Integrating Sustainability Into Major Projects. Wayne McPhee

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СКАЧАТЬ Time Involved in the Project Space Project team 2 to 3 years Visit the project site Government workers 5 to 10 years Visit the region Local community 25+ years Live near the project site

      Understanding Time

For project teams the timespan that they consider is essentially the time for project delivery from initial studies to commissioning and handover to the operations team, which typically takes between 5 and 10 years. In addition to this, individual team members may only work on the project for short periods of time, finish their piece of the design or construction, and then move on to the next project. Major projects may also start and stop with changes in personnel on the project team or a change in consulting firms, so that the typical person on a project team might spend only 2 to 3 years on a major project.

      The timespan that government personnel will be involved in a project will vary depending on the government and government agency. Civil servants may spend a large part of their career with a single government agency, but politicians work on different timelines depending on when elections are scheduled, so the typical government employee might spend 5 to 10 years involved on a project.

      Local communities have a much longer timespan of experience and engagement with a project. Although there may be short-term focus on jobs and economic benefits, there is also a longer-term focus on community success over generations so that their children and grandchildren also see positive benefits from the project.

      Understanding Space

      The sense of space, location, and geography is also very different between the key players involved in a project. Project teams will typically not be from the local region and in many cases may never even visit the site but complete their design work from maps and drawings of the project site. The project team will have little personal stake in the project outcome other than to build on their experience and have a good project to add to their resume for their next job.

      Government workers are usually more connected to the geographical location of the project site but being in the same country or region is not the same as living in the community.

      And the local community, by contrast, will experience the project directly through impacts to the economy, traffic, noise, environmental damage, and other social disruptions.

      Managing Time and Space

These differences in perception of space and time can have a significant influence on how the project is perceived by each of the key players. For example, changing the timespan and location can affect the perception of risk and the balance between risk and reward. A government agency may view the economic rewards to an entire region or country from jobs and taxes generated by the project as a justification for the project risk. However, the local communities who bear the risk of social disruption and environmental damage may not see the risk-reward balance in quite the same way.

      The impact of different perceptions of space can often be seen on major projects that have more than one location and where the project benefits and risks are not evenly distributed across each of the locations. In a linear infrastructure project, for example, the positive impacts are created where the urban center is located but the negative impacts could be felt by communities along the highway or commuter rail route that receives the noise and potential environmental impacts from spills, without getting any of the economic benefits.

      The difference in the perception of time can create a difference between a typical transactional (often litigious) approach to relationships seen in major construction projects, where the project team, contractors and consultants are often focused on maximizing their share of a fixed project budget (a zero-sum game) and a cooperative approach to relationships where the project team and the local community focus on building trust-based relationships for long-term, mutually beneficial outcomes.

      There is no way to eliminate the differences in perceptions of the project in time and space. At a minimum, project teams must understand the large disconnect between the key players on the project and use that understanding to adjust their approach.

2.6 Project Lifecycle

      There are three main pathways in a project lifecycle that are interconnected and interdependent:

       Design and delivery

       Sustainability

       Financial management

      The design and delivery pathway has always been well integrated with the financial management pathway. They are closely linked in all aspects from decision making and design to procurement and construction. The sustainability pathway is newer and therefore not as well integrated, but it is becoming more and more critical in the project lifecycle to understand and integrate project sustainability into the overall project lifecycle. Projects have required regulatory approvals for many years, but the big change is the need for community support, not just to ensure regulatory approval but also to de-risk the project and gain project financing.

      The transition from two major pathways to three major pathways has left a gap in project planning and project management. The idea that the sustainability pathway can be managed solely by an outside consultant or a junior regulatory specialist is no longer tenable nor sufficient for delivering successful projects. Projects require senior sustainability leadership that can deliver critical sustainability elements and ensure that sustainability issues and challenges are addressed.

Figure 2.4 Three pathways for successful project delivery.

The three pathways each have their own set of approvals and stages to move toward project completion (see Figure 2.4), including project owner approval to move through each stage of the design and delivery pathway, raising financing from internal and external sources, and sustainability approvals that includes permits and community agreements.

      Over the life of the project, complex relationships can develop between the three main pathways. There needs to be clear communication among the team members. Everyone needs to understand the challenges and opportunities that other teams face in order to help overcome hurdles and move the entire project forward. A hurdle for one pathway is a hurdle for the entire project, and teams need to understand that everyone is responsible – not just the teams leading each of the pathways. All three pathways need to be part of the same project planning and project scheduling so that everyone understands the potential impacts.

      Each of the three pathways are dependent on the other pathways. Having a solid strategy and team for one or two of the pathways is not going to create a successful project without the third stream also producing the required results. In the same way that poor financial management can kill a project with no cash to spend, or a poor design can kill a project with feasibility studies that owners or investors disagree about investing in, poor СКАЧАТЬ