06. Include the Planet in your Brief
Why does it matter?
As a product manager, your biggest opportunity to make an impact is before your new feature or product is released. The earlier climate-consciousness is integrated into the product development process, the bigger your opportunity to make an impact is.
The Product Requirement Document (PRD) or brief document defines and communicates what success means, how you plan to achieve it, and what is needed from stakeholders, both within your product team and other departments. It materializes this unique moment to raise awareness and introduce environmental and climate goals, KPIs, benefits, opportunities, and considerations.
What can I do?
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Set environmental and emission reduction product goals and link them to the OKRs or other strategic goals. Connect them with tangible business and user opportunities and benefits to facilitate their adoption.
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Build the business case by estimating environmental benefits and gains (including risks avoided) from the new service, product, or feature to convince stakeholders
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Go beyond targeted users: consider non-users (persons impacted by your service directly or indirectly) and non-human persona (animals or the planet)
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List environmental KPIs (more in Choose the right metrics)
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Set a carbon budget for the initiative (or feature) and set alerts when the budget is exceeded
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Consider environmental Key Failure Indicators (KFIs) to get alignment on non-acceptable scenarios (e.g. a feature or product being too energy-intensive or emitting too much carbon emissions for the business or user value created)
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Anticipate consequences to complete the brief
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Add a section for environmental considerations (listed as risks, uncertainties, or opportunities)
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Identify and prioritize risks based on two factors: probability or likelihood, and impact. Then, identify actions to eliminate or mitigate them
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Define feature life expectancy and conditions/triggers for retirement
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Explore opportunities to Promote green user behaviors
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Track your digital footprint: list which tools you plan to use to measure, include sample dashboards as part of the scope
What does success look like?
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🌍 Inclusion of environmental metrics in product analytics and reporting
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🌍 Cross-departmental participation in green initiatives
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🌍💰 Adoption of cleaner electricity sources for operations
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🌍 Established targets for reduced carbon and greenhouse gas emissions
Things to consider
Like any brief or team alignment exercise, the hard part of the process happens before the meeting. You should start by educating your peers, researching, finding compelling data points to support your case, and benchmarking the competition to create some internal FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). To increase your chances of success and be ready for these discussions, you should@Influence and collaborate with internal stakeholders. Also, make sure to onboard your marketing team. They will be a great ally to make sustainability shine internally and with your users. This is another excellent opportunity to create positive momentum! More on @Share your commitment, actions, and journey publicly.