Viewing Projects Through a Sustainability Lens

[Updated to reflect final presentation: October 12, 2011]

Every project we undertake today has sustainability implications and frequently provides hidden opportunities to create sustainable value. This is true irrespective of the project drivers, size, duration, or wherever the project is located in the world.  However, it is not always apparent at the outset of a project how to create through that project the greatest possible sustainable value or to measure the sustainable value that is created in the course of the project’s execution.

Creating sustainable value with each project requires a systems approach, an approach that is nearly a trademark of the chemical engineering discipline.  While it is useful to strive for sustainable outcomes in the individual project tasks and sub-elements, unless the entire project is viewed from the outset through a “Sustainability Lens,” the project will fall short of its potential to create sustainable value.

In this presentation, a framework is discussed that describes a new way of viewing projects and defining, valuing, monitoring and achieving each project’s potential to create sustainable value.  Examples are provided describing the way this framework has been applied successfully on projects as large and dynamic as the 2012 London Olympics, as regional as a natural resource based “renewable energy park” and as local as a natural treatment system for a combined industrial and community wastewater outfall.