International 1

Sustainability in Project Management
for
Large Engineering Projects in Africa
Scott Brooks
18377816
A research report submitted to the Gordon Institute of Business Science, University

of Pretoria, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of
Business Administration
11 November 2019
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to explore the inclusion of sustainability in project
management for large engineering projects in Africa. The sector in which this is
explored is mining. This is an explorative, qualitative study with an interpretivist
philosophy employed. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with
project managers and project clients. 18 interviews were conducted with participants
using an interview guide as an instrument. The findings showed that engagement
with local stakeholders is paramount to the inclusion of sustainability and that this
holds more importance than environmental considerations for mining projects in
Africa. It also revealed the historic, inconsistent expectations around social
responsibility between project managers and project clients as a limitation for
accountability of social aspects of sustainability. Research limitations were that only
large-scale projects were considered for this study and the results may not be directly
transferable to smaller projects, the extent to which projects must spend on social
endeavours to maximise project was not obtained and the organisational changes
required to adjust to these findings need to be explored in more detail. Practical
implications are that project management organisations must employ strategies and
bring in capabilities to better enable them to attend to social issues.
KEYWORDS
Project management, sustainability, local stakeholder, engagement.
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DECLARATION
I declare that this research project is my own work. It is submitted in partial fulfilment
of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration at the
Gordon Institute of Business Science, University of Pretoria. It has not been
submitted before for any degree or examination in any other University. I further
declare that I have obtained the necessary authorisation and consent to carry out
this research.
(ORIGINAL SIGNED) 11 November 2019
Signed: Scott Brooks Date
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................. I
KEYWORDS ............................................................................................................ I
DECLARATION ....................................................................................................... II
TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................................... III
LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................... VI
LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................ VII
PROBLEM DEFINITION AND PURPOSE ......................................... 1
Introduction ............................................................................................... 1
The Research Problem ............................................................................. 2
Research Question ................................................................................... 3
Research Aims.......................................................................................... 4
Research Contribution .............................................................................. 4
Overview of Report ................................................................................... 5
LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................... 6
Introduction ............................................................................................... 6
Project Management ................................................................................. 6
2.2.1 Project Success ..................................................................................... 7
2.2.2 The Context of Large Engineering Projects ........................................... 8
Sustainability ............................................................................................. 9
2.3.1 Sustainability Within Project Management ........................................... 11
2.3.2 The Gap .............................................................................................. 11
2.3.3 Criticism that project management does not talk about sustainability .. 11
2.3.4 Determination of Sustainability ............................................................ 12
2.3.5 Sustainability Contextuality .................................................................. 13
2.3.6 Barriers to Practice .............................................................................. 15
2.3.7 Drivers of Sustainability ....................................................................... 16
Stakeholder Theory: A Key to Sustainability in Project Management ...... 18
Conclusion .............................................................................................. 20
RESEARCH QUESTIONS .............................................................. 22
Introduction ............................................................................................. 22
Research Question 1 .............................................................................. 22
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research question 4................................................................................. 23
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND DESIGN ................................ 24
Introduction ............................................................................................. 24
Methodology ........................................................................................... 24
Population ............................................................................................... 25
Unit of Analysis ....................................................................................... 25
Sampling Method and Size ..................................................................... 26
Measurement Instrument ........................................................................ 26
Data Gathering Process .......................................................................... 27
Analysis Approach .................................................................................. 29
Methodological Limitations ...................................................................... 30
RESULTS ........................................................................................ 32
Introduction ............................................................................................. 32
Description of Participants and Context .................................................. 32
5.3.1 Context ................................................................................................ 36
5.3.2 Drivers ................................................................................................. 42
5.3.3 Summary of Results for Research Question 1 ..................................... 48
5.4.1 Challenges .......................................................................................... 49
5.4.2 Enablers .............................................................................................. 58
5.5.1 Process ............................................................................................... 66
5.6.1 Outcomes ............................................................................................ 71
5.6.2 Trends ................................................................................................. 76
Conclusion of Results ............................................................................. 79
DISCUSSION OF RESULTS........................................................... 81
Introduction ............................................................................................. 81
6.2.1 Context ................................................................................................ 82
6.2.2 Drivers ................................................................................................. 83
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6.2.3 Summary of the Discussion for Research Question 1 ......................... 84
6.3.1 Challenges .......................................................................................... 85
6.3.2 Enablers .............................................................................................. 86
6.4.1 Process ............................................................................................... 88
6.5.1 Outcomes ............................................................................................ 89
6.5.2 Trends ................................................................................................. 90
Conclusion of Findings ............................................................................ 91
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS .................................. 93
Introduction ............................................................................................. 93
Principal Conclusions .............................................................................. 93
Research Contribution ............................................................................ 95
Recommendations for Managers in Practice ........................................... 95
Limitations of the Research ..................................................................... 96
Recommendations for Further Research ................................................ 96
Conclusions ............................................................................................ 98
REFERENCE LIST................................................................................................ 99
APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW GUIDE ..................................................................... 107
APPENDIX B: ETHICAL CLEARANCE LETTER ................................................ 109
APPENDIX C: CONSENT FORM........................................................................ 110
APPENDIX D: NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENTS FOR TRANSCRIBERS ..... 111
APPENDIX E: NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT FOR EDITOR ...................... 115
APPENDIX F: CODE BOOK ............................................................................... 117
APPENDIX G: NEW CODES PER INTERVIEW FOR PROJECT MANAGERS .. 125
APPENDIX H: NEW CODES PER INTERVIEW FOR PROJECT CLIENTS........ 126
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Consistency Matrix .................................................................................. 23
Table 2: Thematic Analysis ................................................................................... 30
Table 3: Participant Details ................................................................................... 33
Table 4: Most Frequent Codes .............................................................................. 35
Table 5: Conclusion of Findings ............................................................................ 92
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Overview of Report................................................................................... 5
Figure 2: New Codes Per Interview ....................................................................... 34
Figure 3: Overview of Results for RQ 1 ................................................................. 36
Figure 7: New Codes Per Interview for Project Managers ................................... 125
Figure 8: New Codes Per Interview for Project Clients ........................................ 126
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PROBLEM DEFINITION AND PURPOSE
INTRODUCTION
The inclusion of sustainability in project management has gathered significant

attention from business and academics and in few contexts is this more pertinent
than large engineering projects in the mining sector, specifically in Africa. Whilst
economic profit is the main motivator for business ventures in this sector, there has
been increasing pressure for social and environmental sustainability to receive the
attention it deserves. This pressure has not only been on ethical grounds; it has also
been from a risk perspective. Social licence to operate has been deemed the biggest
risk to businesses in this industry, (Creamer Media’s Mining Weekly, 2019) which
emphasises the importance of mining projects to take into account the interests of
their social stakeholders. These projects occur in remote areas and organisations
are facing increasing pressure from both economic and social stakeholders to
improve their relationships with local communities who are impacted by these
operations (PWC, 2019).
This study explores the inclusion of social and environmental sustainability in project
management of large engineering projects for mines in Africa. This context provides
the backdrop on which this topic viewed and explores how this influences the practice
of project managers who have been involved in these projects. The research is
based on data gathered from interviews with project managers (PMs) and project
clients (PCs). Their insights are unpacked to understand the aspects of achieving
this in project management and how the profession must respond to the
aforementioned pressures.
Despite sustainability being explored on both the social and environmental fronts,
the dominant focus from the insight's centres on the social sustainability, and
particularly on social stakeholders within the communities that these projects come
into contact with. The sections following present the background to the research
problem, the aims and the insights gained.
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THE RESEARCH PROBLEM
The topic of sustainability has found prominence in business practice. Organisations

are experiencing increasing pressure to walk a moral line in their business practices
and become more socially impactful in their corporate journey. In so doing
organisations are finding it necessary to measure their performance by more than
just financial measures. The triple bottom line (Elkington, 1999) has been a key
concept in evaluating the performance of companies in achieving sustainability in
their initiatives. This concept is pertinent for large engineering projects as they can
significantly influence the areas and communities in which they take place because
of their scale. It is particularly relevant in African developing countries, where
institutional infrastructure is lacking, and communities rely heavily on this type of
investment for social upliftment (Eweje, 2006). It is argued that the private sector is
ideally poised to provide this social upliftment in the form of collaborative
arrangements (Steven, 2011).
The discipline of project management is deemed to be the cornerstone of industrial

practice to achieving these feats (Silvius, 2017). However, the permeation of
sustainability into the practice of project management has been limited (Martens &
Carvalho, 2017). This appears to stem from a sentiment of short-termism on the part
of the project management teams for organisations that practice this (Munns &
Bjeirmi, 1996). Whilst large engineering projects can take years to complete, the
intended utilisation period of the plant and equipment supplied is far greater. The
nature of these projects is such that at the end of the project the plant is handed over
to the intended operators, the customer, and the project management team leaves
the site for their next project. Bounded heavily by the constrains of time, cost and
quality, sustainability and an accompanying long-term outlook are not given due
attention.
Often skills within the communities are scarce and local labour is mostly brought on
during the project as unskilled labour, with skilled labour being brought in from
external resources. This dynamic leads to community unrest (Ndlovu, 2013) as their
expectations of employment opportunities are not met and value is seen to be
siphoned elsewhere (Conde & Le Billon, 2017). In these environments the project
managers’ considerations are strained as they must manage the expectations of all
stakeholders to the project and balance this with the triple objectives of cost, time
and quality (Project Management Institute, 2017). The inclusion of sustainability
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initiatives appears a paradox that would compete for these valuable resources at the
cost of project success.
The purpose of this research is to explore the relationship between sustainability and
project management, and its applicability in the context of large engineering projects
in African developing economies. Project management is presented as a set of tools
and approaches for use by a project manager (Project Management Institute, 2017)
and presents stakeholder management as one of its tenets. However, it is presented
in a transaction-like manner and does not speak to sustainability in the efforts of the
project manager. Research reveals that the integration of sustainability and project
management is still in its infancy (Martens & Carvalho, 2017).
With multinational enterprises (MNE) constantly being exposed to the risks of

community unrest from unmet expectations in developing nations (Eweje, 2006) it
highlights the need for a more integrative approach to managing project outcomes
through collaboration. It also potentially presents an opportunity to explore the
creation of shared value (Porter & Kramer, 2011) for all stakeholders. If business can
achieve this, it moves the conversation from one of stakeholder risk management to
one of mutual long-term benefit. From a business perspective it exposes opportunity
to proactively manage project risk, generate community support and benefit from
multipliers associated with improved social integration.
The theoretical need for this research is based on the growing focus of sustainability
for business and the lack of theoretical application of the tenets of sustainability in
the project management theory (Yu, Zhu, Yang, Wang, & Sun, 2018). This gap
represents a significant space for development of literature that can be incorporated
into practice for project management. This is particularly relevant for mining projects
which by their nature create an unsustainable reliance on a non-renewable resource.
The research problem identified is a lack of inclusion of sustainability in project

management. The context for this problem is large engineering projects in the mining
sector in Africa.
RESEARCH QUESTION
The overall research question is to understand how sustainability can be included in

project management of large-scale projects. This question is asked from the
perspective of project managers that are tasked with accommodating the needs of
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the multitude of project stakeholders.
RESEARCH AIMS
To answer the research question the research approaches the problem from multiple
angles. The first aim is to understand how the contextual factors of projects in African
developing countries influence the agenda on sustainability. The second aim is to
understand the drivers that push or pull project managers to include sustainability in
practice. The study then identifies the main challenges faced in their efforts to drive
its inclusion.
Certain factors within this topic support the inclusion and these are explored to
identify what tactics can be leveraged to facilitate this. The process of inclusion is
also an important factor in understanding the problem and this is investigated to
identify how project managers can achieve ideal outcomes from their inclusion of
sustainability. Finally, the research explores the trends that industry faces for the
inclusion of sustainability.
RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION
The contribution of this research is toward project management academic literature.

This literature has seen steady growth of new research on sustainability in project
management (Marcelino-Sádaba, González-Jaen, & Pérez-Ezcurdia, 2015),
however this research does not appear to be prominent in the African context.
Stakeholder management finds common ground between these two topics but is also
found to be lacking in significant research done for mining projects in Africa (Littau,
Jujagiri, & Adlbrecht, 2010). The contribution of this research is to explore these
topics from the experience of project managers who have had significant experience
in the specified context.
It is expected that this research will illuminate how the African context influences
project managers’ ability to include sustainable practice in their managerial roles.
Stakeholder management has been identified to be an important requirement for
project managers to navigate this context and the research explores the
organisational change that may be necessary to improve this.
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OVERVIEW OF REPORT
This section presents an overview of the report for the reader to understand the
purpose of each chapter, as shown in Figure 1. The next chapter provides insight
into the literature on project management, sustainability and stakeholder theory.
Chapter three presents the research questions which will guide the focus of the
report to address the research problem. Chapter four explains the research
methodology and design of the project as well as how the thematic analysis of
interviews was carried out. Chapter five contains the results of the interviews
according to the themes identified. Chapter six compares the findings from chapter
five with the literature reviewed in chapter two, and chapter seven presents the
conclusions of the study.
• Literature Review
• Project Management
Chapter 2
• Sustainability
• Stakeholder Theory
• Research Questions
• Research Question 1 - Context and drivers
Chapter 3 • Research Question 2 - Challenges and enablers
• Research Question 3 - Process
• Research Question 4 - Outcomes and trends
• Research Methodology
• Methodology used
• Population definition
• Unit of analysis
Chapter 4 • Sampling method and size
• Measurement instrument
• Data gathering process
• Analysis approach
• Methodological limitations
• Results (from thematic analysis)
• Introduction
• Description of participants and context
Chapter 5 • Research Question 1 - Context and drivers
• Research Question 2 - Challenges and enablers
• Discussion (comparison of results to literature)

• Introduction
• Research Question 1 - Context and drivers
Chapter 6
• Research Question 2 - Challenges and enablers
Chapter 7 • Conclusion
Figure 1: Overview of Report
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LITERATURE REVIEW
INTRODUCTION
This chapter explores the topics of project management and sustainability, and
where stakeholder theory plays a role in their intersection. An institution recognised
for their compilation of theory on the practice in project management is the Project
Management Institute (PMI). The theory on the practice is contained within the
Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) and functions as a guide to
professionals in the field. It provides a reference for established norms, preferences
and processes associated with managing projects (Project Management Institute,
2017). This body of knowledge is subject to regular update from the Project
Management Institute.
The theory provided by this body of knowledge is scant on reference to sustainability

as a goal in implementation of projects and this report seeks to explore the
incorporation of sustainability factors into the practice of project management.
Stakeholder theory has been identified as a means through which this may be
explored.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
A project’s life span is generally broken up into four phases, during which there are
notable changes in the level of effort, costs and expertise required. These four
phases are as follows (Pinto & Slevin, 2015):
- Phase 1 – Conceptualisation
- Phase 2 – Planning
- Phase 3 – Execution
- Phase 4 – Termination
Definition of these phases is an important consideration in application of tools and

factors required in managing the project. For instance, in the conceptualisation
phase; goal setting, risk assessments and strategizing are key activities for sensing
and determining the appropriate direction to take.
This view of the project life cycle is notably separate from the product life cycle and
does not consider the utilisation of the produced plant after the closure of the mine
In the case of mining activities this life cycle cannot be ignored as the project
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(development) and product lifecycles are interdependent (Marcelino-Sádaba et al.,
2015). A more inclusive approach has been to consider the project lifecycle to be
viewed as inclusive of the utilisation of the product and its eventual closure (Munns
& Bjeirmi, 1996), in this case mining and mineral beneficiation infrastructure. To this
end we see that organizations are increasingly being held responsible for impacts
post completion of the project (Labuschagne & Brent, 2005).
Stakeholder engagement is key feature of project management theory and it is

prescribed that project management professionals should identify these by
determining the impact of the project on them and in turn their potential impact on
the project (Project Management Institute, 2017). This literature encourages project
managers to use supporting experts to achieve certain outcomes in the project.
Management of stakeholders is prescribed in a manner that bases the interaction
with them on their potential impact on the success of the project within its specific
timeline. Stakeholders are categorised according to their power and
interest/influence over the project outcome (Project Management Institute, 2017).
Management of these stakeholders should happen throughout the life of the project
and is deemed to end after termination of the project.
2.2.1 Project Success
The formal inclusion of sustainability concepts would likely require the incorporation
of additional success criteria. Long-standing definitions of project success include
success factors and criterion (Müller & Jugdev, 2012), aptly referred to in literature
as Critical Success Factors (CSFs). These factors have evolved over the years from
factors that measured the success only in the implementation phase, to more modern
definitions that include the project and product life cycle (Müller & Jugdev, 2012).
The Project Management Institute defines project success measures as product

delivery, product quality, timelines, budget compliance and degree of customer
satisfaction. It allows for the specifics of these factors to be agreed upon by
stakeholders. These are incorporated into a project charter that defines what
constitutes project success and appropriate criteria for sign-off of the project (Project
Management Institute, 2017). Critical Success Factors identified by so-called giants
in the field of project management, Pinto and Prescott (1988) are having
appropriately identified, defined and/or effected:
- Project mission
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- Top management support
- Project schedule/plan
- Client consultation
- Personnel capabilities within the project team
- Technical capabilities
- Client acceptance
- Monitoring and feedback
- Communication
- Troubleshooting
Note: Adapted from Pinto and Prescott (1988), Variations in Critical Success Factors
Over the Stages in the Project Life Cycle
The factors that constitute success in these defined areas are heavily contested and
rarely agreed upon, and the literature posits that defining these success factors is a
subjective exercise and is dependent on the stakeholder that is making the
judgement (Davis, 2014). The importance of CSFs also varies according to the
different phases of the project – for instance project mission is regarded as highly
important at the beginning whereas client acceptance is most important at the end
of a project (Pinto & Prescott, 1988). Notably absent from this list is stakeholder
engagement and more specifically, sustainability. It appears from the literature that
the scope for inclusion of sustainability initiatives is present through appropriate
stakeholder engagement. However, these definitions of success still appear to be
inward looking and leave room for improvement, especially in the case of large
engineering projects in Africa.
More recent literature includes risk management as a means to achieving project

success. De Carvalho and Rabechini Junior (2015) describe soft skills as being a
capability for project managers to have in order to reduce project risk. Expanding on
this, an understanding of the social and environmental terrain by project managers
is described as being a factor for project success (Kealey, Protheroe, MacDonald, &
Vulpe, 2005). Along this line of thinking Oppong, Chan, & Dansoh (2017) deem that
measures of success can include the smooth running of a project without social
unrest through appropriate stakeholder engagement.
2.2.2 The Context of Large Engineering Projects
Large engineering projects in the mining sector are generally initiated by a mining
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consortium. Once a mineral extraction site has been established through prospecting
their business development and project management team will pursue the extraction
and beneficiation of the mineral resource through appointment of engineering and
project management consultants. In the case of mining projects this generally comes
in the form of a project engineering firm that possesses the technical capabilities
required to plan and implement the project. These projects typically follow a staged
process of pre-feasibility and feasibility studies whereby the project’s economic
success is ascertained. Investment funding for the project would only be granted
upon proving the project’s feasibility and feasibility is often subject to the discretion
of funders conditions (Labuschagne & Brent, 2005). Once this has been established
the process will then move to development where detailed engineering and
procurement is carried out. Execution or installation will follow the engineering work,
but much of it will happen in parallel due to the need to minimise time to get product
to market. Overlapping the execution phase will be a commissioning phase where
the installed plant assets will be put into operation, tested and optimised. Once
commissioning has been completed the assets are handed over to the client to begin
operation (Labuschagne & Brent, 2005).
These projects are executed in remote locations that typically lack infrastructure and
have significant effects on the surrounding communities and environment. It is not
uncommon for these to be subsistence communities with little to no access to
education, medical facilities and formal employment (Eweje, 2006); a consequence
of which is that pressure is placed on MNEs to address these social issues. However,
that challenge faced in the industrial sectors is a lack of available skills to fulfil their
needs for technical capabilities (Hall & Sandelands, 2009). In their encounters with
these communities, projects face issues of social unrest which can be caused by
myriad of factors such as displacement from their land, marginalisation and lack of
participation in project benefits (Conde & Le Billon, 2017). Eweje (2006) argues that
companies must be prepared to avoid these issues by addressing the social
problems they encounter with these communities.
SUSTAINABILITY
The definition of sustainability as per the World Commission on Environment and

