Project Sustainability Strategies and Societal Grand Challenges

Sustainability strategies and societal grand challenges (SGCs) are two increasingly significant research areas in management, including project management. SGCs are largely scaled, widely scoped, highly complex, and multi-dimensional problems faced by societies (e.g., climate change). Project sustainability strategies (PSSs) are action plans aimed at transforming project activities towards sustainability-oriented outcomes. SGCs align closely with global concerns for sustainable developments. Understanding these alignments in project-oriented contexts is crucial for addressing these challenges. Therefore, a central research question is posed – In what ways do PSSs help contribute towards solving SGCs? PSSs contribute to enhancing sustainability-oriented activities regarding strategic/tactical goals, actors’ inclusions, project practices, project designs, policy compliances, supplier practices, and competency improvements, that align towards solving SGCs. They do so by ways mainly focused on the large-and-complex problems of environmental/climate change and social inclusion; and on the critical barriers to their respective challenging solutions of decarbonisation/carbon neutrality, pollution reduction, resource efficiency, and economic/gender equality. These findings resulted from studying the case of a global company leading in the construction, infrastructure, water, and energy sectors. Forty-three statements on PSSs aiming SGCs were given in seven semi-structured interviews conducted with employees from that company. Relevant literature was sourced through a narrative review method to understand these topics and discuss the findings. The research question is conclusively answered along with future research recommendations towards project, leadership, and societal implications.