Green isn’t just for infrastructure: Sustainability in digital and change projects

When we talk about sustainability in projects, the conversation often jumps straight to physical outputs: buildings, infrastructure, manufacturing, or environmental mitigation plans. Which is great if you are working on that kind of project, because it makes sense. Those impacts are visible and measurable. But it also creates a blind spot, because the flip side of those conversations is that we don’t need to consider sustainability for the many other types of projects.
 


Many digital, organisational change, and transformation projects are assumed to be ‘sustainability neutral’ simply because they don’t produce something tangible, and if you’ve ready anything about the power and water requirements needed for server farms, you’ll know that isn’t the case.

The impact might be less obvious, but it’s still there. As project managers, we are well placed to influence those outcomes, and bring to people’s attention that there are perhaps hidden impacts that we can do something about.

For example, digital projects often drive increased data storage, additional processing, new ways of working, or changes in travel, energy use, and consumption. Ignoring those effects doesn’t make them disappear. So we should be documenting and recording them, even if the end result is that you aren’t actively tracking the carbon impact. You can at least include them in the business case as non-tangible benefits (or costs) to highlight the fact that they should be considered as part of the decision-making process.

One challenge is that while many organisations now have sustainability teams, ESG leads, or environmental experts, getting their time for smaller, less ‘construction’ projects can be difficult. In some organisations I know, the team is one person, and they can’t support every project. So it’s for the project manager to shape where they can, and we can!

Where project managers can influence sustainability

Project managers influence sustainability in several practical, low-key ways, often without realising it (see, you’re doing it already!).

Procurement is one obvious lever. Choices about suppliers, contract lengths, hosting arrangements, and service models all have sustainability implications. I know we don’t have the power to choose suppliers directly most of the time, but you can write sustainability requirements into statements of work or ask the procurement team to include them in tenders. Ask the questions – you never know what impact that might have.

The other easy area to get people talking is in data usage. Digital and change projects frequently increase data volumes, reporting demands, or system integrations, API calls and so on. Which uses power and often all this is done in the cloud these days, so we don’t even have the physical aspect of adding a server to the server room on site to see the impact.

We can ask questions about what data is genuinely needed, how long it should be retained, and whether duplication can be avoided. Are we migrating data from the old system ‘just because’ or are we following retention policies? If there aren’t retention policies for this type of data, should there be? (Then we can delete some of it.)

What PMOs can do differently

PMOs have a valuable role in normalising sustainability thinking without turning it into bureaucracy, because that isn’t going to land well. One effective approach is to ask sustainability-related questions early. Put some prompts in the kick off template, or in the business case slide deck template. Asking the right questions helps teams think through what the choices might be at a point where they still have choices. It’s the thinking – and getting teams to do the thinking – that is the valuable bit.

PMOs can share examples of good practice too. Highlighting how teams have made sensible, proportionate choices helps sustainability feel achievable rather than abstract, so ask teams, get some case studies and share what is working in your organisation.

Sustainability as a cumulative effect

Sustainability isn’t going to hinge on one dramatic decision. Across the company, it’s going to be impacted by lots of small choices made across projects and programmes, and BAU work. We don’t need to be sustainability experts to make a difference, which is lucky! We’re seeing sustainability threads woven through the PMBOK® Guide and other project management literature now, and I’m sure the same thing is happening in other disciplines. By being curious, asking thoughtful questions, and considering the longer-term effects of change, we can become everyday influencers shaping more sustainable outcomes, often without adding any extra process at all.

Have you got any examples of sustainability at work that you can share? Let us know in the comments below!