Development (1987) states that sustainability is "meeting the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." (p.
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54). Some literature also refers to this as sustainable development, however these
terms are interchangeable in their use and meaning in the context of this report. This
is one of many definitions of the concept but it is generally agreed (Labuschagne &
Brent, 2005) that sustainability is a term used to refer to the perpetuation of practices
that responsibly address economic, social and environmental aspects of human
endeavours. This concept inspired the formation of the Sustainable Development
Goals (United Nations Development Program, 2015) by world leaders to chart a
course to 2030 by which these goals are intend to be achieved. But these goals on
a grand scale are idealistic and offer little to business in understanding how to
incorporate sustainability into business practice. Which goals should they pursue?
How can these goals be translated into something more appropriate for organisations
to strive for?
The International Institute for Sustainable Development (1996) answered this by

defining sustainable development for business as the adoption of "strategies and
activities that meet the needs of the enterprise and its stakeholders today while
protecting, sustaining and enhancing the human natural resources that will be
needed in the future." (p. 8). The combination of this definition and the
aforementioned economic, environmental and social aspects in sustainability has
been referred to as the triple bottom line, when spoken of in the business context
(Marcelino-Sádaba et al., 2015). Interestingly Foley (2005) states that organisational
sustainability would be achieved through maximising the quality of the products they
sell whilst catering for their non-customer stakeholders. This seems a departure from
looking at sustainability with a view to leaving wealth for future generations to reap,
and a move toward better stakeholder engagement. For this reason it may be a more
palatable and translatable definition for business practice, but it does not deny that
future generations would be non-customer stakeholders and raises the question as
to how business should define their stakeholders.
Nonetheless, the topic of sustainability has found increasing support in business

initiatives and the triple bottom line of economic, environmental and social
performance has become ubiquitous in the literature (Silvius, 2017). Organisations
are acclimatising to the need to practice sustainability and are using its concepts
more often in the creation of long-term strategies that mitigate their increasing
exposure to business risk, which is in part due to global sustainability issues having
reached thresholds too significant for businesses to ignore (International Finance
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Corporation, 2012). A glaring example of this is the Marikana shootings which
occurred on 16th August 2012, where 34 mine workers were shot and killed during
protests against low wages and poor living conditions (Ndlovu, 2013). This caused
an international outcry and prompted many mining companies to reassess their
business risk and stakeholders. A study by Martens and Carvalho (2017) in a
Brazilian context seems to agree with the assertion that companies need to pay more
attention to appropriate identification of stakeholders, in particular those in local
communities.
2.3.1 Sustainability Within Project Management
The issues being faced by businesses are intensifying and becoming more difficult
to manage reactively, forcing them to innovate and foster a more proactive approach
to managing this risk (Martens & Carvalho, 2017). Large engineering projects have
attracted significant attention on this for their ability to influence sustainability issues
due to the large investment usually associated with them. As a result social
responsibility is regarded as a critical factor for the sustainability of these projects
(Zeng, Ma, Lin, Zeng, & Tam, 2015).
2.3.2 The Gap
Labuschagne and Brent (2006) describe that project management does not
effectively address sustainable development. The literature is clear that there exists
a considerable gap between the ideals of sustainability and current business practice
(Garvare & Johansson, 2010). This point is supported by Brones, De Carvalho and
De Senzi Zancul (2014) who go further in highlighting the inadequacy of stakeholder
engagement practiced by business as a means of addressing sustainability
concerns.
2.3.3 Criticism that project management does not talk about sustainability
Implementation of sustainability requires a conduit through which its principles may

be practiced and project management seems to be an ideal mechanism to achieve
this. However, the intersection of project management and sustainability, and
therefore its practice within project management, has limited exposure (Martens &
Carvalho, 2017). Literature is still critical of project management not having been
identified directly as an instrument through which sustainability should be practiced
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(Yu et al., 2018), especially in the context of large engineering projects that have a
considerable impact on social and environmental aspects of the areas they target.
This raises the question of why the intersection of sustainability in project
management for large scale projects has not been as progressive as expected.
2.3.4 Determination of Sustainability
Whilst project management theory as prescribed by the PMI does not present
sustainability as a central tenet of the profession, there are a myriad of alternatives
for determination of the sustainability of projects. This can come in the form of
minimum requirements from legislation, policy from local government, or
methodologies that allow organisations to address and measure indicators of their
efforts to be sustainable and success thereof (Labuschagne & Brent, 2005). Many of
the policies for implementation of sustainability come from governments, standards
organisations or agencies that prescribe best practice for organisations to follow.
Ugwu, Kumaraswamy, Wong and Ng (2006) highlight the European Environmental

Agency and the World Summit on Sustainable Development held by the UN General
Assembly as influencing governments’ alignment with sustainability goals and
prescribing policy. A recent summit was held in New York in 2015 and gave rise the
to 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (United Nations, 2015). In their work
they classify sustainability key performance indicators (KPIs) for infrastructure
projects in order of importance for clients, consultants and contractors according to
the domains of environment, health and safety, economy, society, resource
utilization and project administration. Whilst this provides some direction on areas of
focus for sustainability in projects it is limited to the opinions of economic actors within
projects, not considering the views of external stakeholders.
Hacking and Guthrie (2008) speak of the various assessment methods such as the
Integrated Assessment, the Sustainability Assessment or SEA, the Extended or
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), which have taken on different acronyms
depending on the country in which they are applied. Their work highlights that there
is little agreement regarding the meaning and language used to describe assessment
methods, although the EIA has been deemed the most successfully established
technique that is supported by legislation in many countries. The content of the
assessments as practiced by different countries also varies according to indicators
deemed important by varying stakeholders.
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Fernández-Sánchez and Rodríguez-López (2010) further highlight the subjectivity in
selection of sustainability indicators and models for the construction industry, and the
attempt by the International Standards Organisation (ISO) to create homogeneity in
application of sustainability through definition of sustainability standards and
processes. Their research identifies the need to include stakeholders in establishing
sustainability criteria for construction projects and they propose a methodology which
involves stakeholders from the outset of identifying sustainability criteria.
Marcelino-Sádaba et al. (2015) present a framework for sustainable project

management whereby the three foci of the triple bottom line are applied across the
pillars of products, processes and organisations. Through this framework they
communicate the importance of the cross section of these criteria being supported
by managers with appropriate ethical stances and training. It is interesting to note
that whilst these assessment methodologies are presented as tools that project
managers can use to introduce sustainable practice into projects, Martens and
Carvalho (2017) point out that, from the perspective of project managers in Brazil,
sustainability is strongly represented by a sustainable innovation business model,
stakeholder management, economic and competitive advantage and environmental
policy and resource saving. Whilst the conversation around the assessment of
sustainability within project management of large scale projects is dynamic, the
assertion by Hacking and Guthrie (2008) that convergence of sustainability
assessment methodologies that offer practical use in navigating government policy
is lacking, may still hold.
If sustainability is to hold true to its definition then perhaps the determination should
be in the outcomes attained through the various methodologies employed. Magis
(2010) offers resilience as an indicator on the social side. In this research it is
acquired by enabling the social stakeholders to be independent of the project
activities. This is a view echoed by Oppong, Chan, and Dansoh (2017) who view
social empowerment as a key attribute for project to aspire to within stakeholder
management. In this context it appears that a values based approach may be more
appropriate when including sustainability into large scale projects (Silvius, 2017).
2.3.5 Sustainability Contextuality
Part of the reason for the lack of sustainability practiced in project management of
large-scale projects may lie in the contextuality of sustainability in implementation.
13
Whilst project management as an instrument is presented as a standard of practice
through the PMI and project management institutions, much of the literature
pertaining to the implementation of sustainable practice appears to be determined
by the context that the project finds itself in. Large engineering projects in mining by
nature are extractive of non-renewable resources and finite in life from a project and
product lifecycle perspective. A criticism is that there has been little guidance on what
a sustainable large engineering project might resemble in terms of the sustainability
goals it achieves and those it must choose to ignore (Boswell et al., 2005). It might
be argued that all stakeholders should have input in determining which elements of
sustainability should be regarded as acceptable measures and to what extent they
should be achieved. Equally, stakeholders would need to have agreement on the
permissible negative effects of the project on the communities it affects. Ugwu,
Kumaraswamy, Wong and Ng (2006) observed that the importance of some
sustainability indicators were subject to the social attribution of importance to the
varying elements of sustainability and some of this attribution depended on
intergenerational priorities. The contextuality also plays out on a national level as the
priorities of developing economies in Africa are very different from those elsewhere.
So, whilst the concerns of sustainability are well documented in first world countries,
the frameworks applied there may not be as relevant or applicable in the African
context (Sowman & Brown, 2006). In Hacking and Guthrie's (2008) research on the
array of sustainability assessment methods they agreed with the assertion that
sustainability assessment methods that are conceptualised and practiced in first
world countries do not necessarily address the contextual needs of developing
countries. Due to project managers finding themselves in constantly changing
environments there may exist some subjectivity in their selection of sustainability
criteria to choose to address (Fernández-Sánchez & Rodríguez-López, 2010). This
suggests that sustainability is normative and its application in project managerial
roles needs to be based on the project context (Bond, Morrison-Saunders, & Pope,
2012). Contextual factors may include the country, its history, culture, economic
conditions, social, and environmental considerations. This seems a dichotomy of
sorts in that there are numerous examples of attempts to converge the use of
sustainability assessment methods, yet this contextuality points to project managers
needing to approach sustainability from the context of the project location and the
elements tied to that. Whatever the case, Marcelino-Sádaba et al. (2015) posit that
sustainability within projects will not make meaningful progress until the definition of
14
a sustainable project can be established. Yu et al. (2018) propose a Sustainable
Project Planning model for integration of sustainability into engineering projects and
acknowledge the need for it to be applied in other contexts to develop its
generalisability. It appears that a more standardised approach is needed for
sustainability appraisals, but the appraisal methods should be accommodating of the
context and be determined on a case-by-case basis.
2.3.6 Barriers to Practice
Choosing the correct methods for sustainability assessment within context signifies
the external barriers to implementation, but there do also exist barriers internal to
project management that inhibit the practice of sustainability. The argument of the
tried-and-tested method is one such barrier. Ugwu et al. (2006) refer to this as
metaphorical-based-design, whereby projects are designed according to methods
that worked in the past. Unfortunately this kind of thinking can inhibit the integration
of new sustainability practice into the management of projects by silencing new
thinking that might challenge the status-quo. There may be good reason for this
reluctance to venture into sustainability practice as Ugwu et al. (2006) point out that
there is uncertainty on how sustainability practice should be carried out at the micro-
level of projects. It seems understandable then how, with limited consensus on what
might constitute sustainable project management, a fall-back option might be to
travel the road one knows.
A survey conducted by McKinsey (2011) spoke of other barriers faced by business

such as short-termism whereby companies struggle to motivate the long-term value
added by sustainability over short-term performance. In this research it is highlighted
that companies in extractive industries such as mining found major inhibitors to be a
lack of capabilities as well as a lack of incentives to drive sustainability into business
practice. Thus if the proposed sustainability practices do not align with company
strategy then the efforts to include it often come in the form of green-washing or ad-
hoc practice in attending to emergencies (McKinsey, 2011).
This short-termism and lack of inclusion in company strategy could have its roots in
the temporary nature of engineering projects which generally only last a few years.
By virtue of large engineering projects having start and end dates, any attentiveness
to monitoring of sustainability issues quickly fades after completion of the project
(Cassar, Conrad, Bell, & Morse, 2013).
15
Hwang and Ng (2013) supplement the exposure of barriers by focusing on those that
would need to be overcome by the project manager in implementing sustainable
projects, these are:
- Higher costs
- Technical complexity
- Risk of sustainability integration requiring late changes
- Longer approval times for sustainable aspects
- Knowledge of team on newer more sustainable technology
- Increased onus on project manager to communicate continuously on
sustainability practice
- Longer project lead times
Note: Adapted from Hwang and Ng (2013) from Project management knowledge and
skills for green construction: Overcoming challenges
It therefore seems paramount that to overcome these challenges, project managers

would need to be supported by organisational strategy and policy that aligns with a
sustainability agenda (Marcelino-Sádaba et al., 2015).
2.3.7 Drivers of Sustainability
Risk management is regarded by business to be one of the main drivers for pursuing
sustainability in large engineering projects. Bond et al. (2012) describe social licence
to operate as being a driver that acheives this. Local communities are significantly
affected by these projects and investment in the communities is of paramount
importance for the relationships with these stakeholders to stay healthy (Eweje,
2006). However, Zeng et al. (2015) point out that these types of projects still trigger
severe concerns due to their inadequacy in addressing social issues. This McKinsey
(2011) put forward that in extractive industries such as mining, the increased focus
on sustainability has more to do with legislation and resource constraints. These
factors seem to indicate a favour for practicing sustainability to avoid the adverse
short-term economic consequences of not doing so, in what might be referred to as
push factors.
However, despite these push factors, the McKinsey (2011) study reported that 76%
of CEOs in their study consider sustainability practice to be better for their business
performance in the long-term. However this view is tempered by Tan, Ochoa,
Langston and Shen (2015) who describe increasing revenue for sustainability
16
performance up to certain point and decreasing revenues if companies go beyond
this. Certain companies in the mining sector have taken heed of sustainability
practice and made considerable investments in addressing social aspects through
upliftment of the communities they recognise as stakeholders. Newmont Mining
Corporation, who has significant mining operations in Ghana, recognised the need
for early engagement with local communities that were affected by the mine and a
portion of their investment was dedicated toward compensation, building schools,
provision of new land, clean water, local clinics and training centres (International
Finance Corporation, 2012). However, this was driven by the need to adhere to the
IFCs performance standards which are contained in the Equator Principles (The
Equator Principles, 2013), which form a risk management framework for the
determination of environmental and social risk. The IFC, who funded 21% of the total
cost of the investment, argue that the success of a company has a high correlation
to its sustainable practice in uplifting the communities in which it operates
(International Finance Corporation, 2012). Although this success may still at least in
part be tied to reduced risk from the alternative – not practicing sustainability and
encountering numerous social, political and reputational challenges along the way
(International Finance Corporation, 2012).
Risk management aside, there do appear to be other factors that provide incentives
to practice sustainability as opposed to disincentives not to. The IFC (2012) also
state that companies stand to improve their bottom line through improved business
performance such as reduced cost, improved reputation, better stakeholder relations
– though the latter, it could be argued, is still tied to risk management where external
stakeholders are concerned. Martens and Carvalho (2016) bring this back to project
management and align with this by confirming a slight increase in project success
when sustainability methodologies are employed in the various phases of a project.
Whilst these are some of the social benefits of improving the bottom line there are
environmental benefits too.
PWC (2019) highlight water restrictions from climate change and subsequent
droughts as posing large risks to mine operations which are hugely dependent on a
steady supply of water – one example provided is that of Barrick Gold who bear a
5% chance of losing USD1 billion per annum due to water shortages at its operations
worldwide. Designing operations to be more water efficient through sustainable
design can therefore prevent expensive production losses due to operational
17
downtime.
The above drivers for sustainability have encouraged funders such as the IFC to
incorporate conditions for applicants to meet sustainability criteria, in the form of the
IFC Performance Standards on Environmental and Social Sustainability, to qualify
for funding (International Finance Corporation, 2012). These standards are
incorporated into the Equator Principles (2013) which are used by financial
institutions worldwide as a guide for allocation of funding, in recognition of their power
to influence the effect of large engineering projects on society and the environment.
Interestingly these principles are non-prescriptive and instead rely on the applicant
to institute and provide verifiable evidence of having complied with the sustainability
requirements. These principles call for applicant's projects to be classified according
to their potential effects on society and environment, to assess the extent of the
effects and propose mitigation strategies and apply the environmental and social
standards applicable to the area in which the project takes effect. This appears a
critical point as it acknowledges the previously mentioned contextuality of application
of sustainability. The Equator Principles (2013) further call for applicants to have in
place an Environmental and Social Management System to comply with the
applicable standards, engage with stakeholders, provide an avenue for grievances
to be made and rely on third parties for review and assessment.
The influence of funders over sustainability practice is likely to encourage companies

practicing sustainability to improve their reputation and therefore access to funding.
However, whilst reputation was a leading consideration for incorporating
sustainability into practice, it is now secondary to improving efficiency and reducing
costs (McKinsey, 2011). Nonetheless, Sroufe (2017) finds that companies are
experiencing difficulty in responding calls for sustainability appraisal in their
commercial ventures, and are needing to adjust their organisational strategy and
capabilities be ahead of compliance requirements from their various stakeholders.
STAKEHOLDER THEORY: A KEY TO SUSTAINABILITY IN PROJECT

