Sustainable Project Management: From Planning to Delivery

Every project—no matter the sector or region—can be led and managed more sustainably. How can project professionals gain executive buy-in for sustainability efforts? How have they put environmental and social responsibility front and center in their work? And how can other project leaders further develop their knowledge of sustainability in their sectors? We discuss this with Pratik Mishra, PMP, senior strategic portfolio manager at Zalando in Berlin, and Michael Mylonas, GPM-b, PMP, director of project management at the Xeni Gwet’in First Nations Government in Tsilhqot’in Title Land, Nemaiah Valley, British Columbia, Canada. 

Key themes

00:52 Why you should embed sustainability into every project phase

04:29 Gaining stakeholder buy-in for sustainability on projects

08:49 Building environmental and cultural sustainability into a community center project

12:16 How project professionals can develop their sustainability knowledge 

15:26 Ways you can boost sustainability in your projects

Transcript

Transcript

PRATIK MISHRA

There is just one planet, and there are just limited resources, and there is no way around it. So it’s high time that we look at sustainability, but we also look at it from an environmental, social and ethical perspective as well. 

STEVE HENDERSHOT

Hello everyone. This is Projectified®. I’m Steve Hendershot.  

Emphasizing sustainability on projects is now table stakes, just as essential as risk registers or budgets.

Today we’re exploring how project teams can raise the bar with the help of two guests. Michael Mylonas is director of project management for the Xeni Gwet’in First Nations Government in the Nemaiah Valley in British Columbia, Canada, and Pratik Mishra is senior strategic portfolio manager at Zalando in Berlin. Thank you both for joining us.

Let’s start here. Why is it important for each of you as project professionals to embed sustainability deeply into every phase of your projects? Michael, let’s start with you.

MICHAEL MYLONAS

Well, for me, not just on a professional level, but even on a personal level—a human kind of level—having sustainability built in as a foundation of a project I think really boils down to a desire and a sense of responsibility to deliver projects that are considerate and respectful of the environment, the planet, the people and the actual asset that’s being developed and delivered. And to also deliver those in a manner, in a way that is supportive of those factors. 

And by virtue of where I am here in Xeni Gwet’in, which is one of the six First Nations communities that makes up the Tsilhqot’in Nation here, sustainability is really a part of the core identity of the community and really a foundational element, which is really fortunate for me, in a sense. And we are actually on what’s called Aboriginal title. The nation’s people have full jurisdiction—the opportunity to decide how things happen, control benefit from the land. And so we’re in a very unique position where we’re able to really build sustainability as foundational elements in all of the processes, of management and all of the projects we do. And so I think on a professional level that kind of translates to really having sustainability be essential to delivering optimal, robust, responsible and long-term solutions. 

STEVE HENDERSHOT

That’s great. So Pratik, a lot of Michael’s projects are infrastructure. For you, you’re in the fashion industry. What’s your take on this question? Why is it important to build in sustainability end to end?

PRATIK MISHRA

I believe we as project professionals do not just deliver outcomes, but we deliver impact. We deliver future, which impacts people, which impacts community, which impacts businesses, which means every project that we deliver has a footprint. I mean, it was the thing of the past where sustainability was just considered as good-to-have or something which can be added if you have extra time or budget. But, oh man, things have changed. The world has evolved. 

We had been reaching out to our customers within Europe and asking them, “If you have an option to buy on a platform which offers more sustainable and ethical products, will you go for it?” Customers said yes. It creates a positive perception and positive trust for the brand, which has more and more sustainable offerings, but it’s not just customers. Let’s look at investors. In the last few years, if we look at the data, there have been investments in the companies who had been performing positively on their environmental, social and governance aspect. When you look at Europe, we are heavily driven by regulation. So I feel sustainability is a license to operate in order to create long-term value for a long time. And I personally believe sustainability is not just doing less harm—it’s doing much more to build a resilient business model, which can survive for the future. 

STEVE HENDERSHOT

Your team has the sort of ethic and moral imperative of sustainability, also the business case, but it’s cool that it sounds like the rest of your stakeholders are also bought in. Is that true? And how does that change the game? Do you run into misconceptions around sustainability, and what’s the impact of everyone involved in the project being on that same page in terms of its import?

