Consideration of sustainability in the project initiation

Sustainability is relevant for companies and projects. In project management research the concept of sustainable development receives increasing attention. The project initiation and its relation to sustainability has not yet been researched in depth. The project initiation is important as it essentially lays the ground for the consideration of sustainability in the investment, initiated by the project. The analysis of the investment is the basis for starting a project. This analysis is an important task of the project initiation process. To have sustainable investments a holistic approach in the project initiation considering sustainability dimensions, such as economic, social and ecological orientation, is required.

The aims of the PhD thesis are to :
1) define sustainability dimensions relevant for project initiation,
2) analyse the project initiation process and project initiation methods documented by Project Management Institute, International Project Management Association, Office of Government Commerce and by international development organizations such as World Bank, Unido etc. to see if and how sustainability is implicitly considered,
3) indentify and describe different investment analyses types and analyse them if and how they consider sustainability,
4) describe the project initiation process explicitly considering sustainability,
5) further develop project initiation methods such as the investment analysis to explicitly consider sustainability.