MANAGEMENT
Freeman (2010), one of the forefathers on the stakeholder theory approach to

business, defines the stakeholder as "groups and individuals that can affect, or are
affected by, the accomplishment of organisational purpose" (p. 25). Cleland (1985)
is recognised for having brought the concept to project management and instead
18
used interest as opposed to affect to describe stakeholders to a project. Littau,
Jujagiri and Adlbrecht (2010) provide an understanding of how the stakeholder
definition has changed over its tenure, but the one definition to endure is that of
Freemans which sees the stakeholder in terms of affecting or being affected by.
Littau et al. (2010) describe a striking trend in their research which shows the growing
popularity of the concept as measured by articles written. The concept grows
noticeably in prominence from 2000 to 2009 and the term stakeholder becomes more
prominent and explored in project management literature.
Garvare and Johansson (2010) place sustainability within stakeholder theory by

suggesting this means meeting the needs and expectations of current and future
stakeholders, which would include future generations. By extension this would
consider the environment a stakeholder as it serves future generations. This aligns
with Hacking and Guthrie (2008) who state the sustainability assessments need to
consider the longer term ecological effects that may result from pursuing short term
gains. This leads us to sustainability finding intersection with project management,
through stakeholder management and the consideration of economic, social and
environmental actors as project stakeholders. Accordingly, Marcelino-Sádaba et al.
(2015) find that stakeholder management is a vital process required for the inclusion
of sustainability in project management.
The PMI (2013) defines stakeholders in the same light as Freeman and agrees with
the concept of appropriately identifying stakeholders over the lifecycle of the project
and product. References to both internal and external stakeholders within its theory
are plentiful and its prescription is for project managers to ensure (Project
Management Institute, 2013):
- Identification of stakeholders;
- Planning of stakeholder management;
- Management of stakeholder engagement and
- Control stakeholder engagement
Note: Adapted from (Project Management Institute, 2013), Guide to the Project
Management Body of Knowledge
The theory is considered to be a tool for prescribing how to approach stakeholders,

though it leaves the identification of social and environmental stakeholders to the
project manager. Organisations have realised significant benefits that sustainable
social and environmental practice can offer - some of which are further improvement
19
to other stakeholder relations - which highlights the importance of organisations
including sustainable practice as a part of their corporate strategy (International
Finance Corporation, 2012) and emphasises the support project managers require
to appropriately recognise their project stakeholders. In turn, managerial control is
found to be an important requirement for this to happen (Yu et al., 2018).
This is a confirmation of Garvare and Johansson's (2010) research, where they

suggest that stakeholders exist, regardless of whether an organisation identifies
them as such, by their ability to withdraw support or impose damage. In line with their
research the term ‘primary stakeholder’ refers to parties that offer support to a project
and ‘secondary stakeholders’ refers to parties that can exert pressure on primary
stakeholders to withdraw their support and cause a project to fail (Garvare &
Johansson, 2010). Their research therefore highlights the importance of ensuring
stakeholders are identified appropriately - not identifying a stakeholder could be
detrimental to project success and identifying a stakeholder when not appropriate
could result in wasted organisational resource allocation. This ability of stakeholders
to influence project failure is a poignant issue in the context of projects when the
definition of project success varies significantly between the various primary
stakeholders of a project (Davis, 2014), and it raises questions about the level of
agreement between project management organisations and mine owners on how
they approach sustainability in a coordinated and successful manner. Ugwu et al.
(2006) have already proposed that a prerequisite to sustainability within projects is
to engage with stakeholders and agree upon indicators for measurement of success.
This has made stakeholder management an increasingly important skill for project
managers to possess to run projects successfully (Littau et al., 2010).
Martens and Carvalho (2017) highlight in their study of Brazilian project managers
that despite the growing literature on stakeholders and management thereof, there
still exists a shortcoming when it comes to dealing with issues of social sustainability.
CONCLUSION
Over the past decade there has been extensive interest and exploration of the
intersection between project management and sustainability, but the evidence for
inclusion of this in theory and practice is still scant and in need of solidifying. With
better understanding of the benefits of sustainability and how to apply it in the project
management context, project managers may be better poised to incorporate social
20
needs and enable the creation of shared value (Martens & Carvalho, 2017).
The literature reveals a litany of definitions for sustainability and how to achieve it but
is critical of the restrictions that its vaguesness brings in having targeted application
of sustainabilty in context. This need to apply a broad range of sustainability methods
in unique contexts is arguably representative of large engineering projects in Africa,
specifically the mining sector and Marcelino-Sádaba et al. (2015) highlight the need
to understand how sustainability has been approached in unexplored cases.
Despite this recognition of the importance of sustainability it is not specifically

considered in major project management theory (Brones et al., 2014). This has
highlighted the need for development of literature that helps project managers
employ sustainability effectively in the context of project management. This is of
particular relevance in social aspects where less progress has been made. It is
envisaged that sustainability goals and measures should be defined during project
conceptualisation and be integral in establishing the feasibility of the project
(Marcelino-Sádaba et al., 2015). But establishment of this brings to light important
questions on the degree to which sustainable practice can be employed in the arena
of project management in the context of large engineering projects in Africa. Projects
are ultimately non-sustainable in nature and are defined by a beginning and an end.
With this in mind project managers need to selectively choose which aspects of
sustainable initiatives they can employ and stop when the economics of taking on
the project no longer make sense (Marcelino-Sádaba et al., 2015)? Despite this
uncertainty, the results are positive. In multiple-case study, Mauro Luiz Martens and
Carvalho (2016) reveal that where there was an emphasis on sustainability with
project management a slight increase in project success is observed.
21
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
INTRODUCTION
The research problem is the lack of inclusion of sustainability in project management.

The context for this study is large engineering projects in the context of developing
countries in Africa. The focus will be specifically within the mining sector, where
projects regularly target remote locations with little existing infrastructure. The overall
research question is to understand how sustainability can be included in project
management of large-scale projects. The individual research questions were
informed by this and the literature in the previous chapter, however, some defining
themes were used to guide the direction of the questions. These themes were:
- Context
- Drivers
- Challenges
- Enablers
- Process
- Outcomes
- Trends
These themes then formed the basis for the interview guide that was used for the
semi structured interviews, which is discussed in chapter four. The research
questions formed to answer the overall research question are shown below. It is
expected that by answering these questions, the research problem is addressed.
RESEARCH QUESTION 1
What are the contextual factors influencing the application of sustainability in project
management of large engineering projects in Africa?
RESEARCH QUESTION 2
What are the sustainability challenges and enablers that project managers must be
cognisant of for large engineering projects in Africa?
22
RESEARCH QUESTION 3
How is sustainability being incorporated into project management of large-scale

projects in Africa?
RESEARCH QUESTION 4
What are the meaningful outcomes for inclusion of sustainability in project

management and how is project management of large-scale projects in Africa
changing?
A consistency matrix was created to ensure alignment between the research

questions, literature review and the interview questions. This is shown in Table 1
below.
Table 1: Consistency Matrix
Interview
# Research Question Informed Literature
Question
1 What are the contextual factors (Bond et al., 2012; De Carvalho & 2,3
influencing the application of sustainability Rabechini Junior, 2015; Eweje, 2006;
in project management of large Labuschagne & Brent, 2006; Mauro L.
engineering projects in Africa? Martens & Carvalho, 2017; Zeng et al.,
2015)
2 What are the sustainability challenges and (Conde & Le Billon, 2017; Davis, 2014; 4, 5
enablers that project managers must be Eweje, 2006; Hall & Sandelands, 2009;
cognisant of for large engineering projects Kealey et al., 2005; Mauro L. Martens &
in Africa? Carvalho, 2017; Project Management
Institute, 2017; “Equator Princ.,” 2013)
3 How is sustainability being incorporated (Marcelino-Sádaba et al., 2015; Yu et 6

into project management of large-scale al., 2018)
projects in Africa?
4 What are the meaningful outcomes for (Magis, 2010; Oppong et al., 2017; 7, 8, 9
inclusion of sustainability in project Silvius, 2017; Sroufe, 2017; Tan et al.,
management and how is project 2015)
management of large-scale projects in
Africa changing?
23
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND DESIGN
INTRODUCTION
This section presents the chosen research methodology for the research report and
was tailored to answer the research questions. Through answering these research
questions, the study aimed to provide insight on the research problem which
identifies the lack in intersection of theory between project management and
sustainability. The literature on the application of sustainability within project
management reveals an area of study still in its infancy. It suggests the application
of sustainability practices are reliant on context. The context for this study is large
engineering projects in Africa, specifically for the mining sector.
METHODOLOGY
As the intersection of these two fields is still in the process of being understood, the
research took the form of an exploratory, qualitative study underpinned by an
interpretivist philosophy.
Saunders and Lewis (2018) illustrate the appropriateness of using an exploratory

study when attempting to gain new insights in an unexplored area. This is appropriate
due to the contextual dependency of the determination of sustainability (Bond et al.,
2012) and its limited scope of integration within project management (Yu et al.,
2018), specifically within large engineering projects in an African context. The
ontological and epistemological assumptions congruent with exploratory studies are
interpretivist in philosophy and are supported by qualitative data gathering (Saunders
& Lewis, 2018). This study was therefore an exploratory study in which semi-
structured interviews were used as a means of gathering primary data. They
consisted of open-ended questions that allowed the problem and its contextual
nature and subject to be explored.
Saunders and Lewis (2018) stipulate that a deductive approach to research involves
the testing of data collected whilst an inductive approach to research involves moving
from observations to development of theory in the field of study. This inductive
approach is congruent with the qualitative nature of the study and describes the
approach used in formation and categorisation of codes. However, the research, and
by extension the interview questions, are informed by the literature and therefore a
24
required a deductive approach to filter code categories into the research question
themes to allow for comparison of the data collected.
This research project intends to explore the adoption and implementation of

sustainability in project management for large engineering projects in Africa. The
intersection of these two subject areas in this context reveals a gap in the body of
literature to which new knowledge can be added. This approach was therefore
inductive and aimed to develop the existing knowledge in this field, whilst relying on
a deductive approach to allow thematic comparison with the literature. The research
was carried our as a monomethod qualitative study in which only semi-structured
interviews were used as a primary data gathering instrument.
Research can be conducted cross-sectionally or longitudinally with the former

providing a snapshot of the state of the art at the time of the study (Saunders & Lewis,
2018). The intention of this study is to ascertain the current status in a developing
field of research. The author recognises that literature on this topic is still very much
in its infancy and a longitudinal study would not justifiably add more to the literature
given limited timeline. The research shall therefore be cross-sectional.
POPULATION
The population of this study was project managers (PMs) from engineering
consulting and project management houses, and client project managers or project
clients (PCs) that have, at the level of analysis, been involved in large engineering
projects in Africa, specifically in the mining sector. These two types of actors were
chosen for their significance in influence in carrying out project managerial
responsibilities. It was the intention that by interviewing the different types of actors
in large engineering projects that insights into the intersection of sustainability, within
project management in the African context, are obtained at different operational
levels.
UNIT OF ANALYSIS
The unit of analysis was the individual and specifically the experiences of the project
managers and client project managers within large engineering projects in Africa in
the mining sector.
25
SAMPLING METHOD AND SIZE
This study aimed to attain insight from individuals that have experience in the
management of large engineering projects in Africa in the mining sector. The chosen
population therefore required that judgment be exercised by the author when
choosing interviewees for primary data gathering. The author used his professional
network to attain access to PMs for initial interviews. Further interviews from PCs
were sought from these sample members to attain comparable insights for data
triangulation. The sampling method used was therefore non-probabilistic, purposive
and snow-ball sampling (Saunders & Lewis, 2018). This strategy was preferable due
to certain members within the organisation and customer group having specific
knowledge relating to the adoption of sustainability within the field of project
management. Sampling participants who have knowledge of the research topic
ensured the sample was appropriate and functioned as a verification strategy for
exploratory research (Morse, Barrett, Mayan, Olson, & Spiers, 2017). In order to
allow for the variation in data gathered and explore the contextual differences of the
actors in greater depth, heterogenous sampling was used (Saunders & Lewis, 2018).
In pursuing this, interview subjects were limited to those whose insights have been
informed by specific large-scale engineering projects in Africa within the mining
sector. This selection by observed involvement was intended to strengthen the
validity of the data obtained.
The sample size was determined by saturation of data gathered and 18 semi-
structured interviews were conducted. This was congruent with analysis done by
Guest, Bunce and Johnson (2006) who posit that after analysis of twelve interviews,
the appearance of new themes is infrequent.
MEASUREMENT INSTRUMENT
Due to the nature of the research topic being qualitative, exploratory research, the
measurement instrument to be used in this report was semi-structured interviews.
Saunders and Lewis (2018) posit that semi-structured interviews should be used
when the interviews are conducted through predetermined questions, whose order
may change depending on relevance to the interviewee and allow for clarification or
probing questions to gain more insight on insights of interest. However, for this study
participants were asked all questions in the same order to allow for better comparison
of results. Only probing or clarification questions were a deviation from the order of
26
prepared questions. An interview guide was compiled for this purpose (Appendix A:).
Interviews were held with key individuals within the target organisations that were
directly involved with or affected by implementation of sustainability in project
management.
The interview questions were tailored to be open-ended questions that allowed the
participants space to elaborate on topics, concerns and insights that they deemed
important (Rubin & Rubin, 2014). To strengthen reliability of results the questions
were developed in such a way that they were specific in addressing the research
questions but broad enough that they could be asked equally to the different actors
identified (PMs and PCs) and allow comparison during analysis. It was important that
questions were asked in language that was easily understood by participants (Briggs
et al., 1986) and thus the question formulation avoided constructs that could be
misunderstood by participants who were not familiar with them.
Validity was ensured by conducting interviews to the point that saturation was
reached in interview themes. Saturation was determined by noting the new codes
created with analysis of each interview transcript (Myers, 2019). As the interviews
progress it was expected that the creation of new codes would diminish to such an
extent that little to no new coding categories will result from further interviews (Myers,
2019).
The first question in the interview guide was asked to establish the legitimacy of the
participant and their responses being worthy of consideration in analysis and
subsequent reporting. It was expected that participants should have had experience
in project managerial roles which required of them to have considerations of the
social and environmental aspects of managing large engineering projects in the
mining sector.
Participants were also probed on project locations and financial values and the
significance of their influence on the communities and environment in which they
operated. This was used as a qualitative confirmation that indeed their experience
was reflective of that of large engineering projects in Africa.
DATA GATHERING PROCESS
The data gathered is the primary data from the semi-structured interviews on the
subject area. Interview questions were subject to ethics approval and as per Myers
27
(2019) the interviews were conducted by creating a natural environment,
encouraging openness and depth through empathy (Patton, 2002). No interviews
were conducted prior to obtaining ethics approval from GIBS ethics committee. This
approval is shown in Appendix B:.
Saunders and Lewis (2018) emphasise the importance of doing background

research on the participants to qualify their knowledge on the topic, developing an
interview guide, choosing an appropriate location and using body language to show
interest. These are strategies that were employed in preparation for the interviews to
allow gathering of richer data. The participants’ privacy and involvement in the
interview will be protected by way of a consent form (Appendix C:) which stipulates
their involvement is voluntary and may be stopped at any time during the interview.
The study only gathered data from participants willing to sign the consent form,
indicating their understanding of their involvement and their rights. Anonymity of
participants was guaranteed through removal of identifiers in records, analysis and
reporting of results. Reliability of data was achieved by approaching the interviews
as a neutral party to avoid subject and observer biases (Saunders & Lewis, 2018). A
pilot interview was conducted to ensure the questions are understandable, assess
the length of the interviews and ensure better preparation by the interviewer.
The start of each interview was prefaced with an introduction to the research topic to
provide the participant with background and context for the interview. The interview
schedule then dictated the flow of questioning. The interviews were a combination of
main, clarifying and probing questions. The main questions dictated the framework
of the interview and targeted the research topic on a broad level. However, in the
interviews it was necessary to gain clarity on insights that participants revealed and
or probe further where more depth was required. This was as prescribed by Rubin
and Rubin (2012).
Selected participants identified through the author’s professional network were

approached by email invitation and phone call to set up mutually convenient times to
meet. It was the intention that interviews were conducted face-to-face, however, due
to the nomadic nature of project management roles in large scale engineering
projects, telephone-conferencing was used as a means of interview where
necessary. All interviews were recorded and saved without identifiers to the
interviewees.
28
ANALYSIS APPROACH
Professional services were made use of to transcribe all interviews in preparation for
analysis. Interviews were transcribed verbatim to ensure meaning was maintained
but unnecessary monosyllabic filler words were removed for ease of reading during
analysis. Non-disclosure agreements were attained for transcription and editing
services used to ensure that the privacy and anonymity of interview participants was
preserved. These can be found in Appendix D and Appendix E, respectively. Once
transcribed they were loaded into qualitative analysis software, ATLAS.ti where they
were analysed though coding. Due to the study being inductive in nature, there were
no predetermined codes and all code creation was derived from the transcripts.
Descriptive coding is a method by which short meaningful labels are assigned to

sections of text or quotes from interviews (Saldaña, 2013). During analysis codes
were created in this manner. The creation of new codes was logged with analysis of
each transcript to record the number of codes created in the process of transcript
analysis. This was logged on a bar chart to assess the degree to which saturation
was being reached. Codes were reviewed after every third transcript in order to
rationalise the codes and remove duplicated meaning (Myers, 2019).
After coding was complete the codes were categorised into 1st order categories as
shown in Table 2, which group codes of similar qualities. These categories were then
further categorised into 2nd order categories. These 2nd order categories were
assigned into themes that gave more abstract meaning to the observations.
Thematic analysis is an appropriate technique for analysis of qualitative data by
creation. This thematic analysis will form the foundation for further analysis in the
report which compares the results in chapter five and then compares these findings
to the literature in chapter six.
During analysis cognisance was given to the nature of definition of drivers,

challenges and enablers for the inclusion of sustainability in project managerial roles.
Due to the nature of the project managers having cost, quality and time implications,
some in the responses identified these themes in relation to their management of
these criteria. It was therefore necessary to ensure the codes were not skewed by
this and drivers, challenges and enablers were reflective only of the inclusion
sustainability practice in project managerial roles. For example, where a participant
might interpret a lack of legislative enforcement as an enabler in his or her role due
to less onerous managerial considerations, this was coded as a challenge for the
29
inclusion of sustainability in project management.
Table 2: Thematic Analysis
1st Order Codes 2nd Order Categories

