Centre for Professional Development and Lifelong Learning

Postgraduate Modules

Incorporating Sustainability Goals in Projects

Incorporating Sustainability Goals in Projects

Overview

This course aims to facilitate the development of students’ knowledge and understanding necessary to identify and assess risks associated with unsustainable (net negative) practices in projects they will take part in throughout their careers. Today, projects designed to implement policies that are labelled “sustainable” may reduce but not replace what is “used up” in the process of design and implementation. In this course, students will learn to elevate their approach to critical thinking, data gathering and decision-making about truly sustainable alternatives to net negative sustainable processes, and to identify and execute opportunities to apply innovative responses to major sustainability issues as well. This learning will emerge from dialoguing with expert lecturers, absorbing assigned reading materials covering a range of frameworks, models, and approaches that are already known to reverse negative or unsustainable practices, and by applying them to diverse case studies and then to a field project in the Caribbean.
After completing their post-graduate degree programme, the students will be able to incorporate into their toolkit of contemporary project management practices, a sustainability mindset that enables them to champion sustainable development. Ultimately, they could place themselves as partners and leaders in a movement that more and more governments and businesses are embracing, by re-evaluating the products they are delivering (and for whom),  addressing human and material resources from a new (not exclusively profit-based) perspective, adjusting the strategic direction of their organizations to include opportunities to develop ethical partnerships for greater impact, and incorporating more equity and empathy in project selections decisions that impact stakeholders.
 

What will I Learn?

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

  • Develop ways to plan project progress with sustainability goals in mind;
  • Monitor project progress with sustainability goals in mind;
  • Explain the importance of developing specific plans for stakeholders to use in implementing planned project benefits after project handover and closure are complete;
  • Defend the need for transforming the project selection and design processes to include a creative and interdisciplinary approach to sustainability,
  • Advocate for these approaches within the context of their organization and community;
  • Analyze issues that arise under the umbrella of sustainable development in their future endeavours;
  • Solve issues that arise under the umbrella of sustainable development in their future endeavours;
  • Apply the tools, techniques and communication skills needed to plan ahead for stakeholder engagement;
  • Apply the tools, techniques and communication skills needed to effectively execute, monitor and control change management plans;
  • Explain the relationship between an organization’s sustainable development-oriented governance systems and its measurements of organizational value;  
  • Assess ethical issues in balancing stakeholder interests with regard to sustainability;
  • Discuss how new business models for sustainable project and programme outcomes may be built;
  • Discuss how one can use creative skills to help organize and build new business models for sustainable project and programme outcomes;
  • Create feedback channels and reward systems for those who engage in the development of sustainable goals.

Who Should do this Course

Important Information

Private, public/governmental, non-profit and NGO entities have begun worldwide to take on the responsibility for moving new frameworks, approaches, and legislated policies forward. These efforts are incorporated in programmes such as:  Climate Change, Global Warming, Green Environment, Environmental Stability, De-Materialisation and Light-weighting, Circular Economy, and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), et al. The most common aspect of all these programmes is that almost any solutions to the envisioned programme goals requires elements of “innovative, change-driven and entrepreneurial projects” that involve, often, a worldwide group of stakeholders to the implementation plan. It is fair to say that for significant progress to be made in grappling with these programme goals, the quality of mankind’s survival may well depend in part on the availability of professionals who are effectively educated in managing challenging projects, and who can design and tackle organizational transformation based on the objectives and principles of sustainable development.
The nexus is clear: as with the discipline of sustainability, the discipline of project management is broad, encompassing many fields based on physical and behavioral sciences, utilizing a range of analytical techniques, grounded in interpersonal skills, and focused on integration, stakeholder and change management. Students educated in the contemporary project management discipline will immediately understand the complexity and urgency of sustainability goals generated by these organizations and can apply their project management expertise to help achieve them. Students with these credentials will have the potential to become great stewards of the many different offshoots of the greater sustainability movement.

