Organisations around the world are struggling to translate sustainability commitments into measurable results, with a new study by the Project Management Institute (PMI) and Green Project Management (GPM) finding a sharp confidence gap between executives setting sustainability ambitions and the project teams expected to deliver them. The research, based on nearly 1,600 professionals across 35 countries, found that 85% of sustainability executives were confident their organisations could achieve their goals, compared with 43% of Project Management Office leaders and only 20% of project professionals who were extremely confident in their ability to deliver sustainability outcomes.
The findings point to a problem that is becoming increasingly important for Africa, where governments and companies have announced ambitious targets covering renewable energy, climate adaptation, infrastructure, water security, sustainable agriculture and responsible investment. The challenge is increasingly less about whether sustainability appears in corporate strategies or national plans and more about whether institutions have the project-management capacity, financing, data and governance systems required to deliver those commitments.
The PMI-GPM research found that 79% of respondents considered sustainability important to their organisations’ long-term success, but only 41% said sustainability was fully integrated across projects and functions. Overall, 59% of organisations had not fully embedded sustainability into project delivery and operational decision-making. PMI described sustainability as the strongest predictor of project success in its research, ranking it above project methodology, governance and traditional delivery factors.
That disconnect has practical consequences. Sustainability strategies are often expressed through targets for emissions reductions, renewable-energy capacity, resource efficiency or social outcomes, but those targets eventually have to be translated into procurement decisions, engineering specifications, construction schedules, budgets, monitoring systems and operational procedures.
George Asamani, Managing Director for Sub-Saharan Africa at PMI, said the region’s challenge was increasingly one of delivery.
“A strategy does not build a power station, expand broadband access, or improve water security projects do,” he said, highlighting the role of project professionals in turning national and organisational commitments into infrastructure and services.
The distinction is particularly important in African economies, where infrastructure deficits remain substantial and development resources are limited. A government can announce a renewable-energy target, for example, but achieving it requires viable projects, credible feasibility studies, financing structures, land and permitting arrangements, procurement systems, skilled contractors and reliable monitoring. The same applies to water infrastructure, public transport, digital connectivity and climate-adaptation programmes.
The research identified six recurring friction points that weaken sustainability execution, including difficulties measuring sustainability benefits, weak integration into decision-making, unclear goals and competing priorities. These barriers can be particularly consequential in developing markets because project delays or poorly designed investments can impose significant fiscal and economic costs. For African governments, the measurement challenge is closely linked to the quality of public investment decisions. A project may be labelled sustainable because it includes solar technology, efficient equipment or a climate component, but its actual contribution depends on whether those investments deliver measurable outcomes over their operating life.
This is increasingly relevant as development finance institutions and private investors place greater emphasis on measurable environmental and social outcomes. Projects seeking concessional climate finance, green bonds or sustainability-linked investment increasingly need credible baselines, indicators and reporting systems. Weak measurement can therefore affect not only accountability but also an organisation’s ability to access capital.
The problem is not confined to environmental projects. PMI’s approach treats sustainability as incorporating environmental, social and economic considerations throughout the project lifecycle. Its newly updated PMI-GPM P5 Standard for Sustainability in Project Management provides a framework for assessing sustainability impacts across people, planet and prosperity while linking those impacts to project governance, risk and value delivery. The standard was updated in April 2026 and includes impact scoring, thresholds and escalation mechanisms intended to bring sustainability considerations into project decisions.
This broader approach matters for Africa because development projects frequently involve multiple objectives. A transport corridor, for example, may be expected to improve trade while limiting environmental damage, creating jobs and supporting communities along its route. A water project must provide reliable services while remaining financially and operationally viable. A renewable-energy project has to deliver electricity while also addressing land, community, procurement and grid-integration issues.
The ability to manage those trade-offs is becoming a core institutional capability. PMI’s research also comes as regulatory and reporting expectations are increasing globally. The institute cited PwC’s 2025 Global Sustainability Reporting Survey, which found that 90% of organisations planned to maintain full sustainability reporting practices. As sustainability information becomes more closely connected to financial reporting and investor decision-making, companies are likely to face greater pressure to demonstrate that reported commitments correspond to operational activity.
