Disruptive impact of sustainability in project management and emerging sustainable practices in PMBOK 7th edition

Following concerns about exponential growth of world population, pollution, resource scarcity and its consequences sustainable development has become an urgent need that requires institutional and governmental action. It is obvious that our unsustainable present has been built through projects by neglecting wider issues and Grand Challenges. Sustainability in project management has always been easy to understand but hard to implement in practice due to potential difficulties and lack of implicative solutions in PM standards. This paper explores paradigmatic impacts of sustainability in project management practices and sustainability footprints in PMBOK 7th edition. In the first phase, the research follows an integrative literature review and thematically structure the review to synthesis the concepts to come up with a specific conclusion. In the second phase, researches will conduct interviews to strengthen the initial findings and generate new ideas about sustainable project practices. The study considers sustainability in project management as a crucial but disruptive aspect to be incorporated into the traditional management functions. It proposes sustainability as a key factor which evolves current project management practices in a shift from process-based to a principle-based while creating value instead of focusing on deliverables and outputs.