PMO Sustainability at The Coca-Cola Company.

Christine Yeager

Program management can be an agent of change in driving sustainability, but clarity is essential. Clarity derives from three focal points: first, measure objectives within the context of your business, next aggregate the impact, and then relentlessly tell the story. Turn your program management office into a clear driver for sustainability. Luckily, providing clarity amongst chaos is what project managers and program managers do best. If we apply that level of rigor to driving meaningful progress against carbon and GHG reduction, imagine what we can achieve.

Clear is kind. Brene Brown has most recently made this phrase popular. Brene - since we’re both Texan, I feel we’re on a first name basis - has great ways of approaching uncomfortable truths about oneself and being vulnerable. She has encouraged me to approach life in a way that is more accepting of the fact that no one is perfect. Adopting this mantra of ‘clear is kind’ can sharpen your approach to project and program management, and help drive sustainability objectives. Clarity for a team is kind. Once clear on the objective and their role, the team can go forth and execute. More broadly though, sustainability is anything but clear.

“Without individuals joining together in one clear drive, sustainability gets lost. Clarity in what we are ultimately doing and impacting is kind and essential.”

What each individual believes is great for the environment, may actually be detrimental - it all depends on their measuring stick. A company’s environmental, social, and governance goals can sometimes work against each other if individuals are not bought into a clear objective and ultimately do not orchestrate actions within that alignment of goals. A company’s consumers may not understand the drivers of actions or the interconnected metrics to measure environmental impact. Individual consumers may put pressure on a company to take action on a more point source issue that is counter-productive to holistic sustainability ambitions.
Alternatively, innovation can be stymied by entrenched antiquated systems that have no influx of investment to adjust (recycling for example). Without individuals joining together in one clear drive, sustainability gets lost. Clarity in what we are ultimately doing and impacting is kind and essential. So how do we do it?

• Measure.

• Aggregate the impact against our business goals.

• Relentlessly tell the story of success.

Measure: If your company or team doesn’t have any measurable sustainability commitments, get some. We have many goals that serve various purposes.

Each of you is on your own path to driving sustainability within your company. As was pioneered by Dr. William Deming, plan, check, do, act – that’s the building blocks for leading an effective project management office. These same principles apply, but the secret sauce is in setting your measurable sustainability objectives within the context of your business.

In the beverage industry, the goals are centered around driving the circular economy. Making packaging more recyclable, using more recycled material, collecting a bottle and can for everyone that we sell, using less virgin material, and increasing the percentage of our business sold in reusable offerings. In addition, we have goals focused on regenerative water use, reduction in carbon footprint using the science based target methodology, using sustainable agriculture practices, using less sugar, and ensuring DE&I practices are implemented up and down our supply chain. Each of these is measurable, and some are more in our control than others.

It is critical to measure progress and link it to the actions you are taking as a business. For example, when we are keeping track of our innovation pipeline, we are looking at both business measures of success as well as,; for example, how much recycled material usage we will increase with the launch of a new innovation. Likewise, when we invest in recycling projects through NGOs, we look for the yield of pounds collected through those efforts.

Aggregate your impact against business goals: how are you making progress, and how is that progress driving your business objectives. It is the role of a PMO lead to communicate progress. However, sustainability is another variable in the equation of progress, and if you’ve attached the correct measurement against your laundry list or backlog of projects, then you can easily roll up the impact. By showcasing the impact against just the sustainability goals, you may lose critical stakeholders. You need to show. For example-I made this sustainability change and it drove my sales up compared to where I didn’t make that change.

Of course, Coca-Cola shares a very lengthy ESG report. It shows the aggregation of our actions against our stated goals, and that is step number one. If you aren’t doing that, you need to start communicating your progress publicly. There are many regulations and processes to follow in order to complete an ESG report. That may be daunting, and you may still need to convince your company leadership. Consider how you weave in the sustainability progress against the aggregate benefits of your various projects. This is simplest with designing for value projects. For example: we drove productivity up by X which yielded us Y reduction in our carbon footprint and Z cost savings.

Then finally, tell your story. Storytelling can look different to each organization, from slide decks to formal reports to informal communication networks. Find a format that resonates, and share relentlessly. Start with compelling examples. At first, examples may feel small and not to scale. But remember, sustainability is emotional for people. Many people are energized by feeling like their actions are driving toward a better planet. Create that linkage for them. Evoke that emotion. Build the excitement. You will be successful because you’ve been measuring and aggregating the impact, you’ll be able to tell that story next. Sustainability is the first thing to get cut from the funding chopping block if people don’t connect to the value. Relentlessly share your examples and breathe humanity into the success stories. Let the teams tell their own stories, celebrate their success as everyone’s success. Beat the drum until others join in and it gets louder.

Being clear is kind. If sustainability or resilience is important to your organization, be clear: measure sustainability objectives within the context of your business, aggregate their impact, and then tell your story relentlessly. You can turn your program management office into an agent of change for the environment. Remember, providing clarity amongst chaos is what project managers and program managers do best. Program manager set the course for an organization and they can chart the course for tackling climate change.