Blog

Author: Stuart Thorp

 

November 2023 is a very busy month for Sustainability related events for the PMI in Europe!

We held a very successful Sustainability Summit 2023 event on 8 November.

The overall event highlights are summarised here:

My personal highlight was the opportunity to introduce Simon King as our keynote speaker, on the theme of "Enough":

You can find a link to the 30min video here.

It was also a pleasure to introduce the screening of "Save Our Wild Isles: The Business of Nature" - a tremendous film on the role of Business in supporting the restoration of Nature. You can find the video of the session here.

There are 3 other films in the same series, and I have started discussions to be able to screen these for PMI Members in Europe in the near future. These include "Hungry for Change" which won a Global Sustainability Film Award on 6 Nov versus 74 competing submissions!

The video clips of a total 20 great presentations from Sustainability Summit 2023 are available via this link.

I thoroughly  recommend watching this valuable material covering a wide range of further topics including:  IPCC based Climate Science & Climate Fresk; Collaborative Conservation with the Jane Goodall Institute; Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); Green Project Management; Synergizing Sustainability: Wind Power and Project Collaboration; Unleashing Corporate Social Entrepreneurship; The future of food and revolutionising Agriculture; Leading the Way: Next Generation's Vision for Sustainable Leadership; The Power of Sustainable Project Management: Building a Greener Future; as well as some great Panel sessions.

For those of you who missed my presentation at the recent PMFAIR on 13 October there is an opportunity to attend an extended version of the PMFAIR presentation, but this time online via ProjectManagement.com.

As a reminder, I will be presenting together with Sam Baker 29 Nov 2023 (17:00 - 18:00 CET.) My part of the webinar will focus on how we can respond to the Climate Crisis as individuals, as professionals and together as members of the PMI. Sam will further explain Climate Fresk with the intention to also encourage participation from PMI members beyond Europe.

We're hoping for a live global audience exceeding 2000 attendees so it would be great to have your support at this webinar which is available to all PMI members to attend (free of charge.)

I am delighted to share that one of my proposals was accepted for the forthcoming PMI European Leadership Institute Meeting (LIM) which will take place on 1-4 Dec 2023.  

There were 70 submissions for just 12 agenda slots and my proposal "Climate Fresk - a tool to raise Climate awareness among PMI European Chapter members" was combined with a proposal from Manuel Ancizu from PMI Madrid (Spain) Chapter, relating to connecting Chapter Strategy with the SDGs, into a single session summarised as follows:

 

Session Title: Strategies and Tools to Connect Chapter Purpose with SDGs

Session Description:
Are you looking for creative ideas to engage your chapters and improve the world around you?
This session will guide attendees through methods of connecting their chapter's work with the Sustainable Development Goals, taking a closer look at raising awareness of climate change and finding partner organizations for your chapter's work.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize the special role and strategic connection that PMI Chapters can have in addressing the SDGs, presenting a simple yet impactful framework that links both.
• Discuss Climate Fresk, a scalable platform for addressing climate change awareness, and how it can fit into chapter plans for 2024.

 

My aim will be to convince PMI Chapter Leaders to progress the roll-out of Climate Fresk based learning (about the Climate Crisis) aiming for significant activity on this topic, across many PMI European Chapters, during 2024.

COP28 Climate Change Summit

COP28, which runs from 30 Nov - 12 Dec in Dubai UAE, is a key opportunity for governments to strengthen their commitments on key topics such as:

💵  loss and damage fund
⛰️  fossil fuel phaseout
🌄  tripling renewables
🌊  global goal on adaptation

 The range of topics and positions can seem rather bewildering, so I suggest taking a look at Carbon Brief's great summary of the key issues and the stances of the various parties with a great introduction from Simon Evans.

I'd recommend also reading the statement of Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, COP28 President-Designate (also CEO of UAE Oil Giant ADNOC) in response to the recent Synthesis Report of the Technical Dialogue of the First Global stocktake published by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The statement looks generally OK to me with one significant concern. It contains the text: ...."scale up the energy system free of all unabated fossil fuels".

My concern is that a lot the discussion at COP28 will focus on the word "unabated" (Cambridge Dictionary definition: " without becoming weaker in strength or force") - and the COP28 President-designate seems to be promoting "Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)" as a way of "abating" the continued production of fossil fuels. The problem is that this technology is currently orders of magnitude away from the scale that would be needed to meet the goals of the Paris agreement (including net zero CO2 emissions by 2050).

In Conclusion

We have all seen the (sometimes devastating) effects of Climate Change during 2023.

November is a significant month for us to take forward some of the PMI initiatives towards Climate Action and Sustainability in general.

I hope that you will join us in supporting these important initiatives.

As for all of my articles, feedback and comments are welcome via stuart.thorp@pmi-belgium.be.