Why I Moved Beyond Sustainability to Regenerative Project Management

I've been working in the project management field for over 30 years and have been involved in sustainability initiatives for more than 25 years.

While I appreciate the work done in this field, I believe we have reached a tipping point. The next step beyond sustainability is regenerative project management.

Sustainability focuses primarily on "doing less harm." While doing less harm is valuable and essential, it does not go far enough. Regenerative project management seeks to "do more good," leaving the environment, the community, or the users better off than before the project started.

When I think about this, I envision interconnected outcomes, rather than separate metrics. For instance, improving the soil can lead to better agricultural yields locally, supporting community health, lowering food prices and retaining more water, which reduces irrigation needs and preserves local water resources. These benefits are interrelated and mutually reinforcing.

Systems thinking is at the core of regenerative practice. When we view the world as connected systems and recognize that all of our actions have consequences throughout the entire system, we open ourselves to new possibilities.

The shift in perspective required by regenerative project management fundamentally changes how I manage projects today, compared to how I managed them in the past.

From Green Projects to Regenerative Projects

Most organizations I’ve worked with are familiar with what we usually call green project management.

The goal is harm reduction:

Use fewer resources

Produce less waste

Offset emissions

Stay compliant with regulations

For a long time, that felt like progress.

But when I look at these efforts through the lens of the doughnut model with its ecological ceiling and social foundation, I realize they only get us halfway.

Using fewer resources helps keep us within the ecological ceiling, but it doesn’t necessarily move us forward in terms of social well-being.

That gap is where regenerative practices come in.

They aim not just to stay within limits, but to actively improve conditions for both people and the planet.

Green projects aim for neutral outcomes.

Regenerative projects aim for positive outcomes.

In practice, this is the difference between avoiding damage and actively creating value.

It’s also the difference between checking boxes and changing systems.

I see this reflected clearly in the Global Project Management P5 Standard.

Instead of focusing only on profit and process, P5 encourages us to consider people, planet, and prosperity across the full project lifecycle.

When applied seriously, it nudges teams beyond the idea of carbon neutrality and toward nature-positive outcomes.

I recall a P5 kick-off meeting where a team member asked,

“How can we ensure our project not only achieves our scope but actually leaves a positive mark on the community?”

The project lead answered,

“By integrating regenerative metrics early and thinking beyond our immediate goals.”

It was a short exchange, but it showed me how a framework like P5 can turn abstract principles into very practical, everyday conversations about scope, risk, and impact.

Over time, I’ve seen this way of thinking slowly take hold in manufacturing, construction, and software development.

Doing Less Bad Versus Doing More Good

One simple question continues to guide me:

How can we improve upon what currently exists?

Consider a construction project. A traditional green approach would likely focus on decreasing water consumption, handling stormwater, and protecting existing vegetation.

These are reasonable and needed approaches.

However, a regenerative approach could be more inclusive. It may include:

• Restoring native plant species

• Improving soil quality

• Creating habitats to increase biodiversity in the area

With this approach, the focus expands beyond a specific site, and includes the larger ecosystem.

Setting a target such as restoring three hectares of pollinator habitat gives this objective a measurable and concrete form.

Similarly, I see the same possibilities for software projects.

In software, sustainability could mean optimizing server utilization to reduce energy consumption.

Regeneration, however, could mean developing applications that reduce digital fatigue, protect user attention, and promote mental well-being.

If I frame my thinking within the doughnut's health foundation, I can now measure something such as reduced cognitive load.

This could be measured in terms of decreased screen time per user, or the number of unnecessary notifications eliminated.

Creating these benefits as tangible allows teams to see that regeneration is not simply limited to nature. Regeneration extends to human experiences.

Both of these perspectives require different types of conversations at the onset of a project.

The Net Positive Project Lifecycle

Over the years, I’ve come to think in terms of what I call a net positive project lifecycle.

At every major phase planning, execution, delivery, and closure I don’t want to evaluate the project only on efficiency and cost.

I want to assess its contribution.

In planning, that might mean choosing materials and methods that are not just sustainable but that actively support local biodiversity or community health.

As we move into execution, it means monitoring these systems to ensure they continue to provide the intended benefits and being willing to adjust if we see unintended consequences.

During delivery, we can establish feedback loops that track how these benefits hold up over time.

By closure, the project should leave lasting regenerative outcomes and give teams clear leverage points to apply in future work.

Along the way, the questions I ask myself and my teams have changed:

– What positive impact should exist when this project is complete?

– Who benefits beyond the immediate customer?

– What systems are stronger because this work happened?

Early in my career at General Motors, project success was defined by scope, schedule, and budget.

Those constraints still matter.

But during my years at Whirlpool and Magna International, I watched safety, compliance, and long-term operational impact move from the periphery to the center of how we defined a successful project.

Today, in my role at Bosch, safety and compliance are non-negotiable.

What has changed most for me is how early we consider downstream impact.

