Tom Temin And give us an example, I guess, of the kinds of contexts in which you’re testing sustainable materials here. So give us a little bit of the universe in which we operate.

David Asiel Well, just to give a little context. Sustainability in general is something the ministry has been committed to for some time. And really, what that means is a kind of mission imperative. If you look at the strategic nature of sustainability in general. We view the ministry’s vision as maintaining the capacity to operate into the future without decline, either in the mission or in the man-made natural systems that support it. And by that we mean that the natural systems would be the air, land, water and energy that we need to do our work. And the artificial systems, of course, would be our weapons systems and platforms, and those are the people who operate them. Bringing all this together in a sustainable way is therefore a very important objective of the ministry. Coming back more tactically, we look at what kinds of things can we do? Well, we can purchase more durable goods and services, which improve mission readiness, are cost effective, ensure compliance, prevent pollution, ensure availability as things become harder to obtain due to various restrictions and minimize the impacts on the combatant, the negative impacts. . And to do that, we need to test and ensure that these products work. And that’s the goal of the program.

Tom Temin And you look at the types of consumables that can be used in operational or tactical or combat settings.

David Asiel In some cases, yes. Often yes. These are mostly consumables, as you said, technologies that we can generally obtain and use in our operations and maintenance activities, in our buildings and in other less tactical operations. So it’s at all levels that we’re looking at.

Tom Temin And in the military context, you can’t just pick something out of a catalog and say it’s sustainable and give it to the troops, because that’s too crucial. This setting so it can be deployed without extensive testing.

David Asiel Exactly true. We need to make sure that the products work, that these technologies work. If they don’t work, we’re not going to pursue them. And more often than not, we find that sustainable technologies work just as well, in some cases even better, with many intangible benefits that relate not only to the environment and protection of the warfighter, but also to improved performance. Yes, it’s true.

Tom Temin And what are the typical products covered by this particular STED program? Because the military is looking at autonomous networks for bases, very large types of strategic objects or jet planes that can run on biofuels, etc. You look more at everyday things.

David Asiel Yes, exactly. We have other programs. Look at broader types of research and development. What we’re trying to do is take things that may even be commercially available that haven’t been proven in a military environment. Take them to the fighter, let them try. Let them tell us, does it work? Do they like it? What’s not working? And then try to implement that and go through the process, which can take time and a little bit of work to try to get those alternatives into the system so that the fighter is available.

Tom Temin Well, give us an example of such a product.

David Asiel This has seen great success recently as a cleaning lubricant and preservative for firearms. This is a bio-based COP, and it has been tested for some time in various facilities. We worked with the owner of the military specifications. He chose any arsenal, he controls and owns that specification, and over time, working with our sister Environmental Safety Technology Certification Program (ESTCP), we are able to validate that these alternatives work and even better. And then over time, we were able to change the specifications. It wasn’t easy, the specifications are very, very restrictive, but we had to meet all the requirements to make sure we could integrate it into the system. And once we’ve done that, we now eliminate the non-organic specifications.

Tom Temin RIGHT. And just some detailed questions here. A chemical preservative for lubricant, is it a liquid that does these three things?

David Asiel Yes sir. Years ago the Army determined that having three different chemicals or a cleaner, lubricant and preservative was not logistically efficient in the 60’s so they moved and expanded a product that has these three properties.

Tom Temin RIGHT. And I imagine it would be good for anyone, so if it serves, say, the Marine Corps or the Army in the requirements they place on weapons, it’s probably good for the hunter average too, I guess.

David Asiel Absolutely. We’ve actually worked with other federal agencies, like some security agencies for their weapons and police forces. And it’s for all that and definitely outdoors. It is one of the products that they really like.

Tom Temin We speak with David Asiello. He is the Director of Sustainability and Acquisition in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Facilities and Environment. And once you find out that something like this could be a commercial product, this particular liquid that does all these things for weapons, then you have the challenge of getting it into the system. Would this normally be provided by the Defense Logistics Agency or would it fall under munitions acquisition, which is not the responsibility of DLA, but another branch?

David Asiel Yeah. In this case, it falls under the Defense Logistics Agency, but there are a variety of other products, which is why we work closely with our other agencies like GSA. We supply a lot of products to the ministry. In fact, not long ago, my former Deputy Assistant Secretary, Richard Kidd, signed a memorandum of understanding with GSA that if the products passed our testing under the STED program, GSA would will quickly integrate into the system as meeting the requirements.

Tom Temin And continuing with this example, you go to an average gun store, there are maybe 15 brands of this, that and others that all do the same thing. Regarding the volumes, the criticality of supply and the reliability of the supply chain that the Department of Defense or the government requires, I guess you could say: if everyone adopts this particular product, what are you doing to ensure supply is sustainable from a volume and delivery reliability perspective?

David Asiel Yeah, great question. So in this specific case, we were not going to go to a buyer of just a sealed part until we had several qualified products. This ensures that the owner of the specification ensures that we have multiple products available. So it’s not a single vendor, we don’t need to rely on one company or one vendor to have that capability and capability because we certainly can’t have our warfighters without the products that they need to do their job.

Tom Temin And have you ever tried something under STED and the business units that test it come back and say, No, that doesn’t work.

David Asielo Yeah, actually, that’s true. It doesn’t work as well. It has to work just as well, or even better. And in some cases, we go back to the manufacturer and give them the opportunity to reword or try again as the warfighter tells us what the problems were. And in some cases it doesn’t work out, but in other cases it has.

Tom Temin Everything interesting in the works.

David Asiel There are so many. We have a website, Sustainable Products Center, which is open to the public. There are so many technologies that we have demonstrated over time. I think it doesn’t look super sexy or anything, but it’s the biological organs, which is fantastic. It has many properties that are ideal if you have a fleet vehicle or if you spill hydraulic fluid or engine oil while repairing your vehicles. This works much better than what we currently use, clay organs, kitty litter, and other things harmful to human health. But it also reduces waste. It’s profitable, it works better. There are so many of these examples, from energy efficient doors that we have installed in many of our facilities, to bio-based hydraulic fluids. Here’s an example if you have time. A Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center in California is where we conduct all of our cold weather training for Marines. In the mountains they have things like snow caterpillars and they use them to make sure they can do their training. Well, Colonel decided to try bio-based hydraulic fluid and got certification approval from Caterpillar and John Deere. The manufacturers tried, there was an accident, a spill. And because it was bio-based and it’s an EPA in cal, it’s in a national forest, it came in because it’s bio-based. They did not need to stop their operations, do long-term cleaning, do quick surface treatment, and they got back to work. And it pays for itself in a few years. It’s much more profitable. So those are a lot of examples, and I could spend a little more time talking about them.