Project Management in the Field of Sustainable Development (On the Example of "Unilever")

Today the sustainable development of business and society is inevitable. Many well-known international companies follow the principle of sustainability not only to improve financial performance and gain the market competitive advantage but purposefully for having own contribution to the sustainable development of world and humanity. During sustainable project management implementation, modern large companies face several features and challenges. During this study, the features of Corporate System of Project Management towards environmental projects were considered on the example of the Unilever company. Among other things, the analysis showed that the existing Russian models for assessing sustainability are not practically easy enough. These models have not got enough adaptation for the actual assessment of project results. The PSM3 analysis showed that the Unilever company is at the highest level of organizational sustainability now, which suggests that other players in the FMCG market can take an example from this during the implementation of environmental projects. All the existing problems in the Unilever’s Corporate System of Project Management are actively solving. For solving the identified problems, the author's model for evaluating the effectiveness of marketing environmental projects was developed using various methods of qualitative and quantitative analysis. The practical applicability of the model was proved during the marketing environmental project implemented by the Pure Line brand assessment. Finally, it was successfully proved that the implementation of Sustainable Living Concept in the marketing projects of the Pure Line brand has a positive effect on its overall positioning among consumers, as well as on overall financial performance and sales dynamics in all retail chains. Moreover, several limitations of the developed environmental projects assessing model were identified: 1. The model is designed specifically for environmental marketing projects implemented in large companies. Therefore, it is not relevant for small and medium-sized organizations. 2. The study is focused on the Russian context. Despite the fact that the diagnostic research uses a number of basic models, all of them undergo appropriate adaptation to regional features in the practical part of the diploma. 3. The model is focused on the independent project results’ assessment by the project team after its actual implementation.