A Re-Look at Project Sustainability

Abstract

One of the crucial aspects in Project Management is development of an elaborate system for monitoring project implementation, project operation, project maintenance and project assessment. Project assessment consists of information on the actual and intended benefits from the project over the intended lifetime. Hence, there is a need to understand the concept of project sustainability.Project sustainability is often defined as the capacity of the project to continue to deliver its intended benefits over an extended period of time. These benefits may often be expressed in quantitative terms involving the internal economic or financial rates of return. However, these benefits may also be qualitatively assessed.Sustainability also depends on whether a balance can be achieved in the use of principle forms of capital – namely, human, natural, cultural, institutional, physical and financial. Sustainability is more difficult to define and measure in project design to develop human resources because, qualitative indicators must be taken into account alongside quantitative indicators. This paper discusses the conceptual framework to monitor and evaluate measure Project Sustainability.