The podcast by project managers for project managers. Projects are instrumental in defining an organization's vision for a more sustainable future. Dr. Joel Carboni talks about Sustainable Project Management, and the goal to achieve a stated objective while considering the project outcome’s entire lifecycle to ensure a net positive environmental, social, and economic impact. 

Table of Contents

02:23 … Green Project Management03:41 … Multifaceted Sustainability04:42 … The UN Sustainable Development Goals08:35 … Green vs. Sustainable Projects09:51 … The Lifecycle Impact of Projects12:09 … Barriers to Sustainability Adoption13:25 … Questions to Ask on a Project Kickoff15:40 … Ren Love: Projects of the Past17:49 … Changing Role of the Project Manager18:54 … Raising Awareness20:54 … How to Influence Stakeholders22:47 … How to Evaluate Impact24:30 … PRiSM Project Delivery Methodology26:02 … The P527:42 … P5 in Action30:24 … Project Managers can Affect Change31:37 … Contact Joel32:18 … Closing

JOEL CARBONI: We’re not being taught to think outside the box of initiate to close.  It’s what is the impact of our work, and what happens beyond handover?  What happens at the end of the asset’s lifecycle?  So when we look at green projects, it’s are you taking a total asset lifecycle focus?  And that’s what we have to do.

WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  I’m Wendy Grounds.  With me in the studio are Bill Yates and our sound guy, Danny Brewer.  We’re so excited that you’re joining us, and we have a really interesting conversation today.  We’re talking about Green Project Management.

Our guest is Dr. Joel Carboni.  He holds a Ph.D. in sustainable development and environment, and he has over 25 years of experience in various areas of project management including government, finance, consulting, manufacturing, and education.  In addition to serving as president emeritus of the International Project Management Association (IPMA) in the United States, Dr. Carboni is also the founder of GPM, Green Project Management.  And he’s the GPM representative to the United Nations Global Compact, where he was a founding signatory of the Business for Peace initiative and the Anti-Corruption Call to Action.  And he’s a contributor to the development of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

BILL YATES:  SDG is a Sustainable Development Goal.  We’ll hear from Dr. Carboni that he actually worked with the United Nations to define those 17.  Just some quick examples of some of those.  One of those is climate action; another is clean water; another is no poverty.  A final example, quality education.  So those are some of the sustainable development goals that we’ll refer to.

Also Dr. Carboni is the creator of the PRiSM project delivery methodology.  We’ll make reference to that and the P5 standard for sustainability in project management.  He’s written training programs on green and sustainable project management that are offered to more than 145 countries.  He’s the lead author of the book Sustainable Project Management, and he is a well-traveled man.  We are fortunate to catch up with him and get to talk to him today.

WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Joel.  Welcome to Manage This.

JOEL CARBONI:  Thank you.  It’s good to be here.

Green Project Management

WENDY GROUNDS:  We are looking forward to getting into this topic.  I’ve been watching your website and been looking at Green Project Management for a while.  And I’ve always said, “Hey, I want to have Joel on the podcast.”  So I appreciate you being here.  Now, you’ve done a lot of work in sustainability.  You established Green Project Management.  Can you tell us a little bit more about your organization?

JOEL CARBONI:  Yeah, sure.  So GPM, Green Project Management, we’re a social enterprise.  And that sits in between a nonprofit and a for-profit company.  So what makes us unique is that a large portion of our income or revenue is redirected into social and environmental good.  So we don’t just make a profit, we try to funnel that back into the projects and for social good.  I started GPM as an idea back in 2009 and did so on a small side table in my bedroom, the idea that projects could be the delivery mechanism for sustainable development.  And since that time, we’ve grown year by year.  And we offer tools and methods, certification for people, our most popular being the GPM-b™, and also our organizational sustainability assessment model and other tools.  So we’re quite happy with the growth we’ve seen and what we’ve become.

Multifaceted Sustainability

WENDY GROUNDS:  Many people when they hear about sustainability, they just think about environmental issues.  Tell us a little bit more about what are all the issues of sustainability and how you teach that.