Course Prerequisite (s)

  • PTMT 6023 – Project Management Concepts, Frameworks, & Processes;
  • PTMT 6024 – Project Initiation & Planning;
  • PTMT 6025 – Project Execution, Monitoring & Control;
  • PTMT 6026 – Project Simulation, Handover & Closing

At a Glance

  • Admissions Term: 2024/2025 Summer
  • Registration: Open
  • Date: May 26th - July 25th 2025
  • Time: (5pm-8pm)
  • Duration: 36 hours
  • Certificate Awarded: Postgraduate Professional Development Certificate of Competence
  • Course Code: PTMT 6030
  • Capacity: 10
  • Cost:

The following topics/concepts/theories/issues will be addressed:
 

  • The Concept of “Sustainability”
  • The “Roots”
  • Carson, R. 1962, Silent Spring, Houghton Mifflin Company.
  • Boulding, K. E. 1966, The economics of the coming spaceship earth.
  • Hardin, G. 1968, The tragedy of the commons, Science 162(3859), p. 1243-1248.
  • Meadows, D. H., Meadows, D. L., Randers, J. & Behrens III, W. 1972, The limits to growth, Potomac Associates, NW, Washington, DC.
  • 1987: The Brundtland Report a.k.a Brundtland, G. H. 1987, Report of the world commission on environment and development: Our common future, United Nations.
  • 1992: Early foci:  The Earth Charter, Agenda 21, Available at https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/
  • documents/Agenda21.pdf
  • Evolution of thought on sustainability definitions
  • Thought leaders and New Models
  • Movement from Economic Development and Intergenerational Equity (“mitigating unsustainability”)
  • Movement towards Eco-Efficiency and Corporate Social Responsibility (“increasing sustainability”)
  •  
  • The United Nations’ Sustainable Goals Agendas
  •  
  • The 8 World United Nations MDG
  • Sustainable Goals for 2015
  • Agenda 2030: The 17 Sustainable Development Goals – UN’s World Health Organization (WHO)
  • Drivers: Climate Stability and Biodiversity
  • Supplement to Agenda 2030: “the Impact Imperative for Sustainable Development” (OECD 2019)
  • Encompasses additional drivers
  • Added to Agenda 2030
  • UNDP – Report on Caribbean Human Development:  Human Resilience beyond Income (UN 2016)
  •  
  • Unintended Consequence of Failure to Incorporate Sustainable Practices in Projects
  • Browning, L. 2015, Where Apple gets the tantalum for your iPhone, Newsweek Magazine. Available at: https://www.newsweek.com/2015/02/13/where-apple-gets-tantalum-your-iphone-304351.html).
  • Video: The Hidden Cost of Hamburgers, YouTube video & transcript, PBS News Hour, at: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/the-hidden-costs-of-hamburgers.
  • Case Study: Joseph, R. 2019, How to survive Chennai’s water crisis, a CNN Social Commentary Opinion piece. Available at:  https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/22/opinions/dear-chennai-water-advice-letter-joseph/index.html
  •  
  • Key Reasons Private, Public, Government and NGO’s increasingly care about Sustainability
  • Markets – Case Study Discussion on “Inkaterra: Sustainable Tourism in Peru”, Harvard Business School Case Study (see Required Reading)
  • Cost – opportunities to obtain access to lower cost capital, create partnerships and share tangible and intangible resources – Case Study: Christmann, P. 2000, ‘Effects of “best practices” of environmental management on cost advantage: The role of complementary assets’, in Academy of Management Journal, 43(4), p. 663-680.
  • Risks and Liability – improved appreciation for and management of risk (threats and opportunities) to reduce probability and/or impact of environmental, social or reputational damage
  • Value Capture – where eco-smart strategies reduce high material cost, downtime or waste disposal costs, or improve customer relations.
  • Case Study: Sardinha, I. D., Reijnders, L., & Antunes, P 2003, From environmental performance evaluation to eco-efficiency and sustainability balanced scorecards, Environmental Quality Management, 12(2), p 51-64.
  • Lessons Learned from successful Project Scenarios and Case Illustrations in which the presence of sustainability goals in projects is integrated with:
  • Top-down sustainability objectives aligned with an organization’s internal governance models
  • History of internal advocacy for sustainability
  • Project Manager-level accountability for ensuring that sustainability improvements (tangible and intangible, social and technical) are defined in project requirements and measured in project results
  • Co-Sustainability partnerships- the solicitation and taking on of Social and Professional Responsibility in diverse, distributed, multi-stakeholder partnerships:
  • See: Examples of Climate Change partnership arrangements among Asian-Pacific UN members to advance the 2030 Agenda
  • Engaging Stakeholders
  • Familiarity with driving innovative solutions and processes through the entire Project Management Lifecycle;
  • Capturing project-generated knowledge and lessons learned
  • Use of agile-type lifecycles for customer-centric, scalable, sustainable development
  • Experience within the project team in designing and managing project change management plans
  • Our Sustainable Beef Journey (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO901ivGatQ)
  • Using Design Thinking to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals
  • (“From Single Interest to Shared Purpose – Design Thinking”,
  • https://www.cepal.org/sites/default/files/presentations/
  • design_thinking_trinidad_and_tobago_vfinal.pdf
  • Risks of Unsustainable Practices
  • Discussions based on:
  • The Global Risks Report 2018, 13th edn, World Economic Forum; available at: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GRR18_Report.pdf
  • van Heerdern, A. 2015, Identifying, managing, mitigating and preventing forced labour and modern slavery, Report, commissioned and issued by the Ethical Trading Initiative, London, Available at:
  • https://www.ethicaltrade.org/sites/default/files/shared
  • _resources/eti_background_paper_on_forced_labour_
  • modern_slavery_oct_15_0.pdf
  • Welcome to climate change: A survivor’s guide to mitigation, adaptation, and suffering”, MIT Technology Review, May/June 2019, Vol. 122, No. 3.
  • Risks of Unsustainable Practices
  • Discussions based on:
  • The Global Risks Report 2018, 13th edn, World Economic Forum; available at: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GRR18_Report.pdf
  • van Heerdern, A. 2015, Identifying, managing, mitigating and preventing forced labour and modern slavery, Report, commissioned and issued by the Ethical Trading Initiative, London, Available at:
  • https://www.ethicaltrade.org/sites/default/files/shared
  • _resources/eti_background_paper_on_forced_labour_
  • modern_slavery_oct_15_0.pdf
  • Welcome to climate change: A survivor’s guide to mitigation, adaptation, and suffering”, MIT Technology Review, May/June 2019, Vol. 122, No. 3.
  • Summary of the World’s Progress
  • The role of the project management professional in the way forward- Roadmap to the Future.
  • Discussion of: Schaffer, A. 2019, “The Climate Optimist”, MIT Technology Review. Available online at:
  • https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612803/the-climate-optimist
  • Return to Discussion of: The sustainability balanced scorecard: Linking sustainability management to business strategy (See Required Reading)
  • Group and Individual Practical Project Presentations

