The Role of Sustainability in IT Project Management

This essay delves into the crucial integration of sustainability within the realm of IT project management. It underscores the growing importance of sustainable development and its application across various sectors, with a specific focus on the IT industry. The essay explores the need for sustainability in IT projects, given the sector's significant resource consumption. It examines success criteria, critical success factors, and project management approaches essential for developing and managing sustainable IT initiatives. The discussion covers various aspects, including energy conservation, data management, and the implementation of green IT concepts like cloud computing and the use of energy-efficient hardware. The essay emphasizes the balance between economic growth, social responsibility, and environmental protection, highlighting the importance of corporate social responsibility in IT projects. It also touches upon the economic, social, and environmental aspects of sustainability, and the role of project management in achieving these goals. The references include key academic resources that support the arguments and findings presented in the essay.

Running head: INTEGRATING SUSTAINABILITY IN MANAGING IT PROJECTS
Integrating Sustainability in Managing IT Projects
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s note

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INTEGRATING SUSTAINABILITY IN MANAGING IT PROJECTS
Introduction
The concept of sustainable development is growing with time. This concept is being
incorporated in several fields as well as several layers of the society. Sustainable development is
being integrated or incorporated in the development of various projects in the present time.
Sustainability is considered to be very important while taking decisions at every stage of a project
(Griggs et al. 2013). Natural resources are depleting and everybody is focusing on reserving the
resources while developing big projects. Organizations not only plan for the technical aspects of a
project but also select a project manager who will look into the matter of sustainability.
This essay discusses about the integration of sustainability in managing projects. It
particularly focuses on the IT sector. The IT sector is a growing sector and it consumes a lot of
resources for the accomplishment of projects. This essay shows why and how sustainability needs
to be integrated in the development and management of IT projects (Dincer and Rosen 2012). It
discusses about the success criteria as well as the success factors that are critical for the project. It
also gives an overview of the approach taken by project management. Sustainability is relevant
because organizations are utilizing several resources and affecting the society. Projects must be
developed by taking into account the corporate social responsibility. This essay gives an
explanation that there must be a balance between economic growth and social as well as
environmental protection.
Discussion
Brief Overview
Sustainability can be defined as the process of progressing in the present times by meeting
the present generation requirements without compromising or losing the ability to meet the needs
or requirements of the future generation (Eskerod and Huemann 2013).This can be possible only
if the present generation utilizes the resources carefully without depleting the resources.
Sustainability can also be defined as the major reorientation or small change in the strategy of the
global business.
The IT sector or industry is expected to cause a change in the global climate as well low
carbon in the economy. Two per cent of the carbon emission is done by the IT sector. IT projects

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can integrate sustainability by saving energy by taking several steps (SILvIuS and SChIPPER
2012). Simple steps can be taken like automatic computer shut down, data centre consolidation
and deploying hardware that are extremely energy efficient. IT projects can integrate
sustainability by managing data and using energy in a monitored way. Every project in IT
requires huge hardware resources that consume huge amount of energy. Apart from this it also
requires large data storage place. All these types of projects give the human beings employment
in this sector. Causing harm to the society will affect the business as well as make the future
generation suffer. Sustainability can be achieved by integrating the economic, environmental as
well as social factors in the project.
Sustainability can be integrated in the IT projects by saving energy. IT projects can use
the cloud computing technology in order to give a shared storage platform. Small devices can be
used for storing large amount of data (Lang et al. 2012). This type of concept is known as the
Green IT concept. The traditional monitors used to consume high energy but the IT projects in the
present times make the use of LCD monitors that utilizes less energy. Desktops are replaced by
laptops in order to consume less energy. Consuming less energy will benefit the society in several
ways. IT projects use electronic devices that are manufactured by consuming toxic metals. Metals
are depleting. Sustainable electronics and recycling in encouraged while carrying out an IT
project.
Success Criteria
There are several success criteria of sustainable IT projects. The implementation process
of the project needs to be efficient (Zou et al. 2014). Not only the technical aspect must be taken
into account but also the social as well as economic aspect must be looked into. The quality of the
project needs to be high. The client and stakeholder satisfaction will also play a significant role in
the success of the project. The social success criteria for IT projects are its impact on the social or
local communities in the environment where the business operates (Ebbese and Hope 2013). The
skills of the people are increasing because of the technological improvement. The economic
criteria for the success of the IT project are the economic conditions of the stakeholders as well as
local, national and global economic system. The IT projects will be sustainable if the financial
performance of the economy becomes better. There is another success criterion called
environmental aspect. The IT projects are known to consume huge amount of energy. Maximum