1st Order Categories Research
(Language - (Conceptual leap – Themes
(Descriptive - inductive) Questions
inductive) deductive)
Society
Environment,
Context
Governance,
Governance
Organisational context,
1
Society, Social Licence
Legislation, Drivers
Organisational drivers, Economic Conscience
Governance Challenges,
Social Constraints
Short-term Needs Versus
Long-Term Gains, Challenges
Navigating Stakeholder
Social Constraints,
Expectations 2
Understanding Stakeholder
Expectations, Local Engagement
Individual Codes Communication and Engagement, Enablers
as reflected in the Governance Enablers, Governance Clarity
code book. Organisational Strategy,
Early Stakeholder
(Appendix F) Resource Localisation,
Alignment
Define Expectations,
Process 3
Proactive Governance,
Constant Stakeholder
Stakeholder Engagement,
Engagement
Competitive Advantage,
Local Upliftment, Local Upliftment
Moral Integrity,
Outcome
Risk Mitigation, Corporate Conscience
Need for Sustainability Skills in and Performance
4
Project Management,
Sustainability Beyond
Organisational Shift,
Compliance
Sustainability Beyond Compliance Trends/Future
Organisational Shift
METHODOLOGICAL LIMITATIONS
The project managers in the data sample were from a single company and there may
be a risk of homogeneity of results due to standards, procedures and culture being
unique in their influence. This could restrict transferability of the results to
organisations with differing structures, culture and geopolitical influences.
The thematic filtering process cut out certain themes and outliers for the purpose of
producing a concise report. This could lead to less dominant themes not being
reported on despite their significance.
30
The skills of the interviewer could contribute to a methodological limitation. The skills
of the interviewer improved over the course of the interviews which meant that more
material was likely obtained in later interviews.
31
RESULTS
INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents the results of the interviews conducted with PMs and CMs on
the inclusion of sustainability in project management of large engineering projects in
Africa. The first section provides an overall understanding of the interviewees and
the background experience they offer as a sample. The sections following have been
informed by the categories that emerged from the codes and allocated under the
respective themes for the question that they address.
DESCRIPTION OF PARTICIPANTS AND CONTEXT
The study participants were chosen based on their experience in project managerial
roles for large engineering projects in Africa within the mining sector. A total of 18
semi-structured interviews were carried out with PMs and PCs, both in person and
over teleconference. In order to verify the legitimacy of the participants they were
asked the first question on the interview guide to establish their experience in project
managerial roles for large engineering projects. For this question if detail was scant
the participants were probed to estimate the project value or the significance of their
effect on social and environmental aspects, as well as the country in which they had
managed projects.
The first question of the interview queried the role and experience of participants. In
one of the interviews conducted it was revealed that, despite the participant's
extended technical experience in projects, the participant’s insights were not
appropriate for use in the study. This was due to a lack in experience in a project
managerial role that involved significant consideration of social and environmental
stakeholders outside of the organisation. On this basis the participant was not
deemed to have met the qualifying criteria and the results of the interview were
discarded. The number of valid participants was therefore reduced to 17. These were
made up of eleven Project Manager (PM) and six Project Client (PC) interviews and
have been represented in Table 3.
In the interest of maintaining anonymity of the participants they have been assigned
pseudonyms for reference within this report. The participants were chosen for their
exposure to large engineering projects in Africa within the mining sector. Through
32
questioning their roles and experience in the first question it was established that the
sample group represented exposure to a multitude of African developing countries
which included specific large mining project experience in Botswana, Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC), Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, South
Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Specific locations and ascription to PMs
and PCs have been alluded to in general to restrict identifiers and preserve
anonymity. This is due to the infrequency of large engineering projects and the large
attention that they draw in the public domain, which are factors that could potentially
aid in participant identification. Allusion to specific PM and PC country experience
occurs only where it reveals an insight of value to the report and sufficiently protects
the identities of the participants.
Although project largeness was judged on the qualitative assessment of its ability to
significantly affect social and environmental stakeholders, the project values ranged
from US$80m up to US$1.8bn in the case of projects outside of South Africa, with
the majority falling within the range of US$300-800m. Within South Africa the project
values were quoted in Rand and fell within the range of ZAR650m and ZAR4.2bn. It
is important to note that these values are not quoted in real time and reflect project
values in which the participants have been involved in from 2000 to present.
Table 3: Participant Details
Interview Number Participant Pseudonym Layer Exposure

1 PM01 Project Manager
Participants have had
experience in project
managerial roles for mining
projects in:
Botswana,
Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC),
Ghana,
9 PC01 Project Client
Guinea,
Mali,
Mozambique,
Sierra Leone,
South Africa,
Tanzania,
Zambia,
and Zimbabwe
The interviews were conducted in the same manner for both PM and PC participants
and they were treated as a single sample group with respect to coding of transcripts.
33
However, the differences in their responses were captured in frequency and the
nature of the topics that the respective groups emphasised. The creation of new
codes was recorded with each interview to track the level of data saturation. This has
been shown in Figure 2. The full list of codes produced is shown in 0.
The author's professional network was leveraged to gain access to PM participants

who then recommended PCs for participation. This order of interviewing resulted in
PCs being interviewed in the latter half of the interview process and is reflected in
the graph by a notable increase in new codes where participant PC01's insights were
recorded.
New Codes Per Interview

80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
Figure 2: New Codes Per Interview
Despite all participants being treated as a single sample group saturation was
pursued from the different actors and saturation can be recognised in the individual
graphs reflecting new codes for PMs and PCs in Appendix G: and Appendix H:
respectively. The responses of the different actors are compared with one another in
the results.
The interviews and analysis thereof revealed a prevalence of certain topics from both
participant groups by way of the frequency of appearance. Frequency of appearance
was only counted once per participant even if the topic revealed itself multiple times
34
within an interview. The frequency of appearance was noted for understanding the
narrative and constructing a preference for the focus of the report within the
respective research questions. Table 4 provides an insight into the most frequently
occurring codes in the thematic analysis and the significance of these shall be
explored further in the following sections.
Table 4: Most Frequent Codes
Code PM PC TOTAL
Driver for sustainability is local community 9 4 13
Process: Sustainability expectations must be defined upfront 8 5 13
Challenge: Client deemed to have more sustainability drive ownership 10 2 12
Challenge: Local skills/capabilities difficult to source 8 3 11
Outcome: Project provide skills upliftment 8 3 11
Challenge: Attaining stakeholder equity 7 2 9
Challenge: Understanding sustainability expectations through reactive experience 7 2 9
Driver: Social licence to operate required 5 4 9
Outcome: Local business growth 6 3 9
Outcome: Post project employment of locals 7 2 9
Trend: Shift of social responsibility onto PM 7 2 9
Challenge: Business with junior miners' sustainability risk 5 3 8
Challenge: Sustainability cost/time 5 3 8
Enabler: Blue chip companies better at sustainability compliance 5 3 8
Enabler: Early stakeholder engagement positive for PM 5 3 8
Enabler: Nurture local business creation 5 3 8
Enabler: Use of social experts/consultants 5 3 8
Outcome: Sustainability success measure is lack of industrial action/stoppage 6 2 8
Context: Project site rural/informal with poverty and unemployment 5 2 7
Enabler: Projects dedicated environmental specialist 5 2 7
Process: Constant community engagement on expectations 5 2 7
Challenge/need for PMs on sustainability is to understand expectations 4 2 6
Challenge: Corruption harms governance 3 3 6
Challenge: Training for local labour 5 1 6
Context: Prior experience in technical vocation 4 2 6
Driver for environmental sustainability is legislation 4 2 6
Enabler for PM is client engagement with locals 6 0 6
Enabler: Communication forums 3 3 6
Enabler: Environmental requirements well defined 5 1 6
Enabler: Local partnerships beneficial 4 2 6
Outcome: Community upliftment 2 4 6
Process: Identify solvable social needs 2 4 6
Process: Need to engage with politicians/chiefs/leaders 3 3 6
To present relevant results, the categories within the research question themes have
been selected according to predominance of discussion on sustainability and the
report avoids discussions that would naturally be covered in project management
35
literature and offer little to the knowledge base.
RESEARCH QUESTION 1
The application of sustainability is seen to be contextual and acceptance of its

inclusion in business practice is understood to be dependent on the context in which
it is applied. This question explores the context of projects in Africa within the mining
sector and how sustainability practice within project management is influenced
through drivers within this context.
The question reveals that society and governance are significant contextual factors
that influence how sustainability is included in project management. The prominent
drivers for this are appropriately found to be social licence and economic conscience
of PMs and PCs. An overview of the themes is shown in Figure 3.
What are the contextual factors influencing the application of

RQ1 sustainability in project management of large engineering
projects in Africa?
Themes Context Drivers
Categories Society Governance

Social
Licence
Economic
Conscience
Figure 3: Overview of Results for RQ 1
5.3.1 Context
This section identifies society and governance from an organisational and legislative
perspective as leading themes for discussion.
5.3.1.1 Society
Large engineering projects in the mining sector target areas that are mineral rich and
thus the project location is not a variable that project managers have control over.
This factor in the African context means that projects frequently target rural areas.
36
Numerous participants expressed this context in their responses.
PM02: "When we got involved in '16, we could only get there with a
helicopter. Very, very rural. A lot of the people that worked there has never
seen things like electricity, I mean it's that rural."
Despite the remoteness of the locations the projects frequently come into contact
with small communities and villages the likes of whom have not had contact with
industrial development on such a large scale.
PC03: "Yes, okay. If we go back with Tanzania, the context there was a mine
in a remote location, but close to two established villages, plus Tanzania has
a very dispersed population, very rural, so inevitably there were people
around."
The ramification of this was that neighbouring communities tend to be vulnerable and
poverty stricken, with high unemployment figures and a dire lack of local
infrastructure. Access to basic needs such as clean water, health services and
electricity have not been met by local government and communities are subject to a
harsh existence.
PC06: "I remember one of the little villages… when I started up there, they
had a clinic, and it was really in the bush. The clinic, the pregnant ladies
would go to the clinic. In order to have a baby they'd have to bring their 50
litres of water with them. I mean it was crazy. There was no water in this
place."
PM11: "the life expectancy in that community was between 22 and 24 years
of age"
PM10: "it's extremely high, it's in the 80s, before the mines actually started
there, unemployment. There was no work, no nothing"
In many instances the projects are exposed to corrupt elements and conflict which
complicate the ability of projects to navigate the social terrain.
PC01: "our ore body was an active object of control by up to 18 armed

groups, or corrupt elements…at one point, and it financed a lot of conflict"
This context meant that the projects would gather a large amount of local attention
37
and enormous expectations are placed on the project to navigate and solve social
needs.
PC04: "if you look at the amount of unemployment and poverty in the areas
that we operate in, the need and the expectation is so vast, it's so big, that
as a mining company we've got limited resources and even though we can
do a lot, there's just no way that we can meet the expectation."
The prevalence of these social needs is such that social sustainability gathers a far
larger focus from local stakeholders than does environmental sustainability.
PC04: "But in the African context, the demand side is more on the social
side of it, compared to the environmental, there's a lot more pressure from
communities to have opportunities, business opportunities"
PM08: "Environmentally, I would say that we conform to first-world ideas in

our designs, but that is not always the impact that you see in local areas
where they don't necessarily have a very big drive or awareness or concern
for environmental impacts of the project itself."
This focus on the social needs of local stakeholders holds weight when the voice of
local stakeholders in the form of communities is observed to hold more sway than
political ones.
PM10: "…with the community…they carry more weight than law, in that
instance. So, that's quite a challenge."
PC03: "…if the community is very much in favour of something then

politicians are far less likely to get in the way, because politicians will do
what gets them votes, and if the community supports something then the
politicians will tend to support what the community want"
The needs of local communities in terms of basic human rights and security are
significant and due to their voice holding large sway they have a significant influence
in the allocation of resources to attend to sustainability within projects. These insights
reflect the views of both PMs and PCs on the contextual issues faced and how they
elevate consideration of social sustainability from the perspective of local
stakeholders above that of environment sustainability.
38
5.3.1.2 Governance
Congruent with the theme of contextuality previously it is apparent that the project
location determines how stringent the requirements are for the inclusion of
sustainability in project management. The legislative standards to which projects
must comply are dependent on the country in which the project takes place, which
sets the expectations for minimum compliance.
PM01: "…each mine needs to go through a process, depending on what

country it is to do an environmental impact study to actually obtain either the
mining license or licenses from the EPA"
Most notably, the results revealed that legislative requirements within South Africa
were far more stringent than those of other African countries.
PM08: "…legislatively, South Africa is far more difficult, can I say, or

stringent than the rest of Africa is"
An interesting deviation from the previous section – which states that local
communities are more focused on basic social needs – is that the focus on
environmental sustainability from local communities in South Africa is more
pronounced than it is elsewhere.
PC04: "What we have seen is that the environmental [focus], especially from
a social aspect, is a lot more prevalent or topical, in my experience at least,
here in South Africa, compared to our experience that we picked up in
Zambia"
This appears to be the result of greater awareness with regard to protection of the
environment, as expressed by PM01, whose experience has been informed by
project management in Ghana and suggests that the phenomenon is not limited to
South Africa.
PM01: "…a lot bigger social awareness from the people in the country. I
think you would find it the same way in South Africa"
This is perceived by both PMs and PC as they both note the increasing
environmental pressure and associated dedication required from them within project
design, implementation and the product lifecycle to the extent that they perform
beyond compliance.
39
PM01: "There's a lot more focus on the environment"
PC02: "…now environmental is more important… I think it's beyond a

compliance thing right now. I think it's a right to play."
A large component of compliance is on the sustainable practice surrounding water

usage and handling. However, this focus appears to have attracted the appropriate
attention due to its necessity for the economic operation of the mines and mineral
processing plants and the clear expectations from legislation surrounding this.
PM01: "…that is legislated, this law that tells you that's what you have to
keep it to. And what happens is when you actually do environmental impact
study, that study will show the guys the footprint of a mine, where you take
water from… it actually shows exactly how you influence the water
resources of a country and the natural resources… That needs to normally
be approved by the EPA and then only you will get your mining license to
start mining."
PC06: "So from an environmental point, first thing to do is to use all the water
that you use over and over again. So we would put in good cleaning plants…
we've got to be careful, where the legislation comes in, that's an easy one,
whatever water falls on your ground, you've got to keep contained"
The ability of the mines and processing plants to comply with environmental
legislation is heavily influenced by the planning and design work carried out under
the PMs project responsibilities. This is something that comes easily to PMs and
they're far more comfortable with, as they come from technical vocations and are
supported by technical skills generally associated with ensuring governance of
environmental aspects within a project.
PM02: "We typically employ the environmental guys"
PC01: "…environment is more built into the genes of project design people...
I think tailings dams and all the pollution aspects, noise, dust, and so on, are
built into the genes of mining."
Whilst PMs found addressing environmental requirements came more naturally there
appears to be a historic understanding that environmental and social sustainability
was the responsibility of the PCs and the PMs only needed to conform to their
40
requirements.
PM07: "…it was a bit of a change from my previous projects where a lot of
that social interaction was not so direct, was more left to the client to
manage."
PM04: "…we were very blinkered, so we only ever built the concentrator. So
you could put a fence around it and you did what you needed to do, and you
had environmental and social responsibilities, but you weren't driving the
bus, you were just conforming. But, by the time I started to build [projects]...
that fence line had moved. We were doing a lot more, and it moved off the
property."
This was not a sentiment shared by the PC participants and whilst this may have
been an acceptable stance on the environmental side where compliance came easy
for PMs, it left a lot to be desired on the social front. The insights above reflect the
acknowledgement from PMs that expectations surrounding their attention to social
sustainability are changing. This brings challenge in capabilities for governance by
PMs from technical vocations, who now need to remove the blinkers and earnestly
take on the social agenda in their project management activities. This lack in
experience is further exposed by a critical point, highlighted by both PMs and PCs,
that Project Management theory does not appropriately address sustainability
practice and prepare practitioners for the expectations now bestowed upon them.
PM10: "…if you must take it back to project management, there's no way
that you really can deal with that. You do your stakeholder management and
all of that, but you can't go and tick it in one of those boxes… the intention
of stakeholder management, for my view, within project management isn't
set up to actually deal with this."
PC05: "PMBOK talks about stakeholder engagement. It doesn't talk about

the softer side of things. So a lot of nuance changes are coming to the
industry, in terms of people just becoming more socially responsible, and
building in terms of sustainability elements within the execution of projects.
This provides an understanding of the governance context that exists with the project
management of large-scale projects in the mining sector. PMs have historically
viewed the responsibility of sustainability as falling within the realm of the PC. PCs
41
on the other hand have not shared this view. PMs are able to keep up with the
increasing requirements for the inclusion of environmental sustainability due to their
technical affinity and it being in their area of expertise. However, their understanding
of project management literature has not appropriately equipped them to handle the
increasing social pressures their projects are exposing them to. This reveals a gap
in ability versus expectations that will grow if PMs aren't able to attend to the growing
social awareness of sustainability responsibilities, a phenomenon that would likely
see countries with less mature mining sectors following suit.
5.3.2 Drivers
Contextual factors significant to the inclusion of sustainability in project management

of large-scale projects are the drivers that push or pull the agenda. This section
discusses the drivers that influence PMs and PCs to integrate sustainability into
project management.
5.3.2.1 Social Licence
The most significant driver of sustainability into project management, as measured

by frequency of mention from PMs and PCs in data analysis, was influence from local
communities in the project location. It was apparent that their ability to cause project
delays through disrupting implementation activities is significant and has become a
significant driver for addressing sustainability in project management.
PM10: "…if you don't include this you know, and you make the people
around you unhappy, you will lose time because they will block you from
doing your work. And losing time means cost. It takes me so much longer to
finish off the project. One can do the sums. I think that's the biggest driver."
The nature of these large engineering projects is such that the cost of stoppage from
community unrest is higher than the perceived cost of social investment that would
satisfy expectations and prevent such.
PC04: "…if we don't have the community onboard… and we operate in a

