Ecological sustainability has become an important issue not only on the political agenda, but also in education. Achieving sustainability of business activities, intertwining social, economic, and environmental perspectives, is one of the most challenging objectives for organisations and companies all over the world. In addition, projects funded through European programmes should be examined carefully when it comes to their ecological sustainability.
Sustainability is not just about protecting the environment, or seeking environmentally friendly ‘green’ credentials for our project. It is much more, and it is becoming increasingly important every day.
Sustainability is about ensuring that access to the resources, environments, cultures and lifestyles that we enjoy today, are there to also be enjoyed by future generations. Increasing pollution, loss of cultures, peak mining and resource extraction, financial crisis, pandemics, and climate change, are a few of many examples of the complex challenges we face in this rapidly changing world we live – now and in the future.
If we take the concept of sustainability seriously and broaden its application beyond the green washing that we so often see, we have a chance to better manage the challenges our world is presenting to us.
Project planning and project management play an important role in the implementation of sustainability in projects. Establishing sustainability principles in project governance frameworks broadens the governance teams outlook and, makes sure that the project can contribute to solving some of these issues. This requires diverse thinking, problem solving, awareness of the project in the broader context, and independent thought.
Projects are a great vehicle to respond to and create change, and it can be seen that project managers and project teams have a great opportunity to make some of these changes happen. Project managers have the skill set, the knowledge, and the tenacity to get things done.
If you are a professional working in the EU funded project management, our consortium would love to share with you our Curated Treasury of good practices in ecologically sustainable project management which will give an overview of all kinds of management procedures, organisation of events or trainings, etc. related to European funded projects and their analysis in respect of their ecological sustainability.
For more information, please visit our website: https://thinktwice.management/