A quick look back — and a smarter step forward
Make space to celebrate progress, explore your project’s wider impact, and turn what you’ve learned into practical next steps.
This colourful, light-hearted template brings a sustainability lens to your team retrospective. With plenty of room for sticky notes and brainstorming, it helps you reflect on what worked, what made sustainable choices harder, and how your next project can better support people and planet.
Who is it for?
Project teams, sustainability practitioners, facilitators, and anyone who wants to bring environmental, social, and community impacts into everyday project learning. Use it at the end of a project, after a milestone, or between delivery cycles. No specialist sustainability knowledge is needed—just curiosity and a willingness to reflect together.
How to use it
Start by adding your project details and inviting everyone to share a one-word check-in. Then move through seven prompts:
Celebrate the impact: Recognise your achievements and the positive change you created together.
The sustainability lens: Explore your wider impacts, surprises, and gaps in data or perspectives.
Bright spots: Capture decisions, collaborations, tools, and ideas worth repeating.
Storm clouds: Discuss barriers, trade-offs, and unintended consequences.
If we could rewind…: Complete “Next time, we would…” to surface possible improvements.
Turn learning into action: Choose up to three improvements for the next cycle.
Closing prompt: Invite each person to name one small action for people and planet.
Give participants time to add sticky notes individually before sharing and grouping ideas. Keep the discussion curious and constructive, make room for different perspectives, and assign an owner and a next step to each agreed improvement.
What will you leave with?
A shared picture of your project’s achievements and sustainability lessons, practices worth repeating, and up to three concrete improvements to carry into your next project—plus a small personal commitment from each participant.
