Adopting sustainability begins with an understanding of the
concepts of sustainability, the business value proposition, and gaining the
support of the C-suite to promote strategic alignment between sustainable and
business strategy. Once leadership has embraced the benefits of a sustainable
approach, the challenge becomes integrating sustainability into core values
that impact people, process, and policies.
To begin the process, you must understand your
organization’s readiness for sustainable change. Where is the organization on
its sustainability journey? Are you just beginning the process or are you
experienced with sustainability programs and projects. Tools such as the
Sustainability Assessment helps to identify areas of organizational strength
and weakness as it relates to sustainable strategy providing a roadmap for
improvement.
The key to transformational change is creating alignment
between business and sustainable strategy and then effectively implementing the
strategy. Project management professionals offer part of the solution through
methodologies and structure for planning and implementing programs and projects
that drive organizational sustainability. In order to achieve success, project
management professionals need additional skills to over come organizational
barriers. These include gaining tools and techniques to identify and gather
requirements from a broad and diverse stakeholder group. The stakeholder
engagement process is complex and multi-faceted. Identifying material issues through evaluating
an organization’s product value chain provides perspective on the full impact of
operations on natural, social and financial capital. Forging relationships with
key business leaders through identifying the impact that sustainable strategy
has on their areas of responsibility is an effective means of forging alliances
and gaining additional champions. In particular, human capital professionals
can be strategic allies in the process of transforming an organization’s
culture toward sustainability.
The portfolio management process facilitates alignment
between sustainability and core business strategy through the portfolio
component selection process. Tools such as Sustainability Portfolio Alignment
Matrix facilitate the process.
In order to unlock the benefits of sustainability, we focus
on driving change and embedding sustainability.
Defining metrics, gathering and managing data, and reporting on progress
adds credibility to the impact of a sustainable transformation. This approach
considers how sustainable strategy impacts all aspects of an organization’s
value chain from raw material sourcing, supplier selection, engagement of
talent, to customer requirements.
Project management professionals will learn from case
studies, project plans, and interviews with sustainability professionals who
have undertaken programs and projects to embed sustainability within their
organizations. Project management professionals will gain a better understanding
of drivers of misalignment between strategic sustainable vision and implementation
as well as tools and techniques to improve their sustainability program and
project success. Full benefit realization of a sustainable approach relies on
effective alignment between strategy and implementation.
