Sustainable project management is “the planning, monitoring and controlling of project delivery and support processes…”. Sustainable project management takes the environmental, economical, and social aspects of a project into account. Throughout the life-cycle of the project the focus always remains on realizing the benefits for all stakeholders and the project is performed transparently, fairly, and ethically.
As the climate crisis deepens, it is now more necessary for every industry, organization, and individual to conceptualize how to live their lives or run their businesses in the most sustainable ways possible. Sustainable project management is important, so project managers can be more environmentally friendly and can also lead your clients to reach their own sustainability goals. No one can fight climate change on their own, and sustainable project management helps bring many groups together.
Here are some ways to achieve sustainability in project management.
1. Sustainability in Project Management: Assess Your Current Project
If you’ve never tried to determine how sustainable your projects are, this is a good first place to start. A sustainability analysis will help you to see your greatest opportunities for improvement, as well as becoming the starting point for your project, allowing you to look back in the future to see how you’ve improved. You need to weigh the potential benefit to the environment and the company’s reputation and the potential cost savings could result with each improvement.
2. Adopt a Sustainability Standard
As interest in project sustainability continues to grow, many companies and groups have set a personal sustainability standard to help executive leaders and project managers determine whether they can meet their sustainability goals. For example, Green Project Management, an organization that promotes sustainable development, recently released the P5 Standard for Sustainability in Project Management, a set of goals and metrics companies can use to guide their own efforts.
3. Encourage Better Business Practices
By developing better sustainability standards for your own project management business, you can encourage the other companies and clients you work with to raise their own standards of sustainability. Doing so will then raise the standards for the people they work with, creating a web of improved sustainability.
In this spirit, Envirotech is a leader in environmentally friendly office furniture. Our lines of remanufactured and refurbished office furniture helps reduce waste by keeping old furniture out of landfills, reducing the amount of energy used in manufacturing, and reusing as many old parts as possible. As you develop a higher standard of sustainability for your work, consider partnering up with companies who can demonstrate that they are committed to being an environmentally friendly partner.
References:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140822153341-14663138-what-is-sustainable-project-management/