Sustainability is currently a topic of particular interest in various productive sectors that respond to existing global challenges in this trend. Within companies and organizations, there has been an increase in the attention and adoption of environmental, social, and economic considerations that balance the development and operation of their projects with the needs of the environment in which they operate. One of the disciplines that respond assertively to this context refers to project management, which, within its execution, allows the pertinent involvement of sustainable practices in different dimensions, stages, and levels of development.
In the Colombian context, the performance of this topic has permeated at different levels, from the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that involve different goals and actions to be carried out within the framework of the 2030 Agenda to the creation of entities such as the Consejo Colombiano de Construcción Sostenible (CCCS), which promotes and validates the inclusion of sustainable practices in the execution and performance of construction projects. In this sense, this research makes a comprehensive analysis of the aspects that qualify the performance of sustainability in project management at a global level up to the perception in the Colombian context through the identification of the associated state of the art and the existing perceptions around the subject by the actors involved.
Thus, a systematic literature review was carried out guided by inclusion and exclusion criteria to delimit the object of study within the Scopus and Web of Science databases, to subsequently use bibliometric techniques for the processing, analysis, and visualization of the information collected, with the support of tools such as RStudio and VOSviewer. At the same time, an evaluation instrument was developed and applied to a representative sample of experts in the area, whose results were validated through Principal Component Analysis (PCA) as a statistical processing method.
As a result of this approach, a broad thematic panorama was obtained, marked by environmental and economic concepts related to resource management, circular economy, and environment, among others, diversifying the implementation of sustainable considerations in the international context. However, the results of the instrument allowed inferring that these considerations are not applied with the same dynamism at the national level, despite the availability of robust conceptual frameworks and diverse guidelines provided by sustainable management methodologies such as P5 and PRiSM or green building standards such as LEED, EDGE and Casa Colombia.
In general, the study provides valuable information for strategic decision making regarding the planning or intervention of future research, by presenting the main thematic fields that promote the development of the sector, as well as those that are losing relevance in the academic field in Colombia and the world. Due to the conceptual diversity evidenced, the topic not only has an impact on managers, but also involves diverse actors participating in the life cycle of a project, involving multidisciplinary perspectives, and broadening its scope.
This scenario is enhanced by the evaluation instrument developed, which stands out for the statistical validity and methodological practicality demonstrated. Its numerical and classificatory approach facilitates a detailed analysis and a selective intervention in the sample, adapting to the requirements of the user, sector or company that implements it to diagnose the knowledge of a specific group in the application of sustainability within project management.
