Earned Green Value management for project management: A systematic review

As sustainability increases in significance for the project management sector, the need to apply management techniques to sustainability objectives grows. However, generic tools to measure the performance of sustainability objectives and initiatives are scarce. Traditional project performance measurement uses the Earned Value Management (EVM) method to measure time, cost and scope. The objective of this paper is to investigate whether EVM can be adapted to measure the performance of sustainability goals in projects. By means of two Systematic Literature Reviews (SLR), this paper investigates the bodies of knowledge of 'sustainability in Project Management' and 'Earned Value Management'. A total of 2.232 publications from 6 databases from both fields were identified through the two SLM and analysed via two-stage screening process. The review found that the project control method EVM has not yet been used to track the performance of sustainability in projects. We therefore developed the conceptual framework for 'Earned Green Value Management'. Thus concluding, by incorporating sustainability in the business case (instead of scope), extending monitoring into the product life cycle, addressing the triple bottom line, and translating generic sustainability indicators into monetary terms to express value created through improved resource performance (instead of expenses), EVM can be translated and applied to the measurement of project sustainability and performance. The conceptual framework presented herein lays the theoretical groundwork for a new project management tool to track the attainment of sustainability goals in projects. It contributes to the current research in sustainable project management by bridging a gap between traditional tools and normative topics on an operational level. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.