A Business Case to make sustainability work in project management

Sustainability in the triple bottom line (TBL), also referred as 3P framework (People, Planet, Profit) is becoming a key driver for business strategy in the 21st century (Elkington, 1999). The question “How can we develop prosperity without compromising the life of future generations?” is today generally recognized worldwide as a basic need for setting strategic goals of organizations (Tharp, 2012). In scientific literature, sustainability is a fair new topic (Aarseth et al, 2016). What is missing today is the deployment of these strategic goals related to sustainability into the operational activities of organization (Brook, 2014). The discipline that can help organizations achieve their strategic goals is project management: in fact, in order to survive and prosper in a global environment that is continuously evolving, organizations must endlessly develop changes in their way of doing business, and project management is a key skill capable to execute these changes in a structured manner (Silvius et al., 2012). Currently, no Project Management frameworks (PMI and IPMA above all) include sustainability knowledge areas or specific processes (VV.AA., 2017; Macelino- Sabada, 2015). Moreover, no specific input nor output in project management frameworks considers sustainability in the 3P approach, but only some (rare) specific points referring to one of the three pillars can be found (Silvius et al., 2012). A project manager, alone, can’t succeed in including sustainability goals in his/her project, if these goals are competing with goals set by the project sponsor and/or PMO in the project charter (Martens, 2017). In order to influence the way project management is carried out, and to include sustainability into project goals, decisions must be made during the business analysis phase (i.e. the phase during which decision on what project solution is the best to solve the problem addressed is taken), analysed and included into the business case, approved through a formal Go/NoGo decision, so that project managers are fully empowered to develop projects in a controlled manner (Gimenez, 2012; Carvalho, 2017). In fact, no organization would leave the discretionary power to make decisions related to sustainability to individual project managers (Martens, 2016). Indeed, sustainability decisions cause expenses that cannot be justified simply from the project’s point of view, because sustainability has long-term goals, whereas project goals are generally shortterm oriented (Silvius et al., 2012). Decisions on sustainability must be made at a strategic level and, then, cascaded to professionals managing the tactic level, otherwise not even the best project managers have the power to implement sustainability principles (Sanchez, 2015). For example, in civil (mega)projects, sustainability rating systems, such as LEED for buildings or Envision for infrastructures, can be applied. These frameworks cause direct cost of resources to carry them on all along the project duration, and indirect cost for extra-design required and for non-standard solutions to address sustainability goals (Chandratilake 2013; Oluwalaiye, 2019): these direct and indirect extracosts cannot be decided in the project phase, but must be decided before the decision of developing the project is taken. This approach is potentially in conflict with the definition of project management: “The application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirement” (VV.AA., 2017). In fact, if project requirements only include project goals and requirements needed for the project’s specific purpose, probably sustainability has no chance to be present in project management. Instead, project requirements must include points that consider the organization’s long term strategy: in this way, sustainability can be seen as sustainable for business purposes (Oakland, 2015). For this reason, this paper identifies principles for developing a business case for a (mega)project including sustainability, in order to evaluate the implications of incorporating a 3P framework in the way projects are selected. It is the Author’s opinion that, as long as the cost for sustainability implementation has not been clearly included into project budget, sustainability will still resemble one of the “good intentions”, without a concrete possibility to be implemented through projects. In the following section of this paper, the Author will list strategies to implement sustainability in projects within a 3P framework, classified within distinct business sectors, and provide hints for evaluating direct and indirect costs and benefits, to work as an input for a business case and an economic evaluation of the project (Banihashemi, 2017; Beske, 2014; Chong, 2017; Clinning, 2017; Shah, 2018; Terrapon-Pfaff, 2014; Xue, 2018). Sustainability goals are economically sustainable if considered in the organizational framework (long-term). If the short-term focus is maintained, sustainability goals cannot be supported because violating the economic sustainability. The preliminary topics to be considered by this research are: Direct cost savings due (mainly) to environmental sustainability, such as reducing the use of material and energy during project development; Increase in the market share of the performing organization due to the increasing demand of sustainable products worldwide Reduction of risks occurrency and impact by implementing sustainable practices Increase in the organization’s share value and received investments due to implementation of sustainable practices Personnel turn over reduction, and attractiveness for qualified professional, in implementing sustainability principles Better decision-making process due to the resolution of ethical dilemmas Increasing the performing organization’s brand value In the following steps, the research will develop in detail the balancing of costs for sustainability and benefits both in the short term and in the long term of implementing it