Chapter 11 in The Project as a Social System: Asia-Pacific Perspectives on Project Management.
Sustainability is one of the most important challenges of our time. How can we develop prosperity without compromising the life of future generations? Companies are integrating ideas of sustainability in their marketing, corporate communications, annual reports and in their actions. It is for that reason inevitable that ‘sustainability’ will find its way into project management methodologies and practices in the very near future. This paper explores the concept of sustainability and its application to project management. After a review of the relevant literature on sustainability, its leading elements are identified. Based on an analysis of the scarce literature on the application of these elements in project management, a working definition of ‘Sustainable Project Management’ and its concepts are derived. In the last section of the paper, the implications of these concepts for project management processes, reports and competencies are further analysed and related to the leading concepts and standards on project management