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Date
Many of our PM colleagues don't buy the whole climate change "thing".
And that's actually fine with us.
We're not selling a philosophy, nor are we pushing any agenda, political or otherwise. We have (for many years now) simply been asserting that there is a connection between project management and sustainability. In our past book (Cleland Award-winning "Green Project Management") we made that connection between projects, project managers, and sustainability. In our upcoming book, "Sustainability in Projects, Programs, and Portfolios", as you can probably guess, we've advanced that assertion to the program and portfolio level - partially because we know that business leaders - VPs and Directors - ARE buying sustainabiilty as a business imperative and are integrating sustainability into their business plans, and partially because we've found a much more receptive audience for sustainability and long-term thinking in project management at the program and portfolio levels.
This is illustrated in the latest issue of PM Network, which features a front page showing the Ivanpah solar installation in California and is titled, "The Energy Evolution" issue, there is a quote which illustrates this.
"Because of the 20- to 50-year lifespan of typical energy capital projects, investment decisions and resulting assets from these projects will impact the organization for decades to come", says Galen Townson, PMP, PMO lead at Synergy, an energy provider based in Perth, Australia. "Not knowing what's going to happen in longer horizons creates a lot of risk in that investment, and the uncertainty is greater and it demands even more of a portfolio management approach".
This quote shows us that Synergy - by necessity, is buying long-term thinking in their projects.
And that takes us to the numbers.
The numbers to which we send you is the "metrics" section of PM Network this month, which features some astounding figures. For example:
-
US$700 billion: Annual additional spending on clean energy infrastructure, low-carbon transport, energy efficiency and forestry projects need to cap the rise of global temperatures
-
US$271 billion: Annual cost of climate change in the United States by 2025, including hurricane damage, real-estate losses and increased energy and water costs
-
US$73 billion: Annual cost to climate-proof East Asia's infrastructure per through 2050
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85% increase in teh number of undernourished people in southern Africa by 2050 - due to climate change
-
and on, and on... see page 16 of the October, 2014 issue of PM Network for the full graphic
So this is PMI (not Greenpeace, not the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, not Al Gore) simply reporting on the numbers - the facts - that are out there, whatever your beliefs are about the science.
We're depressed by some of the numbers (like the sea level rise numbers, comparing .62 feet between 190 and 2010 verus a projected 2 to 4.6 feet from 2000 to 2100, or the projected global tempurature increases of up to nearly 10 degrees F), but we are glad to see that at least the amount of investment that business and government is committing is present and public in a journal like PM Network.
So we hope that you are "buying' at least the concept that projects focused on sustainability are on the rise - and that you can also make the connection to the concept that projects (at all levels, and whether or not they are related to climate change) should be integrating sustainability, holistic, long-term thinking, if for no other reason than to tether them more firmly to the mission and vision statements of the enterprise.
The altruism is there but often silent.
The numbers - well, they're a little louder.
Are you buying?
Posted
by
Richard Maltzman
on: October 23, 2014 10:26 PM |
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