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In this article I provide a further introduction to the PMI Belgium – Climate Action Virtual Meeting on 24 Nov as well as a further explanation of the important initiative " Walk2COP27".

I attended the PMI Belgium PMFAIR event on Friday 7 October and I was privileged to listen to some inspirational leaders as well as interact with many PMI members. Some highlights:

PMI Belgium – Climate Action Virtual Meeting on 24 Nov

Objective: How could PMI Belgium Chapter contribute to Climate Action following on from COP27?

The agenda for this online event is:

Start	Finish	Topic	Led by
18:30	18:35	Welcome from PMI BE Chapter President	Christine Dassy
18:35	18:40	Introduction to the agenda	Stuart Thorp
18:40	19:00	Context of COP27 & overview of Walk2COP27	Sam Baker
19:00	19:15	PMI Climate Action initiatives at Global / EU level	Christine Dassy
19:15	19:35	Reducing our personal Carbon Footprint	Stuart Thorp
19:35	19:55	Less is more, more reduction	Kris Van Hoeymissen
19:55	20:15	PMI Belgium Climate Action – what could we do as a Chapter?	Stuart Thorp
20:15	20:25	Agree next steps	Stuart Thorp
20:25	20:30	Close	Christine Dassy

Christine Dassy has provided strong support for this event, and I am delighted that she will open and close the meeting as well as share some initiatives in the wider PMI organisation at EU and Global level.

Sam Baker is the leader of the important Walk2COP27 international Climate Action Initiative. Sam will provide a "hot off the press” summary of the COP27 Global Climate conference (which runs from 6 - 18 November 2022).  More on Walk2COP27 below.

I will share some learnings from my personal Climate Action (16 T CO2e emissions savings per year so far - and counting) and how we may scale this up. I'm hoping to use this event to test the scalability by exploring the significant savings (in emissions as well as costs) available to attendees.

Kris Van Hoeymissen will explore how to maximize the impact of an industrial sustainability program. He has been Sustainability Program Manager for the most energy-consuming sites of the largest FMCG company in the world (P&G). He shares his experience about the crucial link between technology, product development, and behavioral change projects in the manufacturing sector. 

I will lead a session to explore what we could be doing as the PMI Belgium Chapter to make a positive Climate Action impact. I have been 'scratching my head' on how to take this forward but attending PMFAIR has given me some clear and encouraging pointers - I'm really looking forward to further exploring this on 24 November and beyond. (See below).

The PMI Belgium Events team will soon share an invitation to this event - please join us!

Walk2COP27

 

You need not wait until 24 November to start taking Climate Action.

The Walk2COP27 “ENGAGE” phase started 22 Sept and runs through to the start of COP27 6 Nov 2022.

A series of townhall events have been taking place in each of the 12 countries between Glasgow, Scotland (the venue of COP26 in 2021) and Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt (the venue of COP27).

The Belgium Townhall took place Oct 3rd - a summary follows. Walk2COP27 Belgium Townhall.

I was delighted to be invited by Sam Baker to participate and used this opportunity to mention the PMI.

As part of the "Walk" activities, one tree will be planted in Burundi per 2km walked (via the Jane Goodall Institute.)

Sam Baker will provide more detail on 24 November, but you can already find out more via: www.Walk2COP27.com.

You can participate in walking / running / cycling via atlasgo.org/Walk2COP27.

I'd like to welcome you to join “Team Stance” (team target to walk 400km – the distance across Belgium) - or set up your own team.

 

 

PMFAIR 2022 - some Climate Action related highlights

My main aim in attending the PMFAIR was to explore how the PMI could contribute to Climate Action and, in particular, to promote and prepare for the Climate Action Virtual Meeting on 24 Nov.

The event left me with many valuable learnings and a strong positive view of how PMI Belgium Chapter could contribute. Here are some highlights:

Jean-Christophe Hamani, in his keynote session " Successful organizational transformation thanks to PMI best practices" highlighted the importance of being focused on the outcome and how the PMI Organisational Transformation Framework (OTF) could help towards this.

JC specifically emphasised the power of volunteers as they have the highest motivation - I think this strongly applies to Climate Action. 

Nicolas Petit in his session " How to activate informal networks and influencers to drive behavioural change at scale" highlighted the power of informal networks as the mechanism for how things really happen in large corporations.  I found this a strong analogy to the informal network of the Climate Action community and thought NIco's ideas could help to strengthen this network. 

He also mentioned that individuals should be one person both inside and outside the corporation which aligns to my view that if we can encourage people to take personal climate action, they will naturally bring their learnings and passion into their professional roles (where the leverage and positive impact could be on a much greater scale).

Mark Mortierin his keynote session " Re-story-ation" brought out the importance of having a vision, which can be expressed in a powerful and memorable way by telling a story.

By having a strong visualisation of a positive outcome - it makes that outcome more likely.

My key personal learning from Mark's session was that I should have the courage to talk more about my (very ambitious) vision for Climate Action and I intend to do that in the Climate Action Virtual Meeting on 24 Nov.

Guy Goossens, in his presentation of “ PMI Chapter 4.0 Strategy", mentioned that Climate Crisis is one of the 6 "mega-trends" for PMI global focus. This is great news, especially given Guy’s role in mentoring the 12 PMI chapters in the North-West Europe Region.

Guy spoke of the need for broader reach and deeper impact as well as the PMI as a powerful force for good. He also explained the role of the Change Maker - someone who is personally inspired to make a change. I found this a helpful way to describe engagement with Climate Action as I find this this is driven by inspiration.

Many of the other sessions and multiple networking conversations highlighted further Climate Action opportunities and insights.

Please join the Climate Action Virtual Meeting on 24 Nov to further explore these (and maybe other?) opportunities for Climate Action with PMI Belgium.