our other agencies like GSA. We do provide a lot of products to the department. As a matter of fact, not that long ago, my previous Deputy Assistant Secretary, Richard Kidd, signed an MOU with GSA, that if products pass our testing in the STED program, GSA will fast track those into the system as meeting the requirements.
Tom Temin And just continuing with this example, you go to the average gun shop, there’s maybe 15 brands of this, that and the other that all do the same thing. For the volumes and the criticality of supply and reliability of the supply chain that the Defense Department needs or the government, I guess you could say, if everyone adopts this particular product, what do you do to ensure that the supply is sustainable from a volume and reliability of delivery standpoint?
David Asiello Yeah, great question. So in this case specifically, we were not going to move to a buyer of a sealed piece solely until we had several qualified products. So the owner of the specification ensure that we have multiple products available. So it’s not sole source, we don’t have to rely on one company or one supplier so that we have that capability and ability, because we definitely cannot have our warfighter without the products they need to do their job.
Tom Temin And have you ever tried out something under the STED and the operational units testing it come back and say, No, this doesn’t work.
David Asiello Yeah, actually, it’s true. It doesn’t work as well. It has to work as well or better. And in some cases we go back to the manufacturer and give them the opportunity to reformulate or try it out again as the warfighter tells us what the problems were. And in some cases, that doesn’t come to fruition, but in other cases it has.
Tom Temin Anything else in the pipeline that’s interesting.
David Asiello There’s so many. We have a website, Sustainable Products Center, which is open to the public. There’s so many technologies that we’ve been demonstrating over time. One that I think, it’s doesn’t sound super sexy or anything, but it’s the bio based organs, which is fantastic. It has so many properties that are great for if you have a motor pool or you spill hydraulic fluid or oil engine oil as you repairing your vehicles. It works way better than what we’ve been currently using, clay based organs and kitty litter and other things that are harmful to human health. But also it reduces waste. It’s cost effective, it works better. There’s so many of these examples, energy efficient doors we’ve been putting in many of our installations, bio based hydraulic fluids. Here’s an example if you guys have time. In a marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training center out in California is where we do all of our cold weather training for the Marines. Mountains, they have things like snow cats and they use it to ensure that they can do their training. Well, the colonel out there decided he would try the bio based hydraulic fluid, got certification approval by Caterpillar and John Deere. Manufacturers tried it out, there was an accident, a spillage that occurred. And because it was bio based and this is a in cal EPA, it’s in a national forest, came in because it’s bio based. They didn’t have to shut down their operations, do a long term cleanup, did a quick surface treat, and they were back to work. And it pays for itself in a couple of years. It’s very much more cost effective. So these are many examples, and I could go into a little more time that we have to talk about them.
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Tom Temin
Tom Temin is host of the Federal Drive and has been providing insight on federal technology and management issues for more than 30 years.
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