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Foreword

It is my distinct pleasure to provide the Foreword to Green Project
Management. Having worked in the field of environmental sustainability for
most of my government career, I am happy to see publications such as this
one that provide useful guidance to assist project managers in advancing
the sustainability agenda within their companies as well as across society.
Project management has been a formally recognized profession since
the 1950s. Successful project management has traditionally meant deliv-
ering a product or service on time and within budget constraints, using
resources (people and materials) in an optimal way, and satisfying the
needs of the customer (and of the boss!). With the increasing attention
being given to sustainable development and the overall growing awareness
of environmental concerns, especially global climate change, the allure of
becoming green is inspiring project managers to include environmental
goals in their activities. Nowadays, suggestions for how companies and
individuals can “go green” can be found almost everywhere.
With the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990, the U.S. Congress estab-
lished pollution prevention as a “national objective” and the most impor-
tant component of the environmental management hierarchy. The U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines pollution prevention
(P2) as “reducing or eliminating waste at the source by modifying pro-
duction processes, promoting the use of nontoxic or less-toxic substances,
implementing conservation techniques, and reusing materials rather than
putting them into the waste stream.” As national policy declares that the
creation of potential pollutants should be prevented or reduced during the
production cycle whenever feasible, the EPA has been a leader in advancing
the adoption of green manufacturing. The United States set about estab-
lishing a network of successful efforts to help promote and implement P2
(cleaner production in Europe and elsewhere) opportunities. After years
of controlling pollution at the end of a pipe, or by treating its effects after
the fact, the EPA is now operating under the principle that preventing pol-
lution is cleaner, cheaper, and smarter than simply moving contaminants
around, from air, to water, to land.
The term green project management (GPM) is not used frequently in the
guidance that EPA has developed over the years to help show industry

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