JOEL CARBONI:  That’s a good question.  So sustainability is multifaceted.  We work with a lot of organizations, and I think it’s a little bit irresponsible for organizations who just focus on net zero.  We hear that a lot.  Net zero by 2050 or, you know, that aspect of sustainability is really all they focus on.  We can’t ignore human rights, which is a core concept of sustainability, as well as a fair and just economy.  We have to focus on all these at once.  So keeping all these balls up in the air, it’s a wide spectrum. 

And so we have to figure out how do we actually address this.  That’s why we go always back to projects because projects address the economy.  They address change, and they employ a wide range of people and have an effect on the environment.  So we have the ability to address all these different factors by still doing good with our projects.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals

BILL YATES:  We are going to reference an episode that we had in the past.  It was Episode 120.  That was the first time that I got exposed to this idea of the 17 United Nations SDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals.  We had Karen Thompson and Nigel Williams as our guests, discussing responsible project management.  Let’s bring these back up for those who are not as familiar with those 17 SDGs.  Remind us what they are and why they’re important to a project manager when it comes to creating value.

JOEL CARBONI:  Sure.  That’s a good topic.  You know, the SDGs, I can say that I love them, and also I hate them.  And fun fact, I actually helped write them.  So, you know, I do have extensive experience, and my Ph.D. thesis was actually on the MDGs, which preceded them before that.  So I’ve been working with SDGs now for a long, long time.

The problem with SDGs, if I could start there, is that they’re not written for us to take action as people.  They’re written for governments and for nations to say, hey, how do you fit into this puzzle, and how can you set targets and goals to address this in your context; right?  For example, the first one is end poverty in all forms.  Great.  You know, but poverty is really an economic decision.  We could do this if we wanted to, but they don’t address the root cause about why poverty exists in the first place. 

Why does poverty exist?  So in the targets and goals, they say we have several targets to meet in terms of ending poverty.  It should just be, let’s just end poverty.  Can we all agree and just work towards that?  It doesn’t tell you why it exists or what social constructs are put in place to maintain poverty and to keep the different cast where they are.  It’s kind of a mess.

So the SDGs are good in a sense that they bring and they highlight problems that we have to be addressing as a whole planet.  But it doesn’t address root cause.  And that’s really what we have to figure out as project managers.  What can we impact with our work?  Right?  If you break it down into small chunks, okay, we employ people.  Are we ensuring that they’re paid a livable wage?  These types of things are really important.

I’ll give you an example.  I was giving a lecture several years ago in the south of France.  So the SDGs first came out.  So this is back in like 2016 or so.  And I was giving a talk to probably about 300 students.  I thought they were students in the room.  This was a university.  I had this big football, or soccer ball we call it in the U.S., in my hand, and it had the SDGs on it.  So I tossed it up at the crowd, said hey, the first one that comes to you, tell me, what does that mean to you and your work?

And this guy caught it.  He looked at it, and he was trying to make sense of it.  He goes, “It just doesn’t relate to me.”  And it was about inequality.  And I said, “Okay, tell me, what exactly do you do?”  He goes, “Well, I’m a project manager, but I work in agile. We develop software for the airline industry.”  “Okay. Well, tell me, do you build it all here in France?”  And he goes, “Well, most of it.”  I said, “Okay, what do you not build here?”  “Well, some of it we outsource to different places.”  And I said, “Okay, where?”  He said, “Some goes to Pakistan.” 

I said, “Okay, pause right there.  Tell me, do you select the vendors yourself?  Are you in that selection committee?  Are you part of that?”  “Well, yeah.”  “Okay, is any of your criteria ensuring that the people on the other end, your vendors, are paid a livable wage or work in healthy environments?”  “No.”  “Okay, what are your criteria for selecting a vendor?”  “Cheapest price.”

And there you go; right?  We’re part of the problem, but we could be part of the solution if we put KPIs and measures into our selection criteria for vendors that actually address that issue.  So once I made that connection, he went, “Oh, now I see.”  And he started looking at all of them going, there’s inroads to all these through our work.  I’m like, there is.  But you have to take the time to actually break it down and go, what does this really mean to me?  At face value,