PRATIK MISHRA

I love that question. I mean, when it comes to misconceptions and challenges when it comes to sustainability, the lack of buy-in—especially from the senior stakeholders—is a big challenge. And it’s a challenge because when we look at sustainability, we always look at [it] from an economical or business point of view. So what can we achieve in the short run? What we miss is, “What can we achieve in the long run?” So what’s really helpful is to look from a different perspective, like investment right now. It could be high, but what kind of returns can we get in the long run? So getting that executive buy-in is the key where we still face some challenges, but what really helps here at Zalando is translating the sustainability language into financial terms. So for example, how much of a footprint comes from a product? How can we make our supply chain more compliant, or how can we make it even more stronger? So that really helps us to get big buy-in, and at the end of the day, explaining to the people, why does it matter? 

STEVE HENDERSHOT

So you do in fact have to sometimes make the case to some stakeholders about the value of sustainability, and you’re able to do so. Michael, what’s that like for you in your context?

MICHAEL MYLONAS

I’m fortunate enough—I like to say that often, I’m fortunate enough—the infrastructure projects delivered are for the community. So sustainability, as I had mentioned before, is really a core part of the identity of this community, and that’s environmental sustainability in particular. So I often don’t have too much trouble building those elements into projects. It’s more likely that I’ll get negative feedback if those elements haven’t been built into a project. It’s an interesting experience that way. But from other perspectives of sustainability, you know, if we look at people and the economy and things like that, there can be challenges. 

But if we go back to some of the things that Pratik had mentioned, about people’s expectations, he had mentioned investments. Funding in our case is another big one. A lot of funders are looking for sustainable elements in their projects, right? And so we have to be cognizant, I think, of why we’re trying to build sustainability, different various elements, into our project and be able to communicate those things, right? Because often, if we look at various parts of it like risk management, the potential cost savings that might come from including sustainable elements and sort of building that business case in certain respects that Pratik was talking about, that’s certainly a very effective way to help get that buy-in.  

Funders like to see sustainable elements, particularly environmentally-related ones. But often those come with some greater upfront costs. So if we look at the inclusion of clean energy in a piece of infrastructure, for example, that looks great to a funder who says they want to see sustainability elements in a project, but it also has a bit of a higher price tag to start. And so that becomes a conversation of, “Well, let’s look at this a bit longer term, see how that plays out, and in terms of the finances and all of that.” And so these are the kinds of back-and-forth conversations that are not uncommon.

PRATIK MISHRA

We always look at environmental sustainability. Yes, reducing the carbon footprint is critical, but what we skip is the social aspect, which is, are we serving the local community, as Michael mentioned? Are we helping people of color? Are we helping people of diverse backgrounds?

STEVE HENDERSHOT

Michael, what’s an example for you of where you put sustainability into action?

MICHAEL MYLONAS

So I’m going to talk about a project that’s in progress, if that’s okay, Steve. So it’s not complete yet, but currently under construction, and that is a community center. We actually call it a community cultural building. So we’ve built in a lot of solar power into the building and battery. And the reason for that is kind of twofold. 

So one of the community’s priorities is to move toward cleaner energy sources across the valley. The other big reason is we are remote. We’re about three hours away from the closest town or city—and so that’s one way. So a six-hour round trip from the closest town. And so we are not connected to a centralized power provider here in BC (British Columbia). We actually have our own microgrid, and so when we build new infrastructure, the draw and the impact on that central system is a big factor for consideration.

One thing we really tried to do is tie the nation’s, and the community’s, history, culture, the language into the infrastructure we’re building and into this building in particular. And so this building draws from the traditional pit house structure. The lean-to structure was very common historically for the community. And those are two of the main structural pieces that kind of make up this building. And we are also able to have a completely log and timber frame structure, which pulls from historical building materials. And it really is in line with the aesthetic as well. And we’ll have interior design elements that are focused on reflecting and sharing the history and the language, right? Signage will be in the [community’s] language as well as in English. And so all of these little elements have come together to really bring forward and into focus this kind of cultural, historic language sustainability, which I’m really happy and really proud of.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

I love the leaning into meaning and that history. Let me go back to something you said earlier in that answer. You were experimenting with new energy inputs, you know, solar, battery, also trying to make the building itself perform in an efficient way, but a lot of that was new. How did you go about setting expectations?

