MSc Construction Project Management

Projects inevitably generate social, environmental and economic impacts. Better understanding of sustainable development concepts and tools can enable project managers to incorporate sustainability thinking into project design, planning, monitoring and execution.  

Projects are needed that work with nature and society to deliver more sustainable solutions, which are resilient to future climate impacts and resource constraints. This unit equips graduates with the awareness of and tools to identify and respond to the environmental, social, ethical and wider sustainability issues/impacts arising from the projects they may be involved with throughout their future career.

This unit aims to provide students with the skills and understanding necessary to identify and respond to the sustainability implications of projects and use appropriate tools to manage and optimise those consequences.

On successful completion of the course, a student will be able to:

ILO 1: Apply knowledge of common barriers to sustainability initiatives to project scenarios, in order to predict challenges that are likely to be faced by project managers and other project stakeholders.

ILO 2: Identify and discuss the responsibilities of companies, project stakeholders and project managers regarding ethical and responsible practices.

ILO 3: Appraise how different types of project can interact with and impact on society, economic systems and the environment, taking a whole lifecycle approach, and analyse the significance of these impacts from a project.

ILO 4: Describe key environmental and social challenges facing countries in the 21st century.

ILO 5: Analyse how projects could potentially be optimised to reduce risks and negative impacts and enhance their resilience to global changes over their whole lifecycle and predict how barriers to more sustainable projects might potentially be overcome.  

ILO 6: Explain how Sustainable Development models and tools can be used to identify and communicate the potential impacts of company activities and projects, in relation to the physical environment, economic and social issues.

ILO 7: Explain the core principles of sustainable development, and their relevance to project teams and activities. 

1. An overview of current global environmental and social issues such as resource availability, energy and climate change and their intersection wuth project activities. 
2. Introduction to sustainable development principles and key modelas and metrics.
3. Tools for measuring sustainbility risks and impacts, such as life cycle analysis, environmental accounting and cost/benefit analysis tools.
4. Barriers to implementing sustainability at local, company, national and global scale.
5. Ethics, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Sustainability Reporting (Triple Bottom Line).
6. Focus on different types of project and how project managers can recognise and actively contribute to more positive project outcomes through applying sustainability principles.

Multiple choice test (20%), Digital (online) exam (80%).

Feedback provided online after MCQ test.

1. Essentials of sustainability for business: a practical approach by McManners, Peter J. Routledge, 2024. 
2. SUSTAINABILITY IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT [electronic resource]: a functional approach by Brzozowska, Anna. CRC PRESS, 2021.
3. Sustainability: essentials for business by Young, Scott T. SAGE, 2013.
4. Sustainable business: key issues by Kopnina, Helen.  Routledge, 2023.
5. Evaluating Sustainable Development and Corporate Social Responsibility Projects by Kealy. Springer International Publishing, 2020.
6. Sustainability and megaproject development by Cantoni, Franca,; Favari, Edoardo. Routledge, 2022.
7. Megaproject management: a multidisciplinary approach to embrace complexity and sustainability by Favari, Edoardo,; Cantoni, Franca. Springer, 2020.