way that doesn't include them, and there was an element of disruption… just
the cost of that disruption, in terms of impact opportunity cost on our current
operations is… worth more than the cost of uplifting and developing of
people of the communities and the money that we spend on social projects."
42
Social sustainability expectations have been legislated through social labour plans
which are intended to guide PCs in particular on expectations regarding their
inclusion of local community. Local communities are active in policing the PCs,
whose scope this normally falls under, on meeting their obligations.
PC02: "…the community will police you… on their social labor plan."
However, as revealed earlier the voice of the community holds more weight than
political voices and it appears that PMs and PCs would be unwise to only use
legislative obligations to guide their actions. Even if these have been met, the voice
of the community stakeholders is one that can still exert influence over the project.
There appears to be a recognition of this from governance stakeholders as it is seen
that if PMs are able to keep their community stakeholders happy then governance
stakeholders require less management. PM04 highlights this in stating that by
addressing expectations at the community level, they attract less attention from
national stakeholders and in turn government.
PM04: "…we could ease the pressure from a ... community perspective, by
defusing that, your local perspective goes away. Local being now national
according to government, and because now community and local have gone
away, now government goes away. So they're happy."
This sentiment is echoed by PM02 who reveals that even in the absence of legislative
stakeholders the need to attain support from communities is still paramount.
PM02: "in the Congo there's no legislation that you've got to do anything.
There it's driven by ... I suppose where we were it was quite important to
engage with the local community to get their buy-in, because of the history
of the rebels in the region and burning down the camp."
Both PMs and PCs refer to this local community support as social licence to operate
and it is revered as an absolute necessity to have before any project commences.
PM05: "Any new mine, the clients especially, and us, we need to deal with
the… social license to operate."
PC04: "…it's important that you've got that social license to operate, and
you've got a content and happy environment, because ultimately they're
43
your stakeholders and partners, and you can not live and operate on an
island."
The quote above from PC04 indicates that the social licence to operate is being
understood from more than just a risk avoidance perspective and communicates an
understanding of having this as a social responsibility. This more altruistic theme is
echoed by PM10 and PC06 who imply that ideal of a social licence to operate has
been incorporated into a moral philosophy.
PM10: "…I think as we progress over years, I think it's also that
responsibility."
PC06: "…you've got to try and people must get up in the morning and have
a job, and go to the mine and work, and not sit there and watch people
driving in and out to work. That's what causes the animosity and the strikes"
It is concluded in this section that local communities are influenced by the presence
of large engineering projects and in turn have a powerful influence on the projects to
the extent that they are able to dictate its success or failure. PMs and PCs as a
necessity must ensure that they have social licence to operate from their local
community stakeholders. This social licence has been overwhelmingly recognised
as the strongest driver for sustainability from both actors in the sample group. Whilst
this driver appears to be based in project risk management, the lexicon used
indicates that this is being increasingly driven by moral principles.
5.3.2.2 Economic Conscience
One of the significant drivers for the inclusion of sustainability in project management
highlighted by both PMs and PCs was the high cost of social unrest from local
stakeholders. This unrest can originate from local stakeholders internal and external
to the project payroll and affects project duration as well as the operation of the mines
post project.
PM01: "If you don't get it right you will burn, the project will burn, you will sit
with HR and IR issues coming out of your ears and your project will cost the
client three times more because you will have strikes and you will have a
riot."
The PM focus on the issue is limited to the project lifecycle. However, the PC
44
responses tend to interpret the issue from a different perspective. They view the
potential for the problem to span into the product lifecycle and severely affect the
long-term profitability of the mine as emphasised by PC06.
PC06: "one of the problems with those mines in that area has been local
protests, where they've actually shut down the mines. Obviously you can't
afford to do that. You can't afford not to run for five days. You maybe work
25 days of the month, and five days to make your money. If you don't run
those five days, you don't make the money. Eventually you're going to close
the mine down.
Seemingly related to this problem, PC respondents highlight that project funders’

expectations are a significant driver for sustainability into project management.
These expectations impose pressure on project managers to ensure that social and
environmental sustainability is planned into the projects before project funding is
granted.
PM08: "…we have clients that seek funding from abroad. They're not local
clients, they get money from Europe or they get money from Aus or
wherever they fund their projects from, Canada. And those funders want to
see social and environmental impact assessments, they want to know they
you're doing things in a safe manner, they want to know that you've
consulted, they want to know that local communities are taken care of."
This pressure from funders primarily affects the PCs, and a large proponent of this
influence is from funding institutions that comply with the Equator Principles, which
function as a risk management framework for lending conditions. These principles
are generally deemed by PCs to be more onerous than local legislative compliance
and require considerable effort to incorporate into project management planning and
design, as relayed by PC02.
PC02: "…it's basically setting a minimum standard now. It's quite an

elevated minimum, and if you can't show that you comply to the equator
principles, you're going to find it really hard to raise funding on, European
and… American financial institutions like IFC and IMF and Sofgen and the
bigger world bank and those guys… it's something that you've got to sit
down and work really, really hard on."
45
This drive for project sustainability from funders first influences PCs who approach
these financial institutions for international funding. The conditions of funding
according to the Equator Principles then find their way into contractual conditions for
PMs. These contractual conditions also include legislation for the country on social
and environmental compliance, for which PCs are held accountable. A significant
driver for PMs is, therefore, the contractual conditions set out by the PCs that
originate from these. This driver was a predominant view amount among PMs, with
the implication being that they view PCs as the owners of sustainability initiatives.
PM08: "…clients will drive the social and environmental items to ensure that
you don't leave them with a legacy that becomes a problem for them.
PM11: "…that is issued to us by the client and we follow those standards

that get given to us."
Both PMs and PCs confirmed that responsible incorporation, despite the cost of
doing so, was positive for company reputation. The PMs tended to view reputation
as a driver along economic lines, from the perspective that it provided an advantage
for continued business with PCs.
PM06: "…if you manage this correctly, it will contribute to a good reputation
that will be in our favour when we tender for work with the same client."
In contrast, the PC view on reputation being a driver was motivated more by aversion
to risk, and embodiment of corporate citizenship as expressed by PC02.
PC02: "it's an investment, absolutely an investment. It's like I said, it's the
right to play. It has to be there. It relieves pressure, it makes you a good
citizen, it protects you from a reputational risk point of view."
Expanding on the PMs motivation of competitive advantage being a driver, there was
a high emphasis on the ability of PM capabilities on the social front being a
competitive advantage. PM06 relays this by identifying the ability to make use of local
labour being a differentiator that allows PMs to meet PC obligations to funders and
legislation.
PM06: "Those project houses can get this right, that can identify local based
resources and can train them up and identify the training needs and train
them up- will be the winners at the end of the day. Those who ignore it and
46
those who don't pay enough attention to it will stand to lose projects in the
future."
It is apparent that both PMs and PCs consider the successful sustainability as a
whole a competitive advantage through meeting the preferences of their respective
stakeholders both economic and otherwise. An interesting observation from PC02's
response is that funding institutions with large wealth are those that subscribe to
sustainability principles and focus on the triple bottom line in their investments.
PC02: "…you have a topic that you can discuss with confidence during
anything like roadshows. Reporting back to the board and reporting to
investors, reporting to shareholders, reporting to authorities. You have a
step up on anybody else that does not do what you do. It attracts good
investors, it attracts shareholders with conscience. And as the world would
have it, the investors with real money are the guys with all the boxes ticked
that's been in triple bottom line reporting for years and years and years."
Despite the economic drivers that appear to be prevalent for both PMs and PCs, both
actors also indicate that conscience is a driver for the inclusion of sustainability
practice into project management of large engineering projects.
PM02: "…without a third party governing. We had environmental

consultants. We did all the good things. We complied with all the rules and
guidelines that we would on a South African mine, simply due toe, I suppose
good governance. Not through any authority levels. We didn't do it because
we had to. They did it because they believed it's the right thing."
PC03: "Well I think the two are hand in hand. It is risk management for sure
… if you don't take a long-term view of your business and the community
and the environment in which you work, then you may have a very short-
term outcome… So it is for me… it's a risk issue and a philosophical one as
well."
The responses highlighted that inclusion of sustainability practices are driven

primarily by risk management and the prevention of social unrest from local
stakeholders due to the ability for this to terminate projects. However, the participants
highlight the understanding that there are economic advantages to be had beyond
risk management by subscribing to sustainability principles. This is due to the access
47
it provides to future projects and funding thereof. Though not explicitly stipulated,
legislation was a key driver mentioned by participants. Despite being mentioned as
a significant driver, conscience as a driver was less prevalent than the
aforementioned ones and was more prevalent from PCs who were deemed to be the
drivers of sustainability efforts by PMs.
5.3.3 Summary of Results for Research Question 1
The context of large engineering projects in Africa emphasised the vulnerability of

local communities in terms of the lack of basic services and infrastructure they have.
The consequence of this exogenous factor is that a significant pressure is placed on
PMs and PCs to resolve these social needs. Despite their vulnerability, it is evident
that the voice of these local communities is powerful and can potentially cripple
projects if not heeded, even if PMs and PC have complied with the local legislative
requirements. This powerful voice coupled with the dire social needs results in much
of the efforts of PMs and PCs being directed toward the social elements pertaining
to these stakeholders.
There is, however, an indication of an increasing focus on environmental

sustainability from local communities, specifically in South Africa and Ghana, that
are more environmentally aware. One may possibly draw from this that exposure,
awareness and perhaps having already had more dire social needs met is a factor
that has shifted their gaze to include holding PCs and PMs accountable for
environmental aspects of sustainability.
With regard to governance within the project management arena, environmental

sustainability practice appears to receive appropriate attention due to the technical
ability to attend to it naturally residing with PMs, and their ability to factor these
considerations. Despite PM abilities on this front, it is evident from the governance
of these projects that PMs have had a historical view that the responsibility for
sustainability resides with the PCs. This view is especially pertinent for social
sustainability with which PM teams have less experience. In relaying the dynamics
of this insight it was evident from PMs that they are becoming more exposed to social
sustainability aspects of project management through necessity.
RESEARCH QUESTION 2
48
This question aims to unpack the endogenous and exogenous barriers to

implementation that PMs and PCs face in their inclusion of sustainability in project
management for large scale projects in their context. It also aims to unpack the
factors for support of this and how these can be leveraged by these actors. An
overview of the themes is shown in Figure 4.
RQ2 What are the sustainability challenges and enablers that project
managers must be cognisant of for large engineering projects in Africa?
Themes Challenges Enablers
Navigating
Categories Social
Constraints
Stakeholder
Expectations
Local
Engagement
Governance
Clarity
5.4.1 Challenges
This section identifies social constraints and the navigation of stakeholder

expectations as key challenges for the inclusion of sustainability in project
management by PMs and PCs.
5.4.1.1 Social Constraints
One of the significant constraints mentioned by both PCs and PMs is the prior and
neighbouring occupation of project sites by artisanal miners. This is exposed as risk
to sustainability from an environmental perspective due to it being uncontrolled with
poor standards of practice, as referred to by PM11.
PM11: "…it's quite often that our environmental standards are significantly
higher than what you see in the surrounding community. So if you take
Ghana… and the DRC, they do this artisanal mining where they just mine in
the river, out the river everywhere and they just make a big mess where
we've got - what happens to the run-off? our roads? And we put silt traps in
and ensure that you don't put that silt into the river where, quite often, those
guys don't have any of that."
49
The ungoverned nature of this also poses significant social safety issues. This is
apparent in terms of those carrying out these activities without appropriate safety
standards and those exposed to the environmental damage of the natural
ecosystems on which they rely to live. The poor practice of illegal mining activity was
highlighted by PC03, with the emphasis that this activity tends to be accompanied by
corruption and a lack of capacity by authorities to control it.
PC03: "Yeah, but then there is true corruption as well, and people are
allowed to do things that are illegal because they bribe their way to be
overlooked… we call it artisanal mining. Nine times out of 10 I'm talking
about illegal mining. These aren't properly licensed artisanal mines. These
are people who are coming on to a mining license, or a tenement that they
have no right to be on, and then the willingness of the authorities to actually
apply the law to protect the assets that belong to other people. That type of
thing is challenging… with the artisanal miners who don't care what they do
to the environment. They have no control over them whatsoever."
Another challenge posed by this is the social constraint of relocation of local

stakeholders which may include illegal miners. Despite the relocation of illegal miners
not falling within the responsibility of PMs and PCs, it was acknowledged that in the
long term this would be a more sustainable solution to help address the issue.
However, there are large costs attached to doing do which are restrictive, as put
forward by PC01.
PC01: “We cannot afford to resettle those artisanal miners"
Relocation of local stakeholders typically involves the provision of housing and land
title to a suitable location off the mine premises. The enormity of this cost is apparent
when the potential numbers of legitimate local stakeholders are considered, as
stated by PM11.
PM11: "…relocating communities that are within the mine area. They call
that RAP Projects, quite often, Relocation Action Plan… we assisted them
[the PCs] with their RAP. They moved, I think 12,000 to 14,000 people out
of their mining rights area"
Once the project has established control over the property, both PMs and PCs face
large pressure to employ large proportions of their workforce from local stakeholders.
50
This pressure comes from both legislation and the local community, and PMs in turn
feel this pressure from PCs. The challenge in doing this, as relayed by both PMs and
PCs, is the ubiquitous lack in suitable skills within these communities for employment
on large engineering projects.
PM03: "…it's a law that you have to use a certain minimum percentage of
local labour. With that it does bring its own challenges, and one of the
challenges is that most of those people are unskilled."
PC03: "What so often happens with projects is that people talk about the
upside of a mining project, about particularly bringing jobs for the local
community, but not every job can be done by people who don't have any
skills at all."
A predominant view from PMs was that this pressure from local communities
presented a challenge as it had the propensity to escalate if they felt their
expectations were being side-lined. This escalation then often manifested in social
unrest, sometimes leading to intimidation and violence by local stakeholders.
PM04: "So it becomes a lot of heated conversations, a lot of aggressive talk,

petrol bombs at the ready. That type of stuff and trying to defuse these
situations the whole time is quite tricky."
A nuance to this challenge was that project managers needed to drive the right level
of inclusion and transparency of project decisions for the local community, as
expressed by PM08.
PM08: "and if you don't drive than inclusion of having people know what
you're doing and why you're doing it, then your work is physically going to
come to a grinding halt very quickly, and often in a violent manner"
In trying to drive the inclusion of local stakeholders into the project the most
significant challenge raised by both PMs and PCs is attaining stakeholder equity.
Both actors highlighted the challenge of the significant number of stakeholders and
their associated social needs, and the limited capacity of the project to attend to
them. This was relayed by PM10 and PC04 below and highlights the challenge of
ensuring inclusion across a vast number of local stakeholders.
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PM10: "It's still difficult. They've got different tribes with different sizes, so
you can't employ all of the people. So you constantly have issues with roads
being blocked and so on. People will have the attitude of, "If I don't work,
nobody else will work." Sort of that arrangement, which impacts in time of a
project severely…"
PC04: "we could not accommodate all the people, just the sheer the
numbers that was involved, we couldn't incorporate all of them. And that
remains a challenge… it's difficult to find a sustainable solution for all of
them."
With project employment being a means through which local inclusion is driven, a
significant challenge raised by PMs was the provision of training for unskilled labour
to ensure their value to the workforce. This placed an additional burden on PMs by
way of project onboarding weighed against project time constraints.
PM05: "Then, we would take them on, because it was relatively low skills,
but you still at to re-issue P-P-E, you still have to induct them, you still have
to give them basic training for what they're got to do. It just became a lot of
work for the onboarding guys."
This was revealed to be especially challenging where the extent PM obligations to

hire local labour were not defined from project inception. This presented an
unexpected cost burden for external contractors, who were expected to work with
local labour to expected safety standards.
PM03: "Who would pay for the training, which was obviously something that
the contractor, he would say, "Well, we haven't priced for that." You know.
"We've just priced lean and mean, with the minimal amount of skilled labour,
and now you want us to hire more local labour on site, who is unskilled. So,
therefore, to get them, not to the same level, because that would take a long
time, but to get them to a level where they could work safely is going to cost
you money."
The correlation of safety risks and incidents to the utilisation of local labour was
stressed by PMs, as most injuries occurred with local employees due to their
inexperience in navigating the hazards of project construction.
52
PM10: "We had a lot of injuries where most of our injuries… [have] been
local labour that get injured. And it's just the guys are not used to major
construction works"
This point is indicative of the quality of training provided. It raises the question of how
reasonable it is to expect previously unskilled employees to become safe workers
within the time constraints of project deadlines. It also raises the question of how
safety of employees should be managed with this constraint to prevent such injuries.
PM participants also flagged the challenge of unskilled labour negatively affecting

their ability to meet PC quality and cost expectations.
PM05: "…we ended up with issues of poor quality and the clients made us
100% responsible for all of the issues coming out of that. We wouldn't
normally employ them, because when you price, you price for the right
calibre that you know you can use and put your price in. So, there's a
challenge; how do you price your project correctly that allows for some of
the challenges that happen during schedule, when the owners are generally
looking at lowest-cost tenders."
Within the challenge of taking on local employees PMs raise the language and
culture dynamics as barriers for driving safe practice and productivity into project
implementation.
PM08: "we drive… to do our work safely, and always with zero harm. But
when you get into a social environment where the language differ, the
culture differs, the level of understanding is completely different, it becomes
very difficult… So, specifically in Guinea for example. Getting to understand
the social interaction with local community was a key driver to eventually try
and drive a safe behavioural system. To be blunt, I don't think we made very
many inroads into that on that project"
An interesting criticism from the PCs is that some cultural limitations rested with the
PMs in that they limited their reliance to stakeholders which they could speak their
language as relayed by PC01.
PC01: Cultural and just the communication it doesn't help when no offense,
but the expatriate comes in they become totally relying on a few people, a
few Congolese in the company or outside the company who speak English
53
These views are illustrative of the significant social challenges faced by PMs and
PCs in their inclusion of social sustainability into project management. PMs have
primarily identified a lack of appropriate skills as a challenge for the inclusion of local
stakeholders as employees for the project. This has ramifications for safety, quality
and time aspects of project deliverables. Other related challenges included illegal
mining and relocation costs.
Both actors identified that attaining stakeholder equity was a challenge due to the
social needs far outweighing what the projects are able to solve, with the potential
result being sometimes aggressive social unrest. A criticism from PCs on
management of this is the tendency of PMs to be over reliant on local stakeholders
with cultural similarities, which has the propensity to exacerbate feelings of exclusion.
5.4.1.2 Navigating Stakeholder Expectations
The significant cost and time implications of the inclusion of sustainability for both
environmental and social aspects in project management was frequently mentioned
by both PMs and PCs.
PM09: "I think it's money. It's all money because environmental
sustainability cost you more in the short-term and people don't think long-
term. It takes time. So I want the mine, you know, in three years, but it'll take
me six years now to get through all this legislation, you know, and approval.
So it's definitely money that makes it difficult and the same of social"
PC01: "…depending on your interpretation, they can cost a lot of money and
take a lot of effort."
In communicating this constraint it was apparent that being able to better understand
expectations would aid in being able to accommodate them. However, a key concern
raised primarily by PMs was that expectations around social sustainability lack
definition, as expressed by PM04.
PM04: "Socially, it has been, and will be for many years, an absolute free
for all. It's just open to interpretation. I think that is the essence of it is that
it's open. I also believe that it's the reason why... investors are not investing
in South Africa, and it's basically… policy uncertainties… and the guys just
don't know how to deal with it."
This was not a prevalent view from PCs but there was acknowledgement that PMs
54
struggle to gain clarity on social expectations as expressed by PC01, which suggests
that this is a limitation on the part of PMs but not necessarily from PCs.
PC01: "…environment is more built into the genes of project design

