Integrating Sustainability Into Major Projects

CHAPTER 8Sustainability Management Tools

By this point in the book you have should a good understanding of what sustainability means to your project team and its importance to the overall success of your major project. Chapter 5 provided a framework for integrating sustainability into project management, including a project charter and sustainability policy, plus how to embed sustainability into the project's execution plan, schedule, and change management processes. In this chapter, we provide high-level guidance on the critical tools required for integrating and managing sustainability on major projects. This includes developing a sustainability framework, management systems, mechanisms for managing project commitments and complaints from local communities, and sustainability monitoring programs.

One intention for sustainability management tools is to help us identify and take advantage of any opportunities to make sustainability part of the project's core and embed the application of sustainability principles into the project team's decision making. Note that, like standard project management tools, it is not possible to directly transplant sustainability management tools from a template or from one project to another. As we have discussed, all projects and stakeholders are different and so each tool must be customized to suit the project, the organization, and the stakeholders. Therefore, we provide guidance and samples of tools that can be tailored to the needs of your project ...