Sustainble project managment

Mathies Augustin Olrik Nielsen

Abstract

One of our times largest and most comprehensive challenges we as humans are facing is to turn our lifestyle and impact on the earth into something sustainable, that will leave future generations, wildlife and nature being able to live on the planet and sustain itself. A developing approach companies use to address implementation of sustainability in their processes are sustainable project management.

The UN Sustainability Goals has since 2015 put sustainability on the world agenda, but also agreements like the Paris Agreement, shows that there is a political consensus towards a more sustainable world. Companies all over the world are realising that they also need to take action to support these goals. The customers of companies are starting to expect sustainable action while directives and legislation like the upcoming European Sustainability Reporting Standards dictates companies to report their sustainable actions. Furthermore, companies are also realising that future economic profit is tightly connected to a more sustainable world and that sustainability actually can become a profitable business.

Sustainability implementation in companies tends to be seen from two perspectives. It can be a top-down management approach with the implementation of strategies that dictates that sustainability is on the agenda of the company and that there are clear goals to work towards.

It can also come from a bottom-up implementation in a specific area of the value chain, eg. implementing eco-design practices in the product development. Both approaches will be needed for companies to obtain incremental, but also larger and more systemic changes, towards sustainability in their operations and innovations.

In the middle of these to, the role of the project manager offers the possibility to combine and align both approaches. A sustainable project management approach can facilitate and govern top-down strategies while also systematizing and sharing bottom-up practises. By implementing the approach of sustainable project management, the purpose aspect of the project itself expands to include more than just the ordinary project success criteria, but now also includes the triple bottom line of environmental, social, and economical sustainability for the company and its surroundings.

This article will investigate how sustainable project management is performed in companies today and how it’s role might be in companies in the future. It will furthermore investigate which tools, practises, skills, and qualifications that are needed for implementation, governance, and documentation of sustainable project management in companies around the world.

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https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652617317444

https://greenprojectmanagement.org/about/what-is-sustainable-project-management

https://www.apm.org.uk/resources/what-is-project-management/what-is-sustainability-in-project-management/