Sustainable orientation for project managers

Abstract

As pressure increases on the building industry to incorporate the principles of sustainable development into policies and activities, so too does the pressure on managing projects and the project approach. The current project approach does not effectively address the objectives of sustainable development. Furthermore the number of sustainable buildings has risen in the last decade, and there is still more need for sustainable constructions. But, on the other hand, sustainable ambitions almost always decline during the actual construction project. To realize these ambitions, there is the need for a new project approach. The study focused on the role of the project manager in safeguarding sustainable ambitions during the whole project. This research is focused on the following control aspects: Time, Money, Information, Quality and Organization, as a project manager’s tool in order to achieve the sustainable ambitions. In this thesis the main Research Question is “How can project managers contribute to achieving sustainable ambitions in office-building projects? The methodology of this study consists of the following elements: literature survey, interviewing and expert meeting.