Becoming a Sustainable Organization: A Project and Portfolio Management Approach

Organizations find that a performance gap exists between sustainability vision and benefits realization. Effecting transformational change requires incorporating sustainability into organization’s culture including policies, processes, and people. Although they are often overlooked, project management professionals and HR professionals are valuable organizational resources for driving sustainable transformation. This book lays out a framework to improve sustainability integrations including case studies, lessons learned, best practices, and tools and templates to facilitate transforming into a sustainable organization.Becoming a Sustainable Organization: A Project and Portfolio Management Approach lays out a framework to create organizational value while preserving natural and social capital. The book provides a roadmap for organizations during their sustainability journey by sharing case studies, best practices, and lessons learned, as well as tools and techniques to drive change.This book is an ideal resource for project and portfolio managers, as well as executive managers, in organizations that are embarking on a sustainability journey. It explains how to engage both internal and external stakeholders in order to reframe strategy to drive this transformation. It examines the role human capital management professionals and policies can play in ensuring that employees become fully engaged in sustainability. It also recommends baseline measurements and metrics to help managers ensure sustainability initiatives remain on track.The case studies and interviews in this book include sustainability stories and projects from a variety of organizations in both function and size, including family-owned businesses, higher-education institutions, NGOs, municipal and federal government agencies, and large global organizations. These cases are based on interviews with experienced sustainability and project management professionals who have not just talked the talk but also walked the walk.The voices of these professionals provide invaluable inspiration and guidance to sustainability champions and to program and project managers seeking to move their sustainability portfolio components forward within their organizations.

About the Author

Kristina Kohl is the managing principal of HRComputes, a management consulting firm that provides strategic guidance, program, and project management to corporate clients in order to maximize their human capital investment through technology and change management. Kristina leads the Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Strategy practice for the firm and provides strategic guidance to senior management on the value proposition of adopting a sustainable strategy. HRComputes is a registered New Jersey Sustainable Business, WBE, and SBE. They are recipients of the Gotham Green Award for sustainable strategy and earned a certificate of recognition from the New Jersey EPA for sustainability innovation. Kristina speaks at industry events including the PMI Global Conference and the Society for Human Resource Management Global Conference. In addition, she has been a guest lecturer for the University of Pennsylvania, La Salle University, and the Project Management Institute. She has authored white papers and articles for online publications of Project Management.com, Sustainable Brands, and the Wharton Magazine.