For African businesses seeking international capital, this shift could become significant. Companies that cannot produce reliable sustainability data may face greater difficulty satisfying lenders, investors, customers and multinational supply-chain partners. Conversely, organisations with strong project controls and credible sustainability measurement may be better positioned to demonstrate resilience and value creation.
The issue is also relevant to Africa’s rapidly expanding energy transition. The continent has enormous renewable-energy potential but continues to face major electricity-access and infrastructure constraints. Converting renewable resources into dependable electricity requires projects that can survive construction delays, financing challenges, regulatory uncertainty and operational risks.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the gap between ambition and delivery is visible across several sectors. Governments have established climate and development strategies, but implementation is often constrained by limited institutional capacity, fragmented financing and shortages of technical skills. The result can be a proliferation of strategies and commitments without corresponding improvements in infrastructure or services.
Project-management capability can therefore become an economic asset rather than simply an administrative function. PMI itself says project professionals are positioned at the centre of organisational change because they translate strategy into deliverables and outcomes. Its sustainability programme now emphasises integrating sustainability into project initiation, governance, risk management and delivery rather than treating it as an additional reporting requirement.
The PMI-GPM partnership reflects this shift. The organisations established a joint venture in 2025 to advance sustainable and regenerative project management globally, combining PMI’s project-management reach with GPM’s sustainability standards, tools and certifications. For African organisations, however, adopting international frameworks will not by itself resolve implementation problems. The effectiveness of any framework depends on whether organisations have people capable of applying it, reliable data systems, management support and sufficient resources to monitor results.
That means sustainability skills will increasingly need to move beyond specialist environmental departments. Finance teams, procurement officers, engineers, project managers, operations executives and senior leadership all influence whether sustainability objectives become part of actual investment decisions. The shift also has implications for universities and professional training institutions across Africa. As governments and businesses undertake more climate-related infrastructure and transformation projects, demand is likely to increase for professionals who understand both conventional project management and sustainability measurement.
PMI has identified a growing need for sustainability-aligned project professionals and has developed its Certified Sustainable Project Professional certification alongside its sustainability standards and learning programmes. Its broader objective is to strengthen the skills required to embed sustainability into project delivery and organisational decision-making.
For development agencies, the findings raise another issue: how to assess the effectiveness of programmes beyond expenditure and completion rates. A road project that is completed on schedule may still fail to generate expected economic benefits if maintenance systems are weak. A water programme may install infrastructure but fail to provide reliable services if local institutions cannot operate the systems. Similarly, a climate-adaptation programme may report the number of people reached without demonstrating whether vulnerability actually declined.
This distinction between outputs and outcomes is increasingly important in Africa’s development-finance environment. As governments face tighter fiscal conditions and development partners demand stronger evidence of impact, the ability to connect project expenditure with measurable economic, social and environmental results will become increasingly valuable.
The PMI research therefore provides a warning to organisations that have already invested heavily in sustainability strategies. The existence of a target does not demonstrate implementation capacity, while a sustainability report does not necessarily show whether projects are producing the intended results. For Africa, the implications are particularly concrete. The continent requires large-scale investment in power generation, electricity transmission, transport, water systems, digital infrastructure, agriculture and urban development. Many of these investments will determine whether economies can adapt to climate change while creating jobs and improving productivity.
The effectiveness of that investment will depend partly on whether sustainability is embedded before projects begin rather than assessed after construction is complete. Decisions about technology, location, materials, procurement, financing and community engagement can lock in environmental and social outcomes for decades.
The growing gap identified by PMI and GPM consequently places project delivery at the centre of the sustainability debate. The next phase of Africa’s transition will require more than ambitious targets. It will require institutions capable of converting those targets into bankable projects, managing implementation risks, measuring results and maintaining assets after they are delivered.
The central question for African governments and businesses is therefore shifting from what sustainability commitments they can announce to what they can reliably deliver. As Asamani’s assessment suggests, the credibility of the region’s climate and development ambitions will ultimately be tested not by the number of strategies adopted, but by the power stations that operate, the broadband networks that connect communities, the water systems that remain functional and the measurable improvements that projects deliver over time.
