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

David Asiello Well, just to give you some context. Sustainability in general is something the department has been embracing for some time. And really what that means, it’s kind of a mission imperative. If you look at the strategic nature of sustainability in general. We look at the department’s vision is to maintain the ability to operate into the future without decline, either in the mission or in the natural man-made systems that support it. And by that we mean the natural systems like air, land, water, the energy we need to do our work. And the man-made systems, of course, would be our weapons systems and platforms, and then it’s the humans that operate them. So bringing all of these together in a sustainable way is a really important goal of the department. Going more in a tactical nature, we’re looking at, well, what kinds of things can we do? Well, we can acquire goods and services that are more sustainable, that improve mission readiness, are cost effective, ensure compliance, prevent pollution, ensure availability as things become harder to obtain due to various restrictions and minimizes the impact on the fighter, the negative impact. . And if we do that, we need to test and make sure these products work. And that’s what the program is about.

Tom Temin And you’re looking at the types of supplies that might be in operational settings or tactical or combat settings.

David Asiello In some cases, yes. Often yes. They’re mostly consumables, like you said, they’re technologies that we can usually get and use in our operations and maintenance activities and in our buildings and other less tactical operations. So it’s what we’re looking at everywhere.

Tom Temin And in the military, you can’t just pick something out of a catalog and say, well, this is sustainable and give it to the troops, because it’s too crucial. This setting so you can implement it without thorough testing.

David Asiello Exactly right. We have to make sure that the products work, that these technologies work. If it doesn’t work, we won’t track them. And more often than not, we find that sustainable technologies work just as well, in some cases even better, with a host of intangible benefits that not only relate to the environment and fighter protection, but also performance enhancement. Yes, it is true.

Tom Temin And what are typical of the products that this STED program deals with? Because the military is looking at self-sustaining networks for bases, very large types of strategic things or airplanes that can run on biofuels and so on. You look at more things everyday.

David Asiello Yes, exactly. We have other programs. Look at the larger types of research and development. What we’re trying to do is take things that maybe right off the shelf 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 wrong with this? And then you try to implement that and go through the process, which can be time consuming and a little bit labor intensive to try to get these alternatives into the system so that the fighter has availability.

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

David Asiello One that has been very successful recently as a clean lubricant preservative for firearms. It is a bio-based COP and has been tested for some time now at various installations. I worked with the military spec owner. Whatever arsenal he chooses, he controls and owns those specifications, and over time, working with our Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP), we’re able to validate that these alternatives perform even better. And then, over time, we were able to change the specifications. It wasn’t easy, the specs are very, very restrictive, but we had to meet all the requirements to make sure we could get it into the system. And once we’ve done that, we’re now removing non-bio-based specs.

Tom Temin Correct. And just a few detailed questions here. Chemical Lubricant Preservative, is this a liquid that does all three of these things?

David Asiello Yes, sir. Years ago, the military determined that having three different chemicals or a cleaner, a lubricant, and a preservative was not logistically efficient in the 60s. So they moved on and developed a product that has all three of these properties.

Tom Temin Correct. And I think it would be fine for anybody then, if it serves, say, the Marine Corps or the Army in the requirements they put on guns, it’s probably fine for the average hunter as well, I imagine.

David Asiello Absolute. I actually worked with other federal agencies like some of the security agencies with their weapons and police forces. And it is for all this and definitely outdoors. It is one of the products they like a lot.

Tom Temin We’re talking to David Asiello. He is director of sustainability and acquisitions in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Facilities, and Environment. And once you find that something like that could be a commercial product, this special 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 is it part of the munitions procurement which is not DLA but another branch?

David Asiello Yes. In this case, it falls under the Defense Logistics Agency, but there are a variety of other products, so we work very closely with our other agencies, such as GSA. We offer a lot of products to the department. In fact, not too long ago, my former deputy assistant secretary, Richard Kidd, signed a memorandum of understanding with GSA, whereby if products pass our testing in the STED program, GSA will fast track those into the system as meet the requirements.

Tom Temin And continuing with this example, you go to a typical gun store, there are maybe 15 brands of this, that, and the other that all do the same thing. For the volumes and the criticality of the supply and the reliability of the supply chain that the Department of Defense or the government needs, I guess you could say, if everyone is adopting this particular product, what do you do to make sure the supply is sustainable from a volume? and delivery point reliability?

David Asiello Yeah, great question. So in this case, we weren’t going to move to a sealed part buyer until we had more qualified products. So the spec owner makes sure we have more products available. So it’s not a single source, we don’t have to rely on one company or one supplier to have that capability and ability because we certainly can’t have our fighter without the products that they need to make their job.

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

David Asiello Yes, in fact, it is true. It doesn’t go as well. It should work as well or better. And in some cases we go back to the manufacturer and give them the opportunity to reformulate or try again while the fighter tells us what the problems were. And in some cases, that doesn’t work out, but in other cases it did.

Tom Temin Anything else in the pipeline that is interesting.

David Asiello There are so many. We have a website, the Sustainable Products Center, which is open to the public. There are so many technologies that we have demonstrated over time. One that I think doesn’t sound super sexy or anything, but it’s bio-based organs, which is fantastic. It has so many properties that are great if you have a motor pool or spill hydraulic fluid or motor oil while repairing your vehicles. It works much better than what we currently use, clay based organs and cat litter and other things that are bad for human health. But it also reduces waste. It’s cost effective, works better. There are so many of these examples, energy efficient doors that we put in many of our facilities, bio hydraulic fluids. Here’s an example if you have time. At a Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center in California, it’s where we do all the cold weather training for Marines. The mountains, they have things like snow cats and they use them to make sure they can train. Well, the colonel there decided to try bio-based hydraulic fluid and got certification approval from Caterpillar and John Deere. Manufacturers tried it, there was an accident, there was a leak. And because it was organic and this is an EPA in the horse, it’s in a national forest, it came because it’s organic. They didn’t have to shut down their operations, do a long-term cleanup, do a quick surface treatment, and they’re back to work. And it pays for itself in a few years. It is much more cost effective. So those are a lot of examples and I could go into a little bit more time that we have to talk about them.