Sustainability as a Project Management Ethical Obligation

 

Sustainability as a Project Management Ethical Obligation

 

Sustainability in Project Management, 2012

Silvius, G.,Schipper, R., Planko, J., Brink, J., Kohler, A.

Gower Publishing Limited, Surry, England

 

I read and developed comments on Sustainability in Project Management, a book by Silvius, Schipper et al for the Global Sustainability Community within the Project management institute. I often take a very critical view of books on project management, challenging academicians to make their work relevant to practicing project managers and challenging project management writers to show the research or the data that backs up their assertions. Sustainability in Project Management has a good balance of research based information and practical implications for project manager.

 

The forwards in the book set the stage. Nelmara Abrex, Deputy Chief Executive at the Global Reporting Initiative provides context when discussing the earth as a provider of natural resources for the generation of wealth. A generator that regenerates itself until we extract more resources than the earth is able to regenerate. At this point we begin to denigrate resources and the capacity to regenerate.

 

All countries and all businesses plan to grow. It is a model based on unlimited resources and a model inconsistent with our reality. This is the business case for the book. If our current economic practices are unsustainable, how do we change?

 

Projects by their nature enable change. Projects will be on the leading edge of whatever our new models become. As project management moves from a focus on the technical deliverable of the project to understanding and meeting the business need of the project, the skills and methods for project managers will change. This change in focus is best reflected in the new revisions of the PMI Body of Knowledge. 

 

Sustainability in project management suggests that project managers must also be responsible for driving sustainability on their project. The authors provide a good review of the literature that indicates that businesses have begun a new sustainability paradigm and are making changes in their organizations and developing reporting that parallels financial reports on performance.

 

The authors argue that this makes good business sense. They also argue the project managers have an ethical obligation to plan and execute their project sustainability. The books explains what this means, but that is for a later blog. I am interested in the ethical obligation of the project manager within the context of sustainability.

 

While Director of Sustainability of a college I attended a Sustainability Conference at Furman University. Five university presidents, who had all signed the American College and University Presidents’ Commitment to Climate Change, http://www.presidentsclimatecommitment.org, made a compelling argument for the university’s role in creating a more sustainable economy. One speaker declared that government was too political to make significant changes and business was to short term focused. Universities were uniquely positioned because all teacher, lawyers, scientist, bankers and business people spend time at our campuses. He argued forcefully that University Presidents have an ethical obligation in lead in developing a new economic paradigm that respects the regenerative ability of the earth.

 

I believe there is a more compelling ethical argument that says project managers have an ethical obligation create a new project management paradigm that inculcates sustainability into purpose of every project. If this is true we have a lot of work to do to develop new methods, new tools and new skills.

Russ