The course will be delivered using a variety of methods, inclusive of: face-to-face lectures, discussions, cooperative group work, video-filmed case studies and reports, and group exercises.

 
This course will be assessed as follows:

  • Coursework: 100%
  • Four (4) short case analysis papers (10% each): 40%
  • To expose students to elements of both a worldwide and regional perspective, the cases used will be based in the following contexts: 1 private sector, 1 non-profit sector or NGO (e.g., UNICEF, UN, OECD, CDEMA, CARICOM, IDC, CDB), 1 government, 1 choice of any context.
  • Attendance and participation: 10%
  • Individual or Group Collaborative Practical Field Project in Sustainability: 50%
  • Brief description of practical project
  • The practical field project in sustainability can be executed in the format of:
  • a detailed case study,
  • a research paper, or
  • a podcast
  • about a project that aims to use effective approaches to innovative sustainable deliverables, or to mitigate/eliminate social, economic or environmental risks or to capture scalable or other related opportunities associated with net positive sustainable development goals.
  • Whether executed by an individual or group, a 20-30 minutes’ presentation of the project will take place at the end of the semester.
  • The project can be sourced by an individual or group, but must be approved in advance by the lecturer.
  • The project can be performed, if appropriate and subject to certain boundaries, with a client organization, which must approve in writing a description of the students’ involvement in the project. 
  • Individuals may work alone or in a group no larger than 5 members.
  • A list of a contemporaneous, potential, local projects on under-studied sustainability issues may be provided to students who are unable to source a project on their own.

Dr. Dion Greenidge