We don’t wait until the end to ask if a project helped or harmed.

We start with that question.

Personal Lessons From the Field

There is one takeaway from my years of experience in this field that I think stands out:

Intent defines the outcome.

Historically, sustainability was typically viewed as a constraint that needed to be worked around.

However, once teams began viewing sustainability as an opportunity rather than a limitation, innovation became more natural.

At Magna, I worked on several large scale programs in which supplier decisions had a ripple effect on multiple plants, regions and communities.

When we emphasized long-term workforce safety and environmental standards, and worked collaboratively with local partners, we saw improvements in performance.

Those improvements were not only moral. They were operational.

At Bosch, the extensive focus on safety and compliance has reinforced this concept.

When safety is built into a project from the beginning, as opposed to being added late in the process, we see better outcomes:

• Fewer accidents
• Increased employee satisfaction
• Greater trust among employees and external stakeholders

In my opinion, regenerative thinking operates similarly.

When positive impact is integrated into the project from the beginning, it becomes a factor in making decisions, not an afterthought.

Regenerative thinking requires systems thinking.

Projects do not operate in isolation.

They affect supply chains, communities, ecosystems and users.

If I were to create a diagram of this, I would start with a basic stakeholder mapping exercise.

On the upstream side of the map, I would identify the parties who supply the raw materials, logistics firms, and manufacturers.

On the downstream side, I would include the relevant community groups, environmental organizations, local government entities, and the ultimate consumers.

All of these parties have a vested interest in the outcome of the project, regardless of whether they appear formally on an RACI chart.

Visualizing these relationships can be a powerful method for expanding your conceptualization of accountability.

In order to achieve a net positive outcome in one area, you cannot sacrifice another.

This is a limit I attempt to maintain.

As someone with considerable experience in this area, I believe that experienced project managers can serve as a critical asset to their organizations.

We have the ability to visualize dependencies.

We understand trade-offs.

We comprehend the manner in which early decisions have a direct correlation to the remainder of the project lifecycle.

The primary distinction today is that the scope of the systems we consider are broader.

1. Environmental impact
2. Human welfare
3. Community resilience
4. Digital wellness

These are no longer "soft" issues. Today, they represent identifiable risks and opportunities.

Measuring What Matters

One consistent issue I encounter is measurement.

Organizations are generally familiar with sustainability metrics.

However, regenerative metrics can be ambiguous.

I have discovered it helpful to correlate new measurements with familiar ones.

For example, if we have already tracked the volume of water utilized, we can establish a replenishment metric.

Reporting these side-by-side in existing reporting vehicles demonstrates that regenerative endeavors can be embedded in existing frameworks, and not require a completely new framework.

I have observed the emergence of nature-positive indicators, workforce wellness metrics, community-impact assessments and long-term risk-reduction metrics.

P5 provides a structural framework for this type of thought.

Tools, however, do not create change.

Change begins with the leadership mindset.

When leaders continually ask themselves how a project adds value beyond its immediate delivery, teams react in a different manner.

Teams take ownership.

They generate creative alternatives.

They engage stakeholders earlier.

One practical manner in which I have witnessed this mindset take hold is through the use of concise impact prompts at governance reviews.

Requiring each governance review to include a short description of the net positive value provided to others reinforces new behaviors without introducing excessive process overhead.

Based on my experience, the teams that are most engaged in their work are typically the teams that understand why the work they are doing is meaningful, beyond the list of tasks they have to perform.

The Future of Project Management

I do not perceive regenerative project management as a fad.

I perceive it as a response to the realities we face today.

Projects shape the world. We construct infrastructure. We produce technology. We design systems through projects.

If we focus on reducing harm in our projects, we miss a great deal of potential.

When I imagine two potential futures, the differences are obvious.

In one, projects focus exclusively on harm reduction. A construction project may minimize waste and emissions, but the surrounding environment is left essentially unchanged.

In the second, that same project improves local biodiversity, restores habitats and builds a more resilient community in the vicinity.

One of the two possible futures maintains the status quo.

The second revives and renews.

I expect the next generation of project managers to be assessed not only by how efficiently they deliver, but by the broad-based impact of what they deliver.

They will be asked to function as stewards of the doughnut model's safe and just space, producing a positive return to both nature and society while remaining within planetary boundaries.

Setting ambitious and quantifiable targets in that direction is likely to be one way that they will drive innovation and meaning in their work.

After more than three decades in this field, I find this transition to be both difficult and exciting.

It aligns technological expertise with human obligation.

It adds a sense of purpose to delivery.

We already know how to deliver projects.

The question that I keep returning to is:

What kind of world are these projects creating?

The path that we took to get here was "less bad."

The path that we will take to move forward is "more good."

One easy place to start with yourself as much as with others is to bring a regenerative question to the next project meeting:

"How can this project have a positive impact on the environment or community, in addition to achieving our objectives?"