Sustainable Project Management® Registered on the U.S. Principal Register

1. Announcement

GPM Ltd. has received U.S. registration for Sustainable Project Management® as a service mark in International Class 41 for business training in the field of professional development and project management. The registration is listed on the Principal Register as U.S. Registration No. 8,255,819, with first use and first use in commerce dating to July 12, 2011.

The registration recognizes the training services GPM has developed and delivered since 2011, supported by published standards, methods, and certifications used by organizations and practitioners around the world.

2. Why Language Matters

GPM pursued this registration because language matters. When a body of professional training is established and refined over time, the words used to describe it shape how organizations recognize it, evaluate it, and select it. For more than a decade, GPM has built the training services, standards, methods, and certifications that organizations and practitioners use to integrate sustainability into how projects are governed, planned, and delivered.

Sustainable Project Management® identifies the training services GPM has delivered since 2011 to help project professionals consider impacts across the project lifecycle, make better trade-off decisions, and connect project delivery to long-term outcomes within social, environmental, and economic thresholds.

3. The Foundation Behind the Registration

Credibility in training rests on more than terminology. Organizations offering professional development in sustainable project management should themselves operate to the standards they teach. That means published sustainability policies, transparent reporting, demonstrated practice across their own operations, and training built on a body of standards work developed, tested, and refined over time.

GPM has held to that requirement since 2011. The organization has been a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact since 2012, publishes an annual Communication on Progress, issues a GRI Standards 2021 (Core Option) sustainability report, maintains a Net Positive Carbon Impact position externally verified by an accredited third party, and operates under a documented policy framework covering ethics, human rights, anti-trafficking, labor rights, environmental regeneration, and responsible AI. The P5 Standard for Sustainability in Project Management and the GPM SPM Practice Guide have been developed, peer-reviewed, and updated across multiple editions. The registration recognizes the training services built on that sustained body of work.

4. Scope of the Registration and Permitted Use

The registration is intended to support clarity in how the term is applied to training and professional development connected to GPM's standards-based approach. It does not constrain how universities, professional bodies, governments, companies, or practitioners discuss sustainability in projects. GPM partners remain free to use the mark in accordance with their agreements and GPM's published intellectual property guidance.

The registration supports clarity, consistency, and responsible use of the mark so the market understands which training programs and professional development offerings are delivered under GPM's standards-based approach.

The registration covers the composite mark as used to identify GPM's training services. No exclusive right is claimed in the term “project management” standing alone.

5. Delivery Through the PMI-GPM Joint Venture

Through the PMI-GPM Joint Venture, professional development under Sustainable Project Management® will continue to be delivered as it was intended: as structured training that helps organizations build resiliency under conditions of uncertainty, equips practitioners to deliver projects within social, environmental, and economic thresholds, and connects project performance to long-term value.

The Joint Venture is the global vehicle through which GPM's standards, methods, and certifications reach the project management profession at scale. It positions Sustainable Project Management® training as governance-grade professional development that strengthens how organizations plan, deliver, and account for projects under increasing regulatory, environmental, and social pressure.

6. Continued Work

This registration reflects years of work by many people who recognized that project management needed to evolve. Projects shape the world people live in. The way they are managed matters.

Sustainable Project Management® reflects GPM's continued work to help professionals deliver projects that create lasting value across people, planet, prosperity, process, and product.

Our work continues.