people… those are issues that to a great extent, people know how to
quantify and know how to assess. The social is a little harder for people to
get their arms around"
This difference in view appears to have its origins in the types of skills that are found
within PM teams and PC teams. It appears from the responses that PCs are better
equipped to understand social expectations in terms of skills and experience.
Both actors highlighted political agenda as a challenge to sustainability due to the

propensity of political actors to employ self-serving agendas to maintain popularity.
These agendas were described as assistive of local interests due to their desire to
maintain voter support. However, the short-termism of these political agendas meant
that politicians were unwilling to enforce policy that supported the long-term survival
of the project.
PC03: "…the only reasons I can think of why they wouldn't enforce the law
was… political. They see it as a vote loser… people in authority are political
appointees, so they're doing what it takes to remain popular."
Whilst there was moderate mention of this issue it was acknowledged that this issue
is not limited to the African context.
Identifying stakeholders influenced by and with influence projects was a challenge

raised mainly by PCs. This appeared to stem from the dynamic of PCs having the
first encounter with local communities. The results revealed their meeting of large
local populaces with big social needs and having difficulty in deciding how to allocate
resources to the most important stakeholders.
PC01: "That’s a very challenging issue because the world is infinite in all
kinds of needs, everyone's poor and struggling. So, you're targeting of the
social catchment area or zone that you're going to focus on, needs to take
account of wherever there's a community impacted by the project, but also
where there's a community that can influence positively or negatively the
success of the project."
55
PC04: "…our preference is to address the doorstep communities, that's
really communities that's in very close proximity to the mining operation…
then you work geographically and move out… but because of the sheer
number of people, there are people also that don't have opportunities. And
those guys feel left out, and they want to knock on the door and also get a
chance to participate."
This combination of the overwhelming number of stakeholders and their needs often
presented unprecedented expectations of both PMs and PCs. This, coupled with a
lack in social attention from the project actors, often meant that they came to
understand expectations through reactive experience.
PM07: "…our senses for social awareness are not always in place… over
time and over experience, you learn the hard way that you need to be a bit
more skilled in that field and it helps a lot to be more aware of how you
interact with the local community people, how you interact with and how you
make provisions for setting up your own team to cater for those needs."
PC05: "…a huge amount of school fees paid over time. Once somebody has
signed agreement… you just assume things would happen according to the
agreement, and you both go ahead and according to your project schedule
you'll deliver… [but there's] a social and a softer element, which actually has
a lot more at play than just doing things that you think people agree to…
being kind of from a Western background, you just assume that people think
like you do, which they don't."
A result of this reactive experience was late changes to the project scope which are
costly for the PM to implement as expressed by PM03.
PM03: "…we now discovered that this bloody footprint of the plant was 200
meters inside the village. And we had to do changes to civils. We had to do
changes to earthworks. We had to do changes to structural steel and… we
were heavy into fabrication and construction… when somebody said we've
got to stop."
The challenge of late changes to the sustainability expectations and therefore project
scope appear to have been aggravated by inadequate attention to resolving local
stakeholder expectations by the both PMs and PCs.
56
This was particularly pertinent for PMs in their interactions with junior mining
companies, which were strongly criticised by PMs as the mining companies take
shortcuts on sustainability to cut costs on projects. This apathetic attitude had the
potential to cause large problems later on for PMs if they left the drive for
sustainability to the PC to manage.
PM01: "I've been in multiple meetings with younger mining companies which
start-up companies where they don't want to take on that responsibility
because they see it as too much money to actually really comply."
This highlighted the need for both PMs and PCs to ensure that they understood
expectations and improved stakeholder communication in order to prevent problems
further down the line.
PM01: "You cannot ignore that and you need to engage with them to
understand how they perceive a project, what do they think they're going to
get out of a project and what do they want to do in terms of employment.
Because again, you'd be employing, like I said, up to 2,000 people on a
project, so therefore, they've got a big say on who and how you employ
people. So you have to engage on that level."
PC05: "I'd say the biggest challenge would be, people that are suitably,
socially, and environmentally aware. I don't think there's any textbook that
would be followed. There's a couple of items that could be highlighted in
terms of, these are portfolios previously experienced, and there's a couple
of things that you need to focus on, understand, and review."
However, one of the most frequently noted challenges for the inclusion of
sustainability in project management of large-scale projects was the perception by
PMs that the responsibility for sustainability issues rested with the PC. The nature of
project approvals meant that obligations generally originated with the PC. As a result
PMs have historically deemed PCs to have more sustainability drive ownership. In
relaying the handling of sustainability issues to a PM colleague, PM04 recounted this
historical sentiment.
PM04: "… he'd say to me, "But why're you getting involved in the social and
environmental ..." It was those two, "Why're you getting involved in this? This
is the client's problem," and there was a conversation that I had with him"
57
This assumption of the responsibility of sustainability falling within the PCs domain
was something echoed by many other participants as a matter of assumption, as
highlighted by PM07's response.
PM07: "I think arguably one could say that's not really our responsibility
because we're not going to be there longer than the project's lifetime itself."
PCs were critical of this assumption and recounted it as a large expectation gap
between what PCs needed from PMs and what the PMs felt was their contractual
obligation. PC01 illustrated this in his criticism of PCs and PMs not having a shared
vision on the matter.
PC01: "…the EPCM role versus the project owner, the client role is a
challenge, because it's easy for… people to be assuming, “Well, the other
guy’s handling this.”… That’s why communication and having a shared
vision of what the social environmental issues are, even if the EPCM
contractor isn't directly involved in this or that aspect of it. That's an issue
that can be a challenge…. I think the EPCM partner can sometimes relax,
thinking that they just need to worry about what's in their contract."
This section highlights the challenge of cost implications from late changes to
sustainability expectations on the social front. This arose from a lack of appropriate
navigation of stakeholder expectations. This poor navigation highlighted the need for
PMs to be better positioned through skill and involvement to address these upfront.
However, there was a notable restriction inhibiting this from occurring; PMs have
tended to take direction from PCs on sustainability initiatives that are to be employed.
This has mainly been influenced by the PCs budget and choosing of initiatives. The
result has been a tendency for PMs to view sustainability efforts on the social side
as being the client's responsibility. Despite the budgetary constraints and social
access limitations that may restrict PMs, PC participants were critical of the PMs’
assumption of responsibility and the corresponding gap in expectation of who will
define and incorporate social stakeholder expectations.
5.4.2 Enablers
This theme identified local engagement and governance clarity as dominant enablers
for sustainability. These are expanded on below.
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5.4.2.1 Local Engagement
With projects taking PMs and PCs into new and unknown locales, both PMs and PCs
emphasised the use of partnerships with local knowledge to navigate terrain. By
leveraging these relationships both parties were better able to understand the local
expectations on sustainability, particularly on the social front.
PM03: "we were very reliant on [COMPANY]… and we learnt a lot from
them… [and] from a social point of view, they definitely helped the projects
that we were involved in from day one. Because they were used to it. We
weren't used to all those social things we had to be aware of and implement"
PC04: "We're quite fortunate on this project that our partner is [COMPANY],
and they've got a multitude of projects that they do on other job sites in South
Africa as well, so they also bring a lot of experience and prior learnings to
the table, which we benefit from."
To ease the establishment of the project, PMs highlighted that early PC engagement
with local communities at project conception stages is great enabler for managing
local expectations and preventing challenges further down the line.
PM02: "…[our client] learned a lot from them, I suppose. And from the
beginning they got the community involved. The initial road that we cleared
and started building. The bridges that they built were all done by hand. They
didn't use any equipment or any contractors. They employed 400 people to
literally build a road through the jungle. They bought a lot of goodwill by
engaging with the community on a large scale."
PM08: "…our clients, in general, have actually taken a lot of effort in aligning
social strategies, in aligning local communities to what it is we're doing, why
we're doing it, how we're going to go about it, what impact it's going to have
on them. And to a large extent, we have been absconded from challenges
from the social perspective from that front… I would also say that local
communities have become more approachable, and with the right footwork
done by the clients"
Early stakeholder engagement from the perspective of the PCs is positioned more
along the lines of enabling social sustainability in the long term and has the
appearance of being more altruistic in nature.
59
PC03: "…by involving the local community in understanding the project from
the inception stage then you stand a far better chance of it not posing a
problem for the community down the track."
PC06: "…sitting down with the municipality, understanding what are your
plans for the next 10 years? Where do you want to build a suburb? And
mixed development, rich, poor, everybody. What do you want to do? Where
do you want to build schools? If you don't make those allowances in the pre-
feas and the feasibility, when you come to execution everybody's going to
be so pissed off and say, "But we've got no money for this. We haven't
thought of this." That to me is so important. In the process do it right in the
beginning, understand it. You know, you almost need to say, "I'm going to
sign on Joe Bloggs, his job is going to be community investment, speaking
to the community, getting legal assistance, getting guidance." And all those
things. It almost runs as a part of your pre-feas and feasibility. That's the
only way that you're going to do it successful, is to do it upfront."
When comparing the PMs and PCs insights on stakeholder engagement there is a
contrast in the sense of why this is deemed an enabler. The PMs appear to view this
as an enabler because it allows a project to run without delays from social unrest,
whereas the PCs view it as an enabler due to its ability to ensure long term social
sustainability. It seems this difference in interpretation may lie in the short-term
project performance focus of the PMs versus the long-term lifecycle focus of the PCs.
Despite this difference both actors agree that an enabler in maintaining this
engagement with local stakeholders is the creation of communication forums. PM02
describes this and also acknowledges the importance of the softer aspect of
communities having a sense of ownership over the project outcome.
PM02: "…you go and ask the community leaders. You use that forum as a
tool. You communicate with them. You get them engaged with what we're
doing and that also gives them a bit of pride and a sense of belonging."
PC04 ratifies this concept and emphasises the importance of ensuring community
understanding to close any expectation gaps.
PC04: "you've got to run a system where you've got constant local
engagement with the local communities. Through the forums that you've set
60
up, where you give constant feedback to them so that they understand
where you are in the process"
In trying to drive inclusion of local communities both PMs and PCs said that the
vetting of local capabilities assisted in maximising the project work that could be
allocated to them. By establishing this PMs and PCs were able to match the
capabilities to suitable work packages and distribute accordingly.
PM04: "…we invited business owners. So SMMEs… to basically give us

their company profiles. There were 1000s of company profiles that came in.
Those were then sorted, and from there we had a look at our procurement
operating plan, and we said, "Okay, what procurement has to be done and
what can be sourced from the community?".
PC04: "…what we did, for instance, on this project is, we identify all the
procurement activities, we then issue an expression of interest, which we
advertise within the local community broadly, and then the companies and
individuals have got an opportunity to send their company details or
prospectus, expressing an interest in that particular procurement package.
We then… make sure that that inquiry also goes to those people that have
expressed the interest in that particular package. So that's the way we give
everybody an opportunity to participate economically in the project, as much
as possible"
Locally based human resource services were identified as a key enabler for this
process and ensuring PMs could keep attention on this whilst still managing other
project demands.
As part of this process both actors agreed that the most important enabler from local
engagement was to nurture local business creation. This was done through
supporting existing local businesses, as mentioned by PM06, chosen through the
vetting process.
PM06: "They can manufacture any structural steel or plate wood required
for mining industry, they offer very decent- in fact, top-notch service. By
employing them, all- you can say %100 of the staff complement are all
Northern Cape based people, people who has been born and bred there. By
61
supporting them, I support local community with jobs. Also, the social
impacts on this project are huge."
This could also be achieved by creating opportunities for business that could serve
the needs of the project and be sustainable after project completion.
PC06: "We bought brick-making machines out of South Africa. So we would

send five of these machines up, and we would get them with the local
municipality, we would provide the power and the water, et cetera, with the
intention is that they would not only make bricks for the mine, but they would
make bricks to either be sold locally, and we would give them the skills. So
those were some of the things we did there."
Large contractors were identified as a mechanism through which this could be

achieved, by including in their conditions of award that they partner with local
businesses and assist them in establishing themselves.
PM04: "There was a fencing contractor who we felt needed to be given an

opportunity… the fencing contract as a whole was about a R14 million
contract… we got one of the known and trusted fencing contractors that I'd
used in the past, and what we did is, we split the contract. So we awarded
R10 million to him, and we awarded R4 million to the local community guy…
He had challenges, from a corporate perspective. Cash flows always a
problem, banking, invoicing, planning, scheduling, all of that. So what I did,
is I awarded the R10 million contract to the major contractor on condition
that he looked after the smaller guy and taught him how to run a business,
and that was successful.
In summary, this section emphasises the importance of local engagement and the
activities that support this. Partnerships with local actors are identified as useful
means of understanding the social context. Early engagement with local
stakeholders was seen to be critical for PMs and PCs to ensure inclusion in the
project and ensure alignment on outcomes. A valuable means by which this could
be achieved is through the establishment of communication forums with local
representatives. An enabler for maximising local inclusion was the vetting of the local
skills base and using locally based human resource staff to manage this. Lastly,
contractor partnerships with local entrepreneurs/small businesses were recognised
to be a means through which a lack in local capabilities could be overcome.
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5.4.2.2 Governance Clarity
Both PMs and PCs indicated that an understanding of requirements from project
teams was a key ingredient of being able to ensure sustainability was integrated into
project management of large-scale projects.
PM05: "I think the biggest enabler is our education, really. Over time
everyone has become far more aware of all of this lot. Years ago, people
didn't worry about it. There was no knowledge about it. There's a far more
formalized environment, for want of a better word, where we are generally
aware of our requirements"
PC05: You need to make sure that from an understanding and acceptance
perspective, all of those things are pointed to whatever you consider. And
that links into both your stakeholders, plus your sustainability elements in
terms of minimizing impact to the environment."
Key to this understanding of obligations is legislative clarity on social and

environmental compliance. Environmental legislation was recognised to have clarity
which greatly aided in meeting obligations.
PM04: "The two are very different. One, defined. Environmentally defined,
you know where to go look. If you have a question, you go read. Socially,
very gray. Interpretation leaves stuff out. You ask for recommendations, you
get 10 different answers"
PC03: "…the authorities in most countries are actually fairly good I think in
terms of requiring an environmental impact assessment to be done, an
environmental management plan to be put in place."
As expressed by PM04, social legislation was seen to have been lacking in this
regard historically. However, some PMs did note that clarity on social legislation had
improved and was better at enabling their attendance to social sustainability.
To aid in gaining clarity on social and environmental obligations it was noted that the
use of social and environmental experts within project teams was an enabler. This
was particularly pertinent for PMs whose skills do not generally lend well to social
engagement.
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PM07: "…an industrial relationship officer, it's got an enormous effect as a
channel of communication between us of providing that link between us as
the executing party on site and the local community"
PC02: "…social labour plans are handled well. These, these normally HRD
manager and there a communal responsibility or community person that
looks after that"
Clarity in governance was a theme that extended beyond legislative compliance and
into PM and PC organisations. PMs noted the blue-chip PCs were generally better
at driving sustainability in their projects than junior miners. Given the dynamic of PMs
taking direction on these issues from PCs, blue-chip companies were regarded as
enablers for PM sustainability efforts.
PM01: "If you're doing a job for a blue chip company they will make sure that
they comply with all the rules and the regulations and they drive it quite
strongly. Like the Newmont or Anglo or BHP Billiton. They really do drive it
hard"
Organisational strategy on governance of sustainability from the PC is therefore an

important enabler for its integration into large scale projects as expressed by PC03.
PC03: "it has to be internal in the sense that the company sets the tone, and
I think, yeah, most EPCM contractors would be happy to fit in with the culture
and the expectations of the client. I don't think that's an issue, but if the client
isn't doing it itself, then it's going to be hard for the EPCM contractor to try
and impose that. Having said that, for the contractors that have that
awareness it would be a very strong selling point."
Nonetheless, PC03 does highlight the importance of the PM having a firm

understanding of how to integrate sustainability into projects.
In summary this section illustrates that having a clear understanding of sustainability

requirements was key to enabling inclusion into project management. This
understanding was aided by clear legislation and the use of experts - specifically
social experts. PMs also highlighted that blue-chip companies were an enabler for
sustainability due to their tendency to have defined standards for the inclusion of
sustainability in their projects.
64
The participants described social constraints and navigation of stakeholder

expectations as dominant challenges for their inclusion of sustainability in project
management. The enablers they emphasised were local engagement with
communities and clarity in governance.
Within the challenges identified, a lack of local skills created a trade-off between
project deliverables on safety, quality and time and maximising employment of locals.
Encounters with illegal miners and relocations costs were also noted to be
prohibitive. In engaging with local communities, achieving stakeholder equity was a
challenge that could result in social unrest and PCs indicated a desire for PMs to be
better engaged with these communities. This exposed the difficulties faced by PMs
in navigating social engagement and the subsequent gap in expectations. This gap
was seen to the result PMs taking direction on what is to be included in their
sustainability efforts from PCs but being subject to their budgetary constraints.
Participants identified enablers as local engagement through established forums,

partnerships with local actors and vetting of local skills to maximise work allocated
to these stakeholders. Clarity on governance from a legislative and PC standpoint
were recognised to be key to defining the extent of the aforementioned activities.
Participants also described the use of experts, specifically on the social side, as aids
in navigating this.
RESEARCH QUESTION 3

