Abstract

Environmental projects are delivered under the same generic project life cycle and six-constraint structure (time, cost, scope, quality, resources and risk) used across the project management discipline, but sustainability requirements change what each phase and each constraint must accomplish. This paper synthesises peer-reviewed project management and sustainability-accounting literature to examine how the initiation, planning, execution/monitoring and closing phases interact with the six constraints when a project must deliver measurable environmental outcomes alongside the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It argues that quality and risk cannot be managed as residual constraints once time, cost and scope are fixed, because ecological outcomes and deep uncertainty need to be built into the project definition from initiation onward. The argument is illustrated against two documented combined-sewer-overflow interception programmes: the Thames Tideway Tunnel, a £4.6 billion, 25 km project in London, and the DC Clean Rivers Project, a US$2.7 billion multi-tunnel programme in Washington, D.C. Comparing a UK scheme driven by an EU-derived regulatory settlement with a US scheme driven by a federal consent decree shows the framework's constraint interactions recurring under two different governance triggers and two different life-cycle stages, one substantially complete and one still under construction. An illustrative phase-by-constraint-by-SDG mapping is proposed as a planning heuristic. The paper draws its argument from published literature and two documented cases rather than from primary data collection or a statistically representative sample, and its claims should be read accordingly.

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