Low-VOC Leadership: Transforming Industrial Coatings in Oil & Gas Through Sustainable Innovation”

1. Executive Summary.
As an executive MBA student working fulltime, Jesse was able to bring a sustainability leader’s mindset to a non-sustainability work process and industry in his work at a major oil corporation. He selected a project from his day-to-day duties to show that business centric decisions can overlap environmentally friendly initiatives while delivering higher results. In his role, the reliability and performance of largely used industrial coating system at the corporation was under review. Typically, these industrial systems are high in VOCs and are rolled over and reused year to year, but in this instance the existing coating system was discontinued. Many different solutions were presented by vendors based on cost and performance alone. He challenged the norm and took the opportunity to find a more environmentally friendly solution. After extensive testing, vetting, modeling, presentations, and buy off. He was able to find a more sustainable product that could be used across Southern California for the company. It achieved a 92% reduction in VOC emissions, with an upgrade in reliability, at no additional cost to his company. His project was a clear representation of personal environmental ownership, sustainable leadership in action, and successful implementation.

2. Collaborators.
The client and employer are one of the leading ESG oil & gas companies. A tough to implement sector from a sustainability perspective, making the success of the project even more so impressive. I organized and worked with multiple vendors, Labs, coating/paint contractors, subject matter experts internally and externally of the company.

3. Your Role Well Defined.
My role was the originator, researcher, presenter, verifier, and presenter of the wholistic project. I acted as the project owner and sole champion for the initiative. With out my involvement the project would not have come to be, and the VOC emissions related to our coating activities would have continued.

4. Importance, Goals, and Measurable Objectives.
The goal of the project was to replace our existing options for industrial coating with a less environmentally impactful alternative. The facility uses over 1000 gallons of these types of products annually, often compromising 70+% VOCs which are a powerful environmentally damaging emission. The importance of reducing this emitter is to create an impactful change while also being the example for low emission efforts in the future at the company. Measurement of success was to lower the VOC content which impacts local environments while also meeting the high industrial demands of the coating system from a reliability perspective, while also managing any cost increases to do so. The project achieved all the intended goals and exceeded in the sustainability aspace due to the drastic reduction achieved. The areas of focus are sustainability and economic. The project touches on social equity of the surrounding communities but that was not covered in this project.

5. Timeline. The project was completed in 9 months and was a success reducing VOCs 92% and meeting all metrics. Partnerships were set up with 3 large coating manufacturers (Sherwin Williams, Carboline, and PPG). We utilized testing labs locally in So California and conducted trails onsite to ensure equal reliability of the new sustainable coating alternative. Internal company resources included operations, reliability, engineering, SMEs, and procurement. The results of the project have been integrated into standard company practice and will be used moving forward with positive impact.