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INTEGRATING SUSTAINABILITY IN MANAGING IT PROJECTS
energy is consumed by servers, monitors and communication equipments. This leads to the
release of greenhouse gases. Sustainable IT projects can be attained by replacing old computers
with laptops and use a method of virtualization called cloud computing for data storage and data
sharing over the internet.
Critical Success Factors
The critical success factors in a sustainable IT project depends on the performance of the
management, its impact on the environment as well as the operational performance of the project
(De Medeiros, Ribeiro and Cortimiglia 2014).
Support from the top management is one of the main critical success factors. There must
be top management support as well as involvement in carrying out social corporate responsibility.
The project managers and designers must be skilled.
Communication is also another critical success factor. There must be effective
communication while carrying out the project to bring out the sustainable needs of the project.
The financial budget is a critical success factor. It should be set in advance and must be
accurate so that there is issue later. There must be constant monitoring and updating of the plans
to carry out the project in an effective manner.
The human factors as well as external factors like social, economic as well as
environmental factors play an important role in the success of projects.
Well planned policy and innovative thinking existing in the organization is a critical
success factor. The IT project team must have a well planned policy for saving resources and
energy. They must bring innovation to the society that will improve the society. The cost and
time of the project must be decided properly (Barbier 2012).
Optimal utilization of resources acts as a critical success factor. It must be done by
following the critical path method. The project team must find out whether the consumption of
energy will be less or not. A sustainable IT project will be successful if its impact on the society,
environment and economy is positive and if natural resources are not depleted.

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INTEGRATING SUSTAINABILITY IN MANAGING IT PROJECTS
Project Management Approach
Project management approach can be applied in the integrating sustainability in IT
projects. Certain principles need to be followed. There must be certain level of commitment. The
environment must be safe and clean, there must be ethical procurement and the project must
abide by the law (Heising 2012). The IT team must follow ethical principles. They must identify,
mitigate and prevent any type of adverse impact on the society. The project must focus on the
development of economy, protection of environment and social integrity. The organization must
focus on enhancing the natural resources by the improvement of the ways by which they use
resources and develop technologies. They must assess the ecological as well as the social equity.
Following proper monetary or fiscal strategy will help the project team to develop a sustainable
project without wastage of monetary resources. They must focus on striking a balance between
the present needs of the society and the future needs of the society (Kerzner 2013). The resources
must be utilized in an optimal way so that they can meet the requirements of the future generation
as well. The project management approach towards sustainable IT projects can be holistic, long
term, institutional, risk reducing, ethical as well as participatory. The main focus should be on the
socioeconomic development, energy and climate change, natural resources, demographic change
and good governance. The holistic approach focuses on the economic, social and ecological
considerations. The long term approach or orientation deals with maintaining sustainability of the
ecosystem by considering the future generation needs. The institutional approach deals with good
governance where there is governance in the various stages of the project development plan
(Hirschman 2014). In the risk reducing approach preventive measures are taken to protect the
society and environment. In the ethical approach, values and ethics are taken into account while
planning and developing a project. The project management approach can also be classified under
three more categories like method oriented, process oriented and competency oriented. The
project must be performed according to its objectives in a well planned way. The boundaries of
the project need to be maintained and modified as per requirements. Sustainability should be the
main element that must be integrated in an IT project to be successful.
Conclusion
This essay concludes that sustainability is an important factor that is needed to be
integrated in managing projects. This essay has focused on the IT projects. The IT sector is a

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INTEGRATING SUSTAINABILITY IN MANAGING IT PROJECTS
growing sector and it consumes a lot of resources for the accomplishment of projects. This essay
showed why and how sustainability needs to be integrated in the development and management
of IT projects. It discussed about the success criteria as well as the success factors that are critical
for the project. It also gave an overview of the approach taken by project management.

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INTEGRATING SUSTAINABILITY IN MANAGING IT PROJECTS
References
Barbier, E. ed., 2012. Economics and ecology: new frontiers and sustainable development.
Springer Science & Business Media.
De Medeiros, J.F., Ribeiro, J.L.D. and Cortimiglia, M.N., 2014. Success factors for
environmentally sustainable product innovation: a systematic literature review. Journal of
Cleaner Production, 65, pp.76-86.
Dincer, I. and Rosen, M.A., 2012. Exergy: energy, environment and sustainable development.
Newnes.
Ebbesen, J.B. and Hope, A., 2013. Re-imagining the iron triangle: embedding sustainability into
project constraints. PM World Journal, 2(III).
Eskerod, P. and Huemann, M., 2013. Sustainable development and project stakeholder
management: what standards say. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 6(1),
pp.36-50.
Griggs, D., Stafford-Smith, M., Gaffney, O., Rockström, J., Öhman, M.C., Shyamsundar, P.,
Steffen, W., Glaser, G., Kanie, N. and Noble, I., 2013. Policy: Sustainable development goals for
people and planet. Nature, 495(7441), pp.305-307.
Heising, W., 2012. The integration of ideation and project portfolio management—A key factor
for sustainable success. International Journal of Project Management, 30(5), pp.582-595.
Hirschman, A.O., 2014. Development projects observed. Brookings Institution Press.
Kerzner, H., 2013. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and
controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Lang, D.J., Wiek, A., Bergmann, M., Stauffacher, M., Martens, P., Moll, P., Swilling, M. and
Thomas, C.J., 2012. Transdisciplinary research in sustainability science: practice, principles, and
challenges. Sustainability science, 7(1), pp.25-43.

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INTEGRATING SUSTAINABILITY IN MANAGING IT PROJECTS
SILvIuS, G.I.L.B.E.R.T. and SChIPPER, R.O.N., 2012. Sustainability in project management.
Gower Publishing, Ltd..
Zou, W., Kumaraswamy, M., Chung, J. and Wong, J., 2014. Identifying the critical success
factors for relationship management in PPP projects. International Journal of Project
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