projects in Africa?
This research question queries the processes that PMs and PCs must employ to
integrate sustainability into the project management of large-scale projects. It
identifies early stakeholder alignment and constant stakeholder engagement as key
requirements in the process of including sustainability into project management. An
65
RQ3 How is sustainability being incorporated into project management of
large-scale projects in Africa?
Themes Process
Early Constant
Categories Stakeholder
Alignment
Stakeholder
Engagement
5.5.1 Process
The thematic analysis revealed that early definition of stakeholder expectations was
key in ensuring that sustainability can be planned into project activities. It also
highlighted the need for constant stakeholder engagement to maintain this
alignment.
5.5.1.1 Early Stakeholder Alignment
Both PCs and PMs stressed the need for sustainability expectations to be defined
during early project conception stages to ensure that they could be planned and
designed into the project implementation.
PM05: "…do sufficient pre-planning, up early; our intent is always to use the
local communities as far as possible; see how we can uplift the communities,
or provide them with some benefits from the projects that we do. From a
process perspective, all of that needs to be brought into consideration in the
study phases; that's when the funding is done for the projects."
PC06: "…it's part of your pre-feasibility and feasibility study. You cannot
come to execution and think you can incorporate this. You've got to make
the allowances right from day one. I mean it's frightening when you see how
much money you actually have to allocate."
To achieve this early alignment a number of critical factors were identified for the
project actors to include. The first of which was from PCs who highlighted the need
for political engagement and for PMs to be involved in this.
66
PC01: "…we need project operators and consulting companies [to] be more
focused on the political situation that affects the social and environmental
situation… the extent to which a social environmental issue will affect
negatively or positively a project has really, the primary aspect is the political
context."
A large emphasis was placed by both PMs and PCs to identify social stakeholders
that are influenced by and can influence the project, and to ensure their concerns
are represented in project discussions.
PM04: "…community trumps everyone, so understand community. So how

many communities are you dealing with? How many chiefs are you dealing
with?"
PC03: "…it's involvement of all the stakeholders, and what's key here is that
the stakeholder mapping, to make sure that every single potential
stakeholder or person affected, people affected is identified, and then
getting them properly represented and involved so that there is that
understanding about the project. That's the key, because it's all about
managing expectations"
With an understanding of the stakeholders, PCs should then establish their budget
for social spend and commitments, which PMs can then accommodate and allocate
accordingly.
PM04: "…especially for junior clients, we need to firstly understand how big
is the pot of money that's going to be made available for social spend"
PC04: "…there's certain goals or drivers that you need to set yourself
upfront, to say 100% of unskilled labor will come from doorstep communities
or local communities. 70% skilled labor must come from an area... so I think
it's important upfront to set yourself goals like that, and then put a target in
terms of the overall spend, that you bring things on, and keep working with
local communities."
Another emphasis was that once these stakeholders are identified, PMs and PCs
must identify solvable social needs with these local stakeholders so that they can be
planned into project deliverables.
67
PM04: "…understand how you can distribute that money. So can you
employ the guys? Can you give them procurement opportunity on the mine,
and if the answer's no, do you need to go and find projects in their
communities to obviously uplift those communities… once you understand
money, communities, and what should be and can be done, then you can
program it, you can put it in your schedule, you can measure it, you can
employ people to do whatever needs to be done there"
PC04: "You've got to look at what social projects and opportunities there
are, then you've got to say, okay well, where can I spend my money where
it's got the biggest impact. So it's really about having effective
communication, and then also to make sure that you spend your money in
the most appropriate places."
This process of identification of solvable social needs must be done through

engagement and alignment with local communities so that expectations are
managed and social spend is not squandered.
PMs should then engage with the various contractors on sustainability expectations,
such as local employment requirements and business creation, so this can in turn be
planned into their activities.
PM07: "Again a huge obligation to transfer that understanding to our own

contractors and making sure that they implement it correctly as well. I think
that's, for me, the process."
PMs highlighted that the establishment of project-wide conditions of employment was

a key component to future stakeholder alignment and equity.
PM01: "…we physically actually contracted in how people need to be

employed. We've contracted in minimum wages, we had a project wide
agreement on all the contractors, what's the minimum wage, how much
leave does people get, so everyone gets treated fairly. I think that's a very
important thing you have to do."
In summary this section emphasised the need for sustainability expectations to be

defined early so to ensure alignment between PMs and PCs. It was identified that in
doing this PMs should engage at a political level and then identify local stakeholders
and solvable social needs. Expectations of local employment and engagement
68
should be communicated through to contractors and it was deemed helpful to
establish project-wide conditions of employment to better manage problems of
inequity among local employees.
5.5.1.2 Constant Stakeholder Engagement
Both project actors emphasised the importance of continuous engagement with the
local communities through established forums to manage expectations gaps that
grow over the course of the project.
PM11: "So when they say we're going to give jobs to the local community
the local community thinks every single person in the local community is
going to get a job, not just one third of them. So that often creates a bit of a
problem and that... expectation gap, so I think, in terms of projects, the
biggest thing around social is to make sure that that gets communicated
very well and continuously"
PC04: "…you've got to run a system where you've got constant local
engagement with the local communities. Through the forums that you've set
up, where you get constant feedback to them so that they understand where
you are in the process."
Part of this engagement is the communication and enforcement of strict guidelines

as to how social spend will be directed to prevent it from being squandered.
PM04: "when the one community leader… or chief says, "My community hall
needs to be extended. It needs to be upgraded and made good", then we'd
send an engineer. I had an engineer that only worked on these projects, on
the outside projects, and we'd go there and say, "Okay, look, you need to
spend R2 million here to get this done. We agree. We'll spend it." The chief
would say, "But give me the money. I'll do it."… we were very strict. We said,
"No, we don't [do that]... What we're going to do is we're going to execute
the projects for you using people, locals in your community."
PC06: "don't give them money. I mean they're going to maybe squander it,
or not know how to use it correctly, rather do something for them on the
social side. That's really what we've been doing"
A key mention in this process is that PMs and PCs should maintain transparency
69
with local stakeholders so that it advertises that the efforts of the project are in the
public interest and keeps all representative accountable to their constituents.
In summary continuous local engagement to maintain alignment of expectations

should be done. During this engagement, transparency should be upheld and social
spend should strictly be allocated to projects without donation of money to local
stakeholders.
The participants described early stakeholder alignment and constant local

engagement as critical parts of the process for the inclusion of sustainability in project
management of large-scale projects. Alignment at an early stage between PCs, PMs,
local politicians and local communities was described as paramount to ensuring the
appropriate inclusion of sustainability in project planning and allow better
management of stakeholder equity.
In summary this section emphasised the need for sustainability expectations to be

defined early so to ensure alignment between PMs and PCs. It was identified that in
doing this PMs should engage at a political level and then identify local stakeholders
and solvable social needs. Expectations of local employment and engagement
should be communicated through to contractors and it was deemed helpful to
establish project wide conditions of employment to better manage problems of
inequity among local employees. This alignment required constant engagement and
ethical and transparent governance.
RESEARCH QUESTION 4

changing?
This question is aimed at understanding how businesses need to respond in order

to integrate sustainability into project management of large-scale projects. The
results revealed that ideal outcomes of this would be local upliftment which gave rise
to corporate conscience and long-term performance. Participants speculated that
projects would find increasing needs to ensure sustainability on social and
environmental fronts beyond compliance. Achieving this would require a change in
70
organisational strategy and inclusion of sustainability in project management. An

RQ4 management and how is project management of large-scale projects in Africa
changing?
Themes Outcomes Trends
Corporate Sustainability
Categories Local Upliftment Conscience and
Performance
Beyond
Compliance
Organisational
Shift
5.6.1 Outcomes
The participants were asked to identify meaningful outcomes from the inclusion of
sustainability in project management of large-scale projects. The themes identified
were upliftment of local communities by way of infrastructure, meaningful skills and
local business growth. Attributes that improved project performance were also
identified as meaningful outcomes indicating an economic benefit of the inclusion of
sustainability in project management.
5.6.1.1 Local Upliftment
In identifying meaningful outcomes from the inclusion of sustainability into project

management, PMs emphasised skills upliftment.
PM04: "…you want to be able to show up-skill... and we had so many

examples, if that person has arrived as a cleaner and has left as a clerk. If
a guy has arrived as a semi-skilled labor and left as an artisan, perhaps, or
he's come in as a general worker and left as a supervisor. I think that's a
fantastic outcome."
This was not emphasised as strongly by PCs and appears to be from the difference
in their respective focuses. PMs are largely project-focused whereas the PM focus
spans the product lifecycle. This perhaps indicates that skills upliftment may not be
an appropriate measure as skills gained during a project do not necessarily translate
to employment after it.
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Some PMs identified maximised local employment during the project as a positive
outcome for social sustainability. PMs also mentioned the employment transfer of
locals from the project to the mine operations as a positive outcome. However, these
were not prevalent views from PCs.
Both PMs and PCs identified post project employment of locals outside of the mining
environment as a positive outcome for project sustainability as highlighted by PM09.
PM09: "I want 5,000 jobs in the community, which is non-mining related.
When my mine go, these guys can still have jobs. So people must not create
the mine to create jobs on a mine, [we] need to create jobs in a community."
PC03 also highlights this as an important outcome, however, there is an emphasis

on developing appropriate skills to enable this to happen.
PC03: "…we had a couple of scholarship programs in schools and so on to

actually get people and sponsor them through university, that type of thing,
so we were trying to develop the skill base on a local level… these are
portable skills, so people can take them when the mine has closed up as
well.
Local business growth is emphasised by both PMs and PCs as being an important
sustainable outcome for projects as highlighted by PM07 and PC04. Which supports
PC03's emphasis on portable skills that can be used outside of the mining
environment.
PM07: "…more positive [outcomes] are with just sustainable businesses

created through the project itself being created. Creating working
opportunities for others in the areas and identifying real growth in the local
entities that you develop there."
PC04: "…if you can have meaningful skills transfers, during that project we
skill up the people and create sustainable businesses that can continue to
deliver service in the area."
This appeared to be a preference with PCs who identified that the prominence of
local business in the area created a symbiotic relationship that allowed the PC to rely
on local services.
Local infrastructure improvement was identified by both PMs and PCs as a positive
72
outcome for project sustainability. It was identified that though infrastructure
improvements, conditions for local business growth would be aided.
PM09: "…to do that you must put money in infrastructure and I want people
to do business."
The infrastructure improvements identified were by way of clean water supply,

electricity and education facilities.
PM02: "…if you provide them with drinking water that, let's just say clears
up the wife and the family's day significantly because now she doesn't have
to spend three hours trying to get clean water for the family. Now she can
go and pick it up at a central spot. That made a big impact in their lives."
PM05: "In terms of power; if you can move power around during the time
that it's not really required, into local communities, that's obviously a good
start there. I think there're good outcomes."
PM07: "…setting up a training center for helping people from the local
community that's currently been through schooling but struggling to get to
the point where they are employable. That could be anything from math
classes to computer literacy stuff that they need to upskill them, just to get
to a point where they become more marketable in an open labor market."
A significant point of the respondents indicated the more desirable outcomes were
in areas that did not depend on the project or the mine, both of which have finite
lives.
To summarise this section, participants agreed that local upliftment was a meaningful
outcome for the inclusion of sustainability in their projects. This was represented by
imparting appropriate skills to locals which would initially maximise employment
during the project, but more significantly allow them to use those skills elsewhere
and lessen their dependence on the project and the mine. Participants also identified
local business growth as a meaningful outcome through nurturing their creation and
sustenance. Finally, infrastructure improvement was seen to be a key outcome that
would support growth of local economy.
5.6.1.2 Corporate Conscience and Performance
Many of the meaningful outcomes identified were in aid of improved project
73
performance. The most significant of these was a lack of industrial action/project
stoppage, particularly from social unrest, through community support.
PM01: "A project I guess would be socially successful in mind first if you
were able to stay clear of any industrial action. Because that basically tells
you that the workforce were happy and you kept the local community happy
in terms of how you acted with them during the project."
PC01: "Well, on one level, have we had any sort of social environmental
incidents that has threatened the construction and operation of the project?
To date we've had no, we've had none."
Key to achieving this was community engagement. Especially in areas of conflict

where local stakeholder support was identified as a necessity for the project for its
ability to prevent exposure to conflict.
PM02: "…you don't build a mine in a war torn region that doesn't have any,
I suppose governing law, by not engaging with the community. And the
rebels operate in that region quite successfully because of the
inaccessibility… You can't fight that fight. It's impossible to police so how do
you operate in a region like that? You involve the community. You get on
their good side… You get them involved in what you're doing. You get buy-
in and you share the wealth. "Now all of a sudden these foreigners have
arrived and now we all got jobs and we all have food and we've now, for the
first time, getting a bit of an education"."
This support translated into other meaningful outcomes such a happy and productive
workforce.
PM02: "The outcome is you've got a happy workforce. You've got a

productive labor force."
Whilst most actors acknowledged that the environment it invariably damaged in

some way through the creation of the mines, they identified that environmental
compliance and mitigation of damage and potential harm to local communities was
a meaningful outcome for the inclusion of sustainability practice. To a large extent,
this is achieved through sound design practices.
74
PM05: "…comply with the environmental requirements, to make sure the
environmental impact is reduced"
PC01: "…successfully mitigated the risks are social environmental risks"
By reducing exposure to the adverse consequences of not having appropriately

integrated sustainability into project management, both actors identified the positive
outcome of this was an avoidance of bad publicity. This was recognised to provide a
competitive advantage by both PMs and PCs.
PM09: "…a differentiator for it to give us a competitive advantage"
PC03: "I see all of these things actually as huge opportunities, because if
you get this right it's a massive competitive advantage"
PMs and PCs highlighted that having a clear conscience of having carried out their
activities in a responsible manner, was a meaningful outcome.
PM11: "…feeling good about what you're doing is part of what we do… about
a wholistic view of what you've put in the middle of the DRC and being proud
about it, and really thinking that this client isn't just raping the environment
and abusing the local community, they're actually uplifting them and they're
doing some of the right things. Makes you feel good about it."
PC06: "…you've actually got to hand on heart, be able to walk away and
say, "I did my best, and I've left something behind for everybody."
The value of conscience is noted to be more than an internalised attribute and

potentially provides value in engaging with stakeholders. PC03 recounted this in
recollection of an engagement with a government stakeholder regarding the
restriction of illegal mining activity on a project site.
PC03: "I'm talking about illegal mining… These are people who are coming
on to a mining license, or a tenement that they have no right to be on… So
you go to the Minister and you talk it through, he understands it, and he'll
make sure that the right decisions get made. But the one point that he made
to me was that he actually didn't worry about us as an operator, because he
knew that we had a conscience. The problem he had was with the artisanal
miners who don't care what they do to the environment."
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In summary, the participants identified a lack of project delays from social unrest as
a significant measure of the success. The spin-off of this was a more content and
productive workforce. On the environmental side they pointed to a mitigation of
environmental risks which prevented exposure to bad publicity. A measure of these
outcomes was improved organisational performance. A personal and organisational
outcome for the participants was having a clear conscience of having achieved these
outcomes.
5.6.2 Trends
Participants were asked to identify the change they were experiencing in the project
management field with the intention that trends for future practice could be identified.
This was explored to understand what approaches might be necessary for the
inclusion of sustainability in large scale mining projects in Africa.
5.6.2.1 Sustainability Beyond Compliance
A predominant view from PCs is that legislation will become increasingly more
stringent and this will be accompanied by an increase in sustainability consciousness
from communities. PC02 supports this in the following statement:
PC02: "I think we would see more one more and definitely significant
increases in pressure from legislators… My theory is that it will probably be
movements within communities. I think surrounding communities will
smarten up in terms of these things and they will start policing environmental
aspects as much as they police social labor plans
Additionally, it was clear that responsible investing is an increasing trend, as funders

try to avoid sustainability risks. The implication is that economic stakeholders will
impose sterner conditions that ensure sustainability beyond compliance.
PC02: "…significant increases in pressure from… investors, shareholders,

boards for compliance and well, performance beyond compliance becomes
absolutely nonnegotiable."
The response from industry is thus perceived to be requirement for a far more
proactive approach to the inclusion of sustainability practice in project management.
This means historical compliance to minimum standards will be abandoned in favour
of meeting the higher expectations of local and economic stakeholders.
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PC04: "…with the realization now that this is something that we can not
ascribe to the minimum criteria set out in the law, we've got to go beyond,
because the expectation is much larger. There's a lot more proactive
measures that are coming in from the mining companies to be able to
improve on what we've done previously."
A consequence of this is understood to be much earlier and thorough stakeholder

engagement from PCs and PMs in particular to establish their social licence to
operate.
PM09: "…you have to be involved much more upfront to think about the
procurement strategy. How do I arrive from the beginning, study phase,
procurement, you have to consider the impact of the environment and social
and not leave it [until] after. Project management needs to start focusing on
those things"
In summary, this section identified that legislators and funders would have more
stringent requirements for the inclusion of sustainability in large-scale mining
projects. In order to stay ahead of these pressures project managers will have to
ensure that they go beyond compliance in their efforts. This will require from them a
more proactive approach to inclusion of sustainability through earlier engagement
and definition of strategy.
5.6.2.2 Organisational Shift
PMs have traditionally been comfortable with ensuring environmental sustainability

is integrated into their practice, as prescribed by PCs. The social aspects have been
left to the PC to deal with. However, a significant trend identified by PMs has been
the shift of social responsibility onto them through contractual obligations, by the
PCs.
PM05: "…the owners, who realize that the issues are there, are making it
the contractor's problem… Even the blue-chip companies. They pass the
risk on. They make it very clear what the requirements are but they don't
accept any of the issues that go with it. They make it the contractor's problem
to properly manage them and make sure they're not late."
Projects will therefore need to have a large emphasis on localisation and social
engagement. PM07 indicated that this would have ramifications for equipment design
77
to ensure its ease of installation by unskilled employees.
PM10 criticised the insufficient reference and indicated that project management
literature would need to explicitly include sustainability as part of its doctrine due to
its growing importance.
PM10: "…you want to create a pillar just for that within project management.
You don't want to generalize it across the management areas. It's something
you must take cognizance of, and you must plan and put it within all the
other stuff that's critical within project management."
The implication of this increased focus is that projects would likely need to change
their structure to include sustainability specialists as part of the core team that work
alongside PMs. The purpose of these specialists would be to steer the social agenda
within the project in a more proactive manner.
PM05: "The first thing I think is that we're going to end up changing our
structure. So, we typically will have a single project manager, quite
technically sorted... If we wanted to be bigger influencers in there as part of
the project, which is the way I see it will go, then we will change our
structures so that we'll have a technical team and we'll have… a
sustainability team, that might look more after special projects for the guys
and understanding how they come in."
Also mentioned and worth noting was the potential for more companies to start
reframing their organisational mission. This reframing would be to view the projects
and the mines as a means to creating social upliftment.
PM09: "So there's mining companies now that say they're not in the
business of mining, they in the business of uplifting communities… So if you
can focus everything to uplift communities, then you know, to do that I need
to build a mine."
In summary of this section, PMs would see a shift in the allocation of social
responsibility to their contracts. This would bring with it, emphasis on integration of
local stakeholders into the project. Achieving this would likely result in a change in
design considerations to allow for project implementation to be achieved by unskilled
workers. Projects would also need to bring on social experts as part of the project
team to ensure this was managed as a key deliverable for the project. These changes
78
would need to be supported by changes in organisational strategy around the
inclusion of sustainability in project delivery.
Participants identified meaningful outcomes of the inclusion of sustainability in

