Real World Project Management Webinar - Deconstructing Sustainability for Project Managers
Sustainability is shaping projects across every sector, yet for many project managers it still feels unclear, conflicting and difficult to navigate in practice.
Sustainability influences funding, procurement, risk, stakeholder expectations and project delivery across almost every industry, however many project managers still feel unsure about what it actually means in practice.
Too often, sustainability is presented as a technical specialism, a reporting exercise or a checklist sitting outside normal project delivery. In reality, it is increasingly part of everyday project decision-making. This session explores sustainability through a project management lens: not as a perfect framework with straightforward answers, but as a series of trade-offs, conversations and decisions that shape outcomes over time.
Drawing on experience leading sustainability across complex built environment and construction projects, in this session we will explore why sustainability often feels overwhelming, where tensions and conflicting priorities emerge and how project managers can play a critical role in navigating them, even without being sustainability specialists themselves.
The session will challenge some of the common assumptions around sustainability, while also offering practical ways to make it feel more accessible, integrated and useful within real-world projects.
The webinar will include interactive audience participation throughout, alongside an open Sustainability Q&A Clinic at the end, giving attendees the opportunity to bring live project questions, challenges or dilemmas into the discussion.
Date:
8 December 2026
Time:
12:30 - 13:30 GMT
Venue:
Online webinar
Organiser:
Association for Project Management
CPD:
1.00
Cost:
Member: Free
Corporate partner employee: Free
Corporate affiliate employee: Free
Who should attend:
Project Managers, Programme Managers, Emerging Professionals, Early Career Professionals, Senior Leaders, Consultants, Sustainability Professionals and anyone involved in delivering projects or organisational change.
Speaker
Paloma Hermoso is Head of Sustainability at Ward Williams, where she leads the development of sustainability strategy and advisory services across the built environment sector.
With an academic background in psychology, Paloma brings an unusually people-focused perspective to sustainability, exploring how decisions, behaviours and competing priorities shape real-world project outcomes. With over 20 years of international project management experience, she specialises in helping organisations navigate sustainability in a way that feels practical, commercially grounded and genuinely integrated into project delivery.
Her work spans sustainability strategy, retrofit, low carbon design, whole life carbon, Passivhaus and organisational transformation. She is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Building, a Fellow of the Association for Project Management, a Retrofit Coordinator, Passivhaus Consultant and Whole Life Carbon Practitioner.
Paloma is also the creator of the “Deconstructing Sustainability” approach and author of the Sustainability Pathfinder, a practical tool designed to help teams navigate sustainability decisions through conversation, reflection and collaboration rather than checklists alone.
Alongside industry practice, she lectures in Retrofit Coordination and Risk Management, mentors through a number of education and industry programmes, and regularly speaks on sustainability, leadership and the future of the built environment.
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