Measuring project sustainability maturity level - a fuzzy-based approach

Abstract

Traditionally, project management is focused on outcomes such as quality, time and cost, with little consideration for environmental and social issues. While project management maturity has been discussed at length in the literature, there is currently a paucity of research exploring ways to embed sustainability into project management. Being able to measure levels of sustainability attainment in project management will help project owners identify strengths and weaknesses in their current practices. This paper addresses a gap in the literature by: 1) prescribing a set of criteria for assessing project sustainability maturity levels leading to a project sustainability maturity level (PSML) model, and 2) presenting a fuzzy-based approach to measure maturity levels. An example illustrates the various steps involved in the approach. The fuzzy-based approach is seen as appropriate for reflecting the uncertainty in sustainability maturity assessments. The originality of this paper lies in showing how sustainability can be assessed in a progressive manner through maturity levels.