Sustainability Is a Top Predictor of Project Success, But Too Many Organizations Fail to Implement It, Finds New PMI® and GPM® Research

PHILADELPHIA – New research from the Project Management Institute (PMI) and Green Project Management (GPM) shows that although sustainability has moved to the core of corporate strategy, many organizations are not yet equipped to do so. The report points to a widening disconnect between strategic ambitions and the reality of delivery.

• Confidence drops significantly between strategy and delivery. 85% of sustainability managers are confident that their organization can achieve its goals. Only 43% of Project Management Office (PMO) leaders agree – a gap of 42 points – and only 20% of project professionals are extremely confident.
• Ambition precedes ability. Across the leadership and delivery sector, 79% of respondents say sustainability positions their organizations for long-term success, yet only 41% report that it is fully integrated across projects and operations.

PMI's research also found that sustainability is the number one predictor of project success – it ranks ahead of project methodology, governance, and all other common delivery elements. Although sustainability encourages innovation and increases value realization, more than half (59%) of organizations do not fully integrate it at the project and operational level, limiting its competitive impact.

said Pierre Le Manh, President and CEO, PMI. “

research, Implementing a Sustainability Strategy: When Aspiration Meets Realityis based on a global survey of nearly 1,600 professionals in 35 countries, and identifies six recurring areas of conflict that weaken sustainability performance within organizations.

The six challenges or tensions are: difficulty measuring the benefits of sustainability in business terms, weak integration in decision-making, inconsistent implementation due to unclear goals, indifference under pressure to deliver, limited visibility of how daily actions drive impact, and the challenge of working against long-term results.

Taken together, those points of conflict show why sustainability is often seen in strategy decks and board items but rarely in everyday delivery. The report also found that 40% of respondents qualified as opponents of sustainability, questioning its impact, feasibility, or business relevance – an important sign that weak implementation forces can erode belief and performance.

The study identifies two factors that help distinguish organizations that introduce sustainability commitments from those that do not.

• The first is a clear purpose, communicated by leadership, so the people who set the strategy and the people who deliver it work on a shared definition of project success. This alignment brings stability to key decisions that direct money, talent and time.
• Second is organizational capacity: the thinking and implementation muscle of systems to translate sustainability strategy into project-level decisions, workflows and outcomes.

On World Environment Day, the Project Management Institute and Green Project Management introduce the Certified Sustainable Project Professional (CSPP)™, a new certification and e-learning designed to transform the mission of business sustainability into sustainable, future-proof delivery and successful business results. CSPP™ certification empowers project professionals to assess sustainability dimensions early and embed them in real-world delivery decisions throughout project planning, execution and measurement. Through PMI^® GPM^® The P5™ methodology, the core of the CSPP™ certification, project teams will learn 260 ways to assess and manage sustainability-related risks, helping to translate ambition into measurable impact and innovation.

said Joel Carboni, Chief Executive Officer of Green Project Management.

The CSPP™ certification comes at a critical time, as the level of sustainability projects continues to grow. Today, 88% of companies view sustainability as a driver of value creation (Morgan Stanley Sustainable Signals: Corporates 2025). At the same time, climate-related disasters accounted for more than $200 billion in global economic losses by 2024 alone, underscoring the growing business and societal risks of inaction. Meanwhile, global data center electricity demand is expected to double to 945 TWh by 2030, putting the complex trade-offs of energy, water, and infrastructure directly in the hands of project teams (World Economic Forum; IEA Energy and AI Report). Regulatory expectations are also accelerating, with 90% of organizations planning to maintain strict reporting practices, according to the PwC Global Sustainability Reporting Survey 2025.