MICHAEL MYLONAS

It’s a lot of communication. We couldn’t do everything. We couldn’t get to 100% solar, and so we had to kind of talk about, “Well, what is the expectation here? What can we get to?” And the community would love to see 100% solar, of course. It’s unfortunately something we couldn’t get to 100% on this project. But I think really having sound reasoning and doing the work and being able to communicate the effort that was put in there—and the reasons for why the bar might be set at a certain level—people tend to understand, I find, and appreciate the effort. 

STEVE HENDERSHOT

Okay, last couple questions for each of you. The first one—anything that you have had to learn or add to your skillset in order to elevate the role of sustainability in your project management?

PRATIK MISHRA

The project managers of the 21st century are like the change makers, because we are the ones who translate vision to reality, from purpose to planning, from vision to action. But in order to do that, you need three things. A clear mindset. Why are we doing it? What’s the rationale behind [it]? Is there a better way of doing projects, irrespective of the industry? 

Once you have the right mindset, you need the correct skillset. Do you have sufficient skills? Do you understand what does the sustainability come from? What is the background? What is the technical terminology so that it can help your mindset to move toward the sustainable transformation? And lastly, but not the least, is the tool set. You can be super motivated. You have the skills, but you still need the correct tools to ensure that sustainability is integrated in day-to-day life. And if you do all three—the mindset, the tool set and the skillset—then sustainability is creating meaningful change for the people, for the community, for the organizations, for everyone.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

Awesome. Michael, did you do anything to prepare yourself to lead projects more sustainably?

MICHAEL MYLONAS 

The focus of it is actually quite new. I’ve been here five years, and so it really became a focus for me when I first landed in the community here. And largely because, as I had mentioned, it’s part of the core identity here. Because of the community I’m in and their focus on sustainability, I’ve learned a lot of kind of a basic, foundational level of knowledge from just engaging with the people on various projects. 

In looking to how I could better deliver projects and better serve the community in alignment with those values of sustainability—and thinking about, you know, when it came to maintaining my PMP (Project Management Professional® certification)—I started looking at, “Well, what are some things I could look at in terms of courses to be able to do that?” I came across Green Project Management’s certification course (Green Project Manager – Basic, GPM-b). And I went through that, became certified, and that really opened my view and perspective on sustainability. And I think as we’ve mentioned a couple times throughout this chat here, it being more than just the environmental component, which is, of course, incredibly important. I’m never going to downplay the environmental component of sustainability. But Pratik had mentioned the social, kind of the people aspect of these other aspects of sustainability that this course really opened my mind to. And so I’ve been working on being able to build those into the community center project we’ve talked about today and other infrastructure projects that we’re working on and looking at into the future. 

STEVE HENDERSHOT

Just one more question for each of you—one thing you would share with other project managers who are looking to increase the role of sustainability in their projects. Pratik, let’s start with you.

PRATIK MISHRA

I believe every project has a legacy. The question is if it’s a positive or a negative one. So my message to every project manager would be think about sustainability right from the step one. Sustainability could be integrated right from the design phase to execution phase. Every decision that we take should be from the environmental and the social aspect, should be covered along with the economical and the financial aspect. And the most important thing is to be curious. Ask a question every time when you start a project: “What kind of environmental and social impact does the project have?” Once you know the kind of impact a project has, then you always have so many opportunities to improve it. So my message would be, be curious, ask questions. That’s the first step to go.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

Yeah. Thank you. Michael?

MICHAEL MYLONAS

Pratik almost took the words out of my mouth. Curiosity is really, really foundational, really important. I think if you have a genuine curiosity, you’re going to be in a great place to start. And understanding the why. Really understanding the why of building sustainability into the project is really important. So taking time to understand that, being able to communicate it to people. And again, going to echo Pratik a little bit, but building it in as the foundation from the start of a project and weaving it into the fabric of that project, and making sure it’s revisited throughout the course of whatever project it is you are delivering. 

STEVE HENDERSHOT

Great. Guys, this has been fantastic. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for walking us through how you’re implementing sustainability into your project leadership.

PRATIK MISHRA

Thanks for having me. 

MICHAEL MYLONAS

It is a pleasure to be part of this conversation. 

STEVE HENDERSHOT 

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