New research from Project Management Institute (PMI) and Green Project Management (GPM) shows that while sustainability has moved to the center of organizational strategy, many organizations are still not equipped to execute on it. The report points to a widening disconnect between strategic ambition and delivery reality.
- Confidence drops sharply between strategy and delivery. 85% of sustainability executives are confident their organization can achieve its goals. Only 43% of Project Management Office (PMO) leaders agree – a 42-point gap – and only 20% of project professionals are extremely confident.
- Ambition is ahead of capability. Across the leadership and delivery spectrum, 79% of respondents say sustainability positions their organizations for long-term success, yet only 41% report that it is fully integrated across projects and functions.
PMI research also found that sustainability is the number one predictor of project success – ranking ahead of project methodology, governance, and every traditional delivery factor. While sustainability drives innovation and boosts value realization, more than half of organizations (59%) do not fully integrate it at the project and function level, limiting its competitive impact.
“Sustainability has often been a side agenda or a signaling exercise. But it is now increasingly tied to business resilience, competitiveness, and long-term value creation,” said Pierre Le Manh, President & CEO, PMI. “Our research shows that projects built around sustainability succeed at nearly twice the rate of those that are not. The challenge for leaders now, beyond embedding sustainability into strategy, is how to build the organizations to deliver on it.”
The challenge is systemic rather than motivational
The research, Executing Sustainability Strategy: When Ambition Meets Reality, is based on a global survey of nearly 1,600 professionals across 35 countries, and identifies six recurring friction points that weaken sustainability execution inside organizations.
The six challenges or tensions are: difficulty quantifying sustainability benefits in business terms, weak integration into decision-making, inconsistent execution due to unclear goals, deprioritization under delivery pressure, limited visibility into how day-to-day actions drive impact, and the challenge of working against longer-term outcome horizons.
Taken together, those friction points show why sustainability often remains visible in strategy decks and board materials but less prevalent in day-to-day delivery. The report also finds that 40% of respondents qualify as sustainability skeptics, doubting its impact, feasibility, or business relevance — a critical sign that weak execution capability can erode belief as well as performance.
Closing the gap: clarity from the top, capability at the project level
The research identifies two enablers that separate organizations that deliver on sustainability commitments from those that do not.
- The first is a clear purpose, disseminated by leadership, so the people setting strategy and the people delivering it work from a shared definition of project success. This alignment brings sustainability into the core decisions that guide capital, talent, and time.
- The second is organizational capability: the systems thinking and execution muscle to translate sustainability strategy into project-level decisions, workflows and outcomes.
On World Environment Day, Project Management Institute and Green Project Management launch the Certified Sustainable Project Professional (CSPP)™, a new certification and e-learning designed to turn corporate sustainability intent into resilient, future-ready delivery and successful business outcomes. The CSPP™ certification enables project professionals to assess sustainability dimensions early and embed them into real delivery decisions across project planning, execution and measurement. Through the PMI® GPM® P5™ methodology, the core of the CSPP™ certification, project teams will learn 260 ways to assess and manage sustainability-related risk, helping translate ambition into measurable impact and innovation.
“Sustainability progress lives or dies at the project level,” said Joel Carboni, Chief Executive Officer of Green Project Management. “Every ton of emissions avoided, every resource conserved, every community made stronger by a project happens because a team had the skills, the standards and the will to deliver it. The CSPP™ certification gives practitioners the rigor and the methods to make sustainability outcomes real rather than aspirational, and to do it at the scale this moment requires.”
The CSPP™ certification comes at a critical moment, as the project-level stakes of sustainability continue to escalate. 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 generated more than $200 billion in global economic losses in 2024 alone, underscoring the growing business and societal risks of inaction. Meanwhile, global data center electricity demand is projected to double to 945 TWh by 2030, placing complex tradeoffs around 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 full sustainability reporting practices, according to the PwC Global Sustainability Reporting Survey 2025.
Read the full report
Read Executing Sustainability Strategy: When Ambition Meets Reality and learn more about the CSPP™ certification at HERE.
Survey Methodology
Executing Sustainability Strategy: When Ambition Meets Reality explores the gap between sustainability strategy and execution. The findings draw on a global survey of nearly 1,600 professionals across 35 countries, translated into seven languages, complemented by qualitative research with C-suite executives, sustainability leaders, PMO leaders, project professionals and self-identified sustainability skeptics.
About Project Management Institute (PMI)
PMI is the leading authority in project success. Since 1969, PMI has shone a light on the people and advanced practices behind successful projects. Supported by a global community of millions of project professionals and by thousands of corporations, government agencies and academic institutions, PMI provides the knowledge, resources and certifications to lead projects and transformations effectively and responsibly. Join PMI in elevating our world – one project at a time. Connect with us at www.pmi.org, linkedin.com/company/projectmanagementinstitute, on Instagram @pmi_org, and on TikTok @PMInstitute.
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Project Management Institute and PMI are trademarks and/or registered marks of Project Management Institute, Inc., in the US and/or in other countries.
PMI GPM Sustainability JV, LLC Trademarks
Certified Sustainable Project Professional (CSPP) and CSPP are trademarks and/or registered marks of PMI GPM Sustainability JV, LLC in the US and/or in other countries.
About GPM
Founded in 2009, GPM is a global authority in Sustainable Project Management® methods and a joint venture partner with PMI in advancing sustainability within the profession. GPM develops internationally recognized standards, methodologies, research, and professional development programs that help organizations embed sustainability into project delivery and governance.
GPM Trademarks
Green Project Management, GPM, and Sustainable Project Management are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Green Project Management in the U.S.
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