Sustainability and Project Management

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainability is based on the concept of sustainable development. This concept could allow current generations to meet their needs and have a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature, without compromising the ability of future generations to do the same. Therefore, integral sustainability rests on at least three pillars, based on environmental, social, and economic concerns that have to be taken into account throughout the entire life cycle of the activity, product, or service in question.

The environmental pillar must be aimed at preserving the planet in conditions suitable for life. Without it, the human race could not survive, and there could be neither society nor, therefore, economic activity. Consequently, it is the most important pillar.

The social pillar is second in importance and entails, among other issues, generating suitable employment, minimizing risks to the population, and reducing socio-economic differences among the different population strata, and among different regions and countries. It is easy to understand that this pillar is related to ethical and cultural aspects. Neglecting the social pillar could lead the majority of the population into a mere survival economy, seriously affecting economic activity. National or international conflicts may also arise.

All of the above does not diminish the importance of the economic pillar, which is closely connected to the other two.

Moreover, in certain cases, some authors include a fourth pillar of sustainability: the technical, functional, or performance pillar. Thus, for example, if for a given activity we have to choose between products with different environmental, social, and economic consequences, the performance of such products may also differ.

In short, sustainability is ideally about being able to maintain life on the planet indefinitely, in suitable conditions for all species. Unfortunately, sustainability is in its infancy, and for now nothing is strictly sustainable. Almost all human activities have some impact on the planet—a situation which cannot be maintained indefinitely. Perhaps, in the future, by employing new technologies, strict sustainability could be achieved. For now, moving towards sustainability means looking for the solutions with the least impact, designing and using products and services with the lowest environmental and social footprint, with the better life-cycle cost.

Nevertheless, the planet is giving warning signals. We do not know how much time we have before we face very serious or even fatal environmental, social, and economic problems, whether reversible or irreversible. Time may be running out. The entire world population, and especially the scientific community, must work quickly and exhaustively in this field. Project management specialists must also be involved.

A project is a human effort to create a product or service, or other unique outcome, in a limited period of time. Traditionally, project objectives have been defined in terms of scope, time, cost, and quality, although there may be other objectives. Today, every project should have sustainability objectives. Ideally, there should be an environmental objective, one related to social responsibility, and the cost objective should cover the entire life cycle of the project. A global sustainability objective could also be set, using multi-criteria methods to integrate these three objectives.

Project management consists of a set of activities aimed at achieving project objectives. Companies and public institutions develop a growing number of projects, as well as programmes made up of several interrelated projects. Many of these are exclusively project-oriented organizations. Project managers may work towards sustainability without outside help. It is therefore important for them to be prepared for this so that they can take a proactive approach towards sustainability. The same can be said of the programme manager, perhaps even more so. However, both often have limitations or barriers related to their own knowledge and experience, corporate policies, stakeholder pressures, and the project team.

Within public bodies, decision-makers are influenced by the political system and the periodic nature of governments. At the same time, many business managers concentrate on the immediate economic profitability. In some cases, they only consider the mere business “sustainability”, with a different approach to the one discussed here. The environment in which these organizations exist favors this situation. These attitudes run counter to the true concept of sustainability, which has a broader scope and is conceived for the very long term.

The greatest levels of effectiveness can only be obtained if corporate management directs the organization towards true sustainability, transforming the organizational culture. In this sense, the project portfolio manager can have more influence than programme and project managers.

In terms of sustainability and project management, various authors have adopted different approaches. One is focused on designing and developing a product that is as sustainable as possible; this approach does not have much to do with project management. Another is to ensure that current project management processes include sustainability aspects.

We believe that the most crucial approach is one that strives for new processes for managing sustainability objectives. Sustainability should not be a cross-cutting issue in current project management processes; it should be a specific process in its own right. The scientific community must provide project management associations with the necessary ideas to expand and improve their standards of practice in this field.

Thus, recommended topics include, but are not limited to:

• Theoretical and conceptual aspects.
• Processes for managing the sustainability objectives in projects, and interrelations with the other project management processes (integration, scope, time, cost or quality, among others).
• Issues and challenges, critical success factors and benefits of sustainable project management.
• Risks and opportunities, and their management, in projects for obtaining sustainable products.
• Techniques and tools (indicators, modelling, estimation, assessment, simulation, decision-making):
  • For establishing, monitoring, and controlling sustainability objectives in projects (i.e., environmental, social, economic, and global sustainability objectives).
  • For including sustainability in the feasibility assessment of projects.
  • For selecting sustainable project portfolios.
• Sustainability-oriented transformation of project-driven organizations and stakeholders, including aspects related to ethics and corporate culture, among other issues.
• Project team: competencies and attitudes, and their influence on sustainable project management.
• Education and training.
• Real case studies related to the previous topics, including success and failure stories, among others.

Prof. Dr. Alfredo del Caño
Dr. M. Pilar de la Cruz López
Dr. Manuel Lara
Dr. Juan José Cartelle Barros
Guest Editors

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