project management as local upliftment, conscience and corporate performance.
They described future trends of the inclusion of sustainability in project management
as projects going beyond compliance to minimum sustainability requirements and an
associated shift in organisational strategy to accommodate this.
Ideal local upliftment was described to be in forms that allowed the community to
have sustainable improvement without reliance on the project or the mine.
Infrastructure improvements, portable skills and business growth were identified as
dominant outcomes of having achieved this. From an organisational perspective,
participants noted a lack of social unrest as a measure, which allowed improved
productivity and project success from a time and cost perspective. Participants also
described a clear conscience as a meaningful personal and corporate outcome.
Sustainability beyond compliance was a trend identified by participants as a result of

organisations reacting to stay ahead of imposed pressure from stakeholders. It was
described that PMs would see increasing contractual responsibility for social
engagement which would trigger change in organisational strategy. This strategy
would be defined around sustainability interests and likely require sustainability
experts to be included in project teams.
CONCLUSION OF RESULTS
The results revealed a distinct focus from participants on appropriate engagement

with local communities that were influenced by the projects. Due the dire social
needs faced by these stakeholders from the lack of institutional infrastructure, they
look to the projects for fulfilment of them. They were noted to be powerful
stakeholders that could significantly affect project outcomes through social unrest.
This attention coupled with their power over project outcomes meant that they were
a dominant focus from the participants. Many of the responses were therefore
centred around understanding and dealing with the engagement of these
stakeholders.
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Form a governance perspective, this engagement has been made more difficult by
a historic lack in clarity in legislation on social sustainability, especially for PMs who
typically lack the capabilities to navigate this dimension. With pressure mounting for
PMs to take on more contractual responsibility for the social dimension of their
sustainability efforts, it has exposed the relationship between PMs and PCs as a
limiting factor.
This relationship has typically been defined by PMs taking instruction from PCs in
what is to be allowed for, from an environmental design perspective, by virtue of the
legislative and investor pressure imposed on them, as well as their budget
constraints. The nature of this relationship has meant that sustainability efforts were
deemed to be owned by the PC. The tendency for PMs to be centred on technical
vocations meant that they easily accommodated environmental sustainability, but
willingly absolved themselves of dealing with social sustainability, for which they
have historically lacked the skills. The increased pressure from PCs for PMs to
accommodate the social needs of local stakeholders has been an uncomfortable
adjustment from a capability and risk perspective. This adjustment is also
constrained by the ability of the PM to dictate their own sustainability criteria on the
PC.
Environmental sustainability was mentioned by both participants, but to a much

lesser extent than social sustainability. The lesser attention on this was influenced
by better clarity in legislation surrounding environmental compliance and competent
technical capacity for this to be designed into the project. This dimension is therefore
not carried forward with great emphasis into the findings in chapter 6. Environmental
legislation was also noted to be a ubiquitous topic that influenced the inclusion of
sustainability into project management, but has only been included in discussion
where it influenced the inclusion of social sustainability.
The participants identified that the distinct needs for social sustainability could be
accommodated through an approach that lessened dependence on the project and
the mines. They also identified that organisations would need to adjust their
strategies and tactics to incorporate the need for this as a key project deliverable,
and move beyond merely complying.
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DISCUSSION OF RESULTS
INTRODUCTION
The previous chapter presented the results of the interviews according to the
research questions. These results were presented as categories under the themes
identified for each of the questions. The research was conducted to explore the
inclusion of sustainability in project management of large-scale projects in Africa,
specifically within the mining sector. Despite the research being on both
environmental and social sustainability, a large focus of these results appeared to on
social sustainability and its prominence as a topic of importance.
This chapter presents a discussion of the results analysis in chapter five and
compares them with the literature in chapter 2. The discussion follows the themed
format as it is presented in chapter five. The results shall be presented in academic
style inspired by Hart (2018), which prescribes a style of academic argument that
shall follow a sequence of:
- Provision of evidence;
- Reasoning through comparative analysis;
- Reasoning through interpretation and
- Concluding
Note: Adapted from (Hart, 2018), Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Research
Imagination
Each theme will make use of this style in paragraph form within each of the themes
to better enable the reader to follow the academic argument.
RESEARCH QUESTION 1
This question explored the context of projects in Africa within the mining sector and
how sustainability practice within project management is influenced through drivers
within this context.
Society and governance of project actors were found to be key contextual factors in
the results. The results found correlation with mention of these in literature, however,
81
the emphasis of the relative importance of the contextual factors differed and is
offered as a conceptual finding.
6.2.1 Context
This theme aimed to identify the contextual factors that were most influential in the
inclusion of sustainability in project management of large-scale mining projects in
Africa. The results from participants indicated a context that was heavily influenced
by social considerations, particularly with regard to the local stakeholders of projects.
Results also showed that governance played an influential role in the inclusion of
sustainability.
The rural nature of these projects and the dire social needs of their local stakeholders
meant that projects faced significant pressures to help resolve them. However,
despite the vulnerability of these stakeholders, their power as and influence could be
hugely impactful on the project. The sustainability efforts by project managers are
heavily influenced by them resulting in significant attention being drawn to social
sustainability. However, a minority of local stakeholders with a higher awareness of
environmental effects of mining were increasingly policing projects on this front.
Comparatively, in their study of Braziallian project management companies, Martens

and Carvalho (2017) identify environmental, economic, stakeholder management
and business model as key factors for consideration in the project management
context. These are provided in order of significance. Their grouping places
relationships with local community within that of stakeholder management. The
appearance of this indicates a similarity in findings. However, this does reveal some
deviation from the results of this study in that the social context was deemed more
pertinent than environmental. On a more granular level Martens and Carvalho (2017)
indicate that relationships with society and management of human rights have higher
significance than relationships with local community. Comparatively this study might
place management of human rights and relationships with local community as of
higher importance than that of relationships with society. This statement correlates
with prior research from Eweje (2006), who states that the importance of community
development in developing economies is higher than it is elsewhere.
From a governance perspective, the results showed that environmental aspects of

sustainability were catered for satisfactorily due to the organisational skills of PMs.
PMs have not historically catered for social sustainability. Regardless of these
82
abilities, PMs viewed the PCs as being responsible for sustainability efforts on both
a social and environmental front. This appeared to stem from a historic contractual
understanding of project responsibilities. PCs, however did not share this view which
indicated a significant gap in their expectation versus expected responsibility and
ability of PMs and their teams.
Martens and Carvalho (2017) highlight management of relationships with customers,

and participation and involvement of stakeholders as key contextual factors for
sustainability within project management. These could be construed as a similarity
between the research and the literature, speaking to the identified gap between PM
acceptance and capabilities for social responsibility and PC expectations. The results
for social from both highlight the importance of the social aspect of sustainability
which aligns with Labuschagne and Brent (2006) who identify it as a pillar of
weakness in sustainability efforts.
The research therefore finds similarities between the results and the literature.
However, the results differ in that they exhibit the social and governance as more
important in the African context and this is put forward cautiously as a conceptual
finding.
In conclusion, project managers for large-scale projects in the African context would
be wise to prioritise social and governance factors. In so doing, their considerations
for the inclusion of sustainability in project management for these projects might
stand to be improved.
6.2.2 Drivers
The results emphasise that the importance of establishing social licence to operate
is the strongest driver for the inclusion of sustainability in project management of
large-scale projects. This social licence is regarded as an intangible positive
relationship between the project players and the local stakeholders. It grants the
project credibility to proceed on the grounds that local stakeholders support the
intentions of the project and the influence it will have over the communities. This was
accentuated as the most powerful driver due to the influence that local stakeholders
have on the project outcome. The results also cited economic conscience as a key
driver of sustainability into project management. In the context of these results,
economic conscience was comprised primarily of social risk avoidance by project
players, conditions for funding and conscience.
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Academic literature on drivers highlighted the importance of ensuring social concerns
are addressed within projects. Bond et al., (2012) allude to social licence to operate
as being driven strongly by proponent forms within South Africa. This correlates with
the findings of this research. More broadly, research by Zeng et al. (2015) for major
infrastructure projects in China, have reported the criticality of social responsibility as
a factor for inclusion in engineering projects. This was highlighted for its importance
in avoiding costly social issues and which also aligns with the findings herein
regarding social licence to operate.
With regard to economic conscience, De Carvalho and Rabechini Junior (2015) find
a significant correlation between project success and risk management practice
through the use of soft skills. This agrees with the findings from the results which
describe risk reduction being driven by funders having responsible investment
strategies and the conscience of project players.
The results therefore correspond with the findings in the literature, which shows that
social licence and economic conscience are key drivers to the inclusion of
sustainability in project management. It can be concluded that these findings are
valid and reflect the important drivers for project managers to include sustainability
in project management of large-scale projects in Africa.
6.2.3 Summary of the Discussion for Research Question 1
The results revealed a social context that exposed project managers in Africa to an
expectation from local stakeholder to solve social needs and this was mirrored in the
literature. It also found that the social context in Africa was the most significant factor
for project managers to consider in their inclusion of sustainability in project
management. This factor was identified in the literature (Martens & Carvalho, 2017),
but was not rated as highly as the result for this study appear to indicate. This
difference in prioritisation in the African context is offered cautiously as a finding.
With regard to governance, the results identified a lack of attention to social

sustainability from project managers as a contextual factor that affected the ability to
deliver on social aspects of sustainability. The literature agreed with this finding and
identified the weak focus on social aspects of sustainability as a limitation
(Labuschagne & Brent, 2006). Despite this lack in attention to the social side, the
results corroborated the findings in the literature which agreed that social licence to
operate was a critical factor for inclusion in project management in large engineering
84
projects (Zeng et al., 2015). Soft skills were found to be an important capability that
to achieve this social licence and therefore reduce project sustainability risk.
RESEARCH QUESTION 2
This question explored the endogenous and exogenous barriers to implementation

that project managers face in their inclusion of sustainability in project management
for large scale projects in their context. It also explored the factors for support of this
and how these can be leveraged by these actors.
6.3.1 Challenges
The results exposed that participants considered a lack of appropriate skills, illegal
mining, relocation costs and achieving stakeholder equity as key challenges to the
inclusion of sustainability in project management. They also revealed the challenge
of PMs not being better skilled and positioned within the project lifecycle to address
local stakeholder expectations. This appeared to arise from a finding that PMs
expected the PCs to be responsible for sustainability initiatives on the social side.
PCs, however did not support this view, indicating a difference in expectations.
These findings again emphasised the significance of social sustainability as a
dominant topic of concern.
The literature in many instances points toward the social constraints faced by the
construction industry due to the lack in skills availability for large construction projects
in Africa (Hall & Sandelands, 2009; Windapo, 2016). This confirms the findings of
skill deficiencies being a significant challenge for project managers trying to localise
construction services. The other social constraints experienced by mining projects is
well covered by Conde and Le Billon (2017), who identify artisanal or illegal mining
displacement, sentiments of marginalisation, community displacement, and
community driven participation as significant reasons for their social unrest.
In considering the challenge of PMs’ focus on and contribution to social sustainability

efforts, the literature reveals that perceptions of project success factors differ
between stakeholders. Davis (2014) reveals that PMs and PCs differ in their
attribution of the identification of project objectives being a factor for success.
85
Agreement on the responsibility of social initiatives within projects may be one such
project objective that may contribute to project success. However, the literature
reviewed does not appear to specifically identify the dynamic of social sustainability
responsibility expectations between PMs and PCs not being met. It did not highlight
the challenge to the PCs in incorporating social sustainability elements into the
project, while balancing organisational constraints, budget limitations, and
conventional contractual relationships between the two actors.
In conclusion, these findings show that the literature agrees with social constraints
having been identified as a key challenge for the inclusion of sustainability in project
management of large-scale projects. It also recognises the difference in attribution
by the project actors of project success factors. It does not recognise that the
expectation between PMs and PCs of incorporation and delivery of social
responsibility appears poorly delineated, with actors having different perceptions of
project drivers. This last point is therefore offered as a conceptual finding in the
research.
6.3.2 Enablers
The results show that local engagement and clarity in governance are identified as
key enablers for the inclusion of sustainability in project management of large-scale
projects. For local engagement participants mentioned the use of local partnerships
with entities to establish an understanding of the local context. This was to be
accompanied by early engagement with local stakeholders and the establishment of
forums through which regular engagement could take place to ensure stakeholder
alignment. The vetting of local skills was a key enabler for ensuring allocation of work
to local stakeholders could be maximised through allocation of appropriate contracts
to stimulate local business. Clarity in understanding of expectations from both
legislation and PCs was also highlighted as a key enabler of the inclusion of social
The project management literature clearly identifies the need for project managers
to plan for stakeholder engagement and identifies partnerships and use of specialists
as a means of achieving this (Project Management Institute, 2017). The emphasis
on engagement with local stakeholders is enshrined within the Equator Principles
(2013), to which many project funders subscribe. Eweje (2006) has confirmed that
MNEs operating in Africa must, as a matter of necessity, invest in local communities
86
through upliftment initiatives. This must be done in order to nurture a cordial and
constructive relationship free from costly confrontation. Martens and Carvalho,
(2017) verify this with their findings that relationships with local stakeholders are a
key factor for the inclusion of sustainability in project management. Clarity of
understanding of social sustainability expectations may be more appropriately
categorised by project success factors. Kealey, Protheroe, MacDonald and Vulpe
(2005) explain that clarity on governance, roles and responsibilities are one such
success factor.
Enablers revealed here a largely linked to normal project management practice

prescribed by project management institutions. This highlights that in this case
project management theory prescribes the useful enablers through which
sustainability can be included in project management.
The results from the research therefore agree with the findings in literature. Local
engagement and clarity in understanding of expectations are key enablers for the
successful inclusion of sustainability in project management.
The social constraints were identified in both results and literature to be a challenge
for project managers to address sustainability issues. The paradoxical relationship
between PMs and PCs was seen to be a limitation in overcoming these constraints.
The budgetary and contractual constraints coupled with access limitations imposed
by PCs onto PMs appear to contradict their need for PMs to take on more social
responsibility. The nuance of this was not found in the literature reviewed and is
offered cautiously as a conceptual finding.
With regard to enablers the research found agreement with the literature that local
engagement was important for the inclusion of sustainability in project management.
This gave support for the finding that understanding of expectations was another
important factor. The results agreed with what was found in the literature.
RESEARCH QUESTION 3

projects in Africa?
This research question queried the processes that must be employed to integrate
87
sustainability into the project management of large-scale projects. It identified early
stakeholder alignment and constant stakeholder engagement as key requirements
in the process of including sustainability into project management.
6.4.1 Process
The results indicated that early and constant engagement with political and local
stakeholders was a key aspect of the process to include sustainability in project
management. There was high emphasis placed on the importance of engagement
with local stakeholders and the use of established forums to achieve this. These
forums should be used to ascertain solvable social needs which can be included in
project planning and design stages. External contractors should in turn be engaged
on the established sustainability expectations that require their participation, such as
taking on local employees and partnering with local businesses. The results affirmed
the value of transparency in local engagement, appropriate allocation of social spend
and the establishment of project conditions of employment to help manage equity of
stakeholders.
Findings from the literature from Marcelino-Sádaba et al. (2015) on sustainable

project processes point to stakeholder management being a key process. They find
its importance is key to agreement on the meaning of sustainability which
corresponds with the results identifying solvable social needs. Their research
identifies the inclusion of sustainability as a process that spans across multiple
stakeholders and that inclusion of them, at appropriate times, allows a wholistic
understanding of its aims. This correlates with results that emphasise the importance
of early engagement of local and political stakeholders and the communication of the
expectations to project contractors. Yu et al. (2018) identify managerial control as an
important feature for the inclusion of sustainability in project management. They
identify this as actions that are taken to ensure consistency with the strategy on
sustainability. In a broad manner this encapsulates the activity required to ensure
transparency, appropriate allocation of social spend and standardised conditions of
employment.
The results are therefore represented in the literature. They agree that stakeholder
engagement and managerial control are important aspects for the inclusion of
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The findings showed that early and consistent stakeholder engagement and
managerial control are important factors for the process of inclusion of sustainability
in project management. The results correlated with what was found in the literature.
RESEARCH QUESTION 4

changing?
This question explored how the success of sustainability initiatives in project

management manifests. It also attempted to identify what the future may hold for its
inclusion.
6.5.1 Outcomes
The results exhibited that participants viewed local upliftment, corporate conscience
and performance as meaningful outcomes for the inclusion of sustainability in project
management. Meaningful upliftment was seen to come in the form of infrastructure
improvements that allowed local stakeholders to be less reliant on the mine in the
long term. Portable skills and local business growth were seen to ideal
manifestations of this. Economic measures would be a lack in project delays from
social unrest and mitigation of environmental harm. These were viewed to provide
competitive advantage for project managers who were able to complete projects with
a clear conscience.
Literature on the success of social sustainability points to the significance of

community resilience. Magis (2010) identifies this as a measure of a community’s
ability to sustain itself and recover from changes in their environment or ecosystem.
This finds parallels with the meaningful outcomes from the results. The results
suggest that participants find meaning in enabling the community to better itself
outside of the project environment or the mine. This is so that they can continue to
do so when the project ends and when the mine closes. Accordingly community
resilience may be an appropriate term to define their view. Some research views
these outcomes in terms of performance objectives of successful stakeholder
management. Along similar lines, Oppong, Chan, and Dansoh (2017) view
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stakeholder empowerment, relational benefits and human capital building as key
indicators of this, which correlates with the results. Clear conscience as an outcome
finds similarity to the values-based approach to sustainability. Silvius (2017)
highlights the values-based approach as a defining characteristic of sustainