0815 Matt Gitsham APM Conf 2025-Professor of Sustainable Development and Academic Director of the Hult Sustainability Lab, Hult International Business School

0815 Matt Gitsham APM Conf 2025-Professor of Sustainable Development and Academic Director of the Hult Sustainability Lab, Hult International Business School

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  Triple Accredited –Benchmarks of the Quality and Standards in Education we provide Triple Accredited – Benchmarks of the Quality and Standards in Education we provide Leadership for Sustainability in Project Management APM Conference: Projects for a Better Future June 2025 Prof Matt Gitsham, Hult International Business School
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  Reflections on yesterday •What did you take away that was new? • What questions do you have?
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  Net Zero by2050
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  Biodiversity crisis: Sixthmass extinction • On average, global populations of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles declined by 73% between 1970 and 2020 • Further evidence of the sixth mass extinction of life on earth • Causes • Habitat loss for agriculture • Overfishing • Pollution • Damaging habitats through development (roads, dams etc) • Hunting / illegal wildlife trade • Climate change (Source: WWF Living Planet Report 2024)
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  Human Rights andModern Slavery (Source: ILO, Global Slavery Index) • 50 million people in situations of modern slavery on any given day, either forced to work against their will or in a marriage that they were forced into ⎻ Forced labour accounts for 27.6 million ⎻ Forced marriage accounts for 22 million • Five sectors account for the majority of total adult forced labour: ⎻ Services ⎻ Manufacturing ⎻ Construction ⎻ Agriculture ⎻ Domestic work
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  ESG: creating andprotecting value by managing ESG issues • Environmental: eg climate, biodiversity, water, pollution • Social: eg human rights, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB), health, decent work and labour stds • Governance: eg bribery and corruption, tax evasion, accounting ethics, board oversight Regenerative approaches: actively improve things, leave things better than you found them
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  Sustainability in ProjectManagement • Sustainability in the project profession is an approach to business that balances the environmental, social, economic aspects of project-based working to meet the current needs of stakeholders without compromising or overburdening future generations. • Ensure outputs, outcomes and benefits of projects help achieve sustainability goals (SDGs). • The shift towards sustainable projects expands the role of a PM significantly beyond meeting traditional time, cost and quality criteria. • Key tools: • Carbon footprints • Life Cycle Analysis • Materiality Assessment • Human Rights Due Diligence Concept  Purpose of the project needs to consider sustainable and regenerative approaches  Align with organisational sustainability strategies and international frameworks  Integrate into business case and options analysis Definition  Define how sustainability will be achieved and measured and included in KPIs  Embed in project governance, decision-making and processes Deployment  Execute on sustainability objectives, and monitor KPIs throughout  Align supplier ESG credentials with project goals  Maintain engagement with stakeholders  Consider emerging and changing benefits of sustainable and regenerative approaches when deciding how to overcome obstacles Transition  Provide a sustainability handover plan to ensure users and beneficiaries benefit from the intended ESG outcomes Adoption  Monitor post-project sustainability and regenerative performance to track ongoing impact
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  Whose job isit to lead on tackling global sustainability challenges? Why do you think businesses and project managers are leading on this kind of activity?
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  Implications for yourleadership?
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  What implications doesall this have for leadership? For CEOs and exec teams? For leaders at all levels across an organisation? For Project Managers? Where you see others leading on this, what do you see them doing? How far does this already come up in your work? In what ways do you already play a leadership role? What does that involve? Where are areas where you need to be playing more of a leadership role?
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  Implications of sustainabilityfor leadership Thinking differently about the leadership role From  Leading on sustainability is someone else’s job  To get involved is a distraction from my goals and a source of cost  My goal is maximising return on investment to shareholders To  Leading on sustainability is part of my job  Leading on sustainability is part of how I achieve my goals, and contributes to creating and protecting value  My goal is creating value for multiple stakeholders, maximising contribution to the SDGs, while also achieving return on investment Leading change within the organisation  Using language and symbols effectively, and influencing culture  How you talk about the purpose of the work everyone is involved in, the goals you set  What you ask questions about, how you are seen to spend your own time, who and what you celebrate through the stories you tell? How do you open up space for particular conversations?  What you hold people accountable for and what you reward them for  Having the courage to raise difficult issues in the face of vested interests – what do you stick your neck out for? Leading change within the wider ecosystem  How to proactively lead change in customer, end consumer and supplier behaviour, government policy, competitors, NGOs  How to engage well with all different kinds of stakeholder groups  How to partner well with unconventional stakeholders to lead change in industry ecosystems (NGOs, competitors)  How to engage well with policymakers to advocate for more ambitious regulatory interventions from governments to help accelerate sustainability transitions in different sectors (eg through introducing carbon taxes)  How to contribute to public and political debate with a constructive point of view
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  What implications doesall this have for leadership? For CEOs and exec teams? For leaders at all levels across an organisation? For Project Managers? Where you see others leading on this, what do you see them doing? How far does this already come up in your work? In what ways do you already play a leadership role? What does that involve? Where are areas where you need to be playing more of a leadership role?