Sustainability in Project Management. Governance and Integration of the P5 Standard

Abstract

In 2012, The Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development centered on the notion that sustainable development is dependent upon both public and private sectors being fully engaged by leveraging frameworks that support the advancement of sustainable development initiatives, taking into account the importance of corporate social responsibility (Rio, 2012). With the United Nations Millennium Development Goals set to expire in 2015, giving way to the Post-2015 Engagement Architecture, a framework that is expected to establish priorities and strategies for the next era. Project management is uniquely positioned to drive these efforts through both governance and use. This paper focuses on the key integration points for sustainability to project governance and methods using the GPM P5 Standard for People, Planet, Profit, Project Products and Processes. P5 provides for useful benchmarking across industry and fundamentally helps organizations demonstrate the reality of their commitment to sustainability by allowing stakeholders to better understand the organization�s contribution to sustainable development.