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Understanding Green Project Fundamentals • 49

• Concept, requirements, architectural design, detailed design, cod-
ing and development, testing and implementation (classic software
systems design)

Whatever the set of phases or process groups you use, there is one more
piece to the life cycle that significantly affects the environmental impact,
and that is the sustainability of the project, the long-term effect beyond
traditional project thinking, and certainly past that date at which the
product of the project is handed over to the sponsor.

ProjeCt CyCle oF sustainaBility

We are all familiar with a project’s life cycle, whether it is defined as:

• Plan, organize, control
• Plan, execute, control
• Initiate, plan, execute, close
• Plan, design, implement, deploy

We may not be as familiar with what we’ll call the project’s cycle of sus-
tainability. It can be defined as the complete cycle of a project that includes
not only the beginning of the project through implementation, but also
beyond the defined parameters of a project. Specifically, the true end of the
project (or sustainability) is the point where the project no longer exists
in any form. As an example, take a polystyrene cup that is relegated to a
landfill. Think of that polystyrene cup as the product of a project, which
it was. It went through an ideation phase, planning phase, manufacturing
phase, and deployment phase, and then the project manager(s) went on
to another project. The project to put that cup into production may have
reached the end of its project life cycle, but not its cycle of sustainabil-
ity. The end of the cycle of sustainability may be as long as, well, forever.
According to a December 1989 article by William Rathie in The Atlantic,
“Nothing, not paper, plastic or even food, readily degrades in a landfill—
and it’s not supposed to. Because degradation creates harmful liquid and
gaseous by-products that could contaminate groundwater and air, mod-
ern landfills are designed to reduce the air, water and sunlight needed for
degradation, thereby practically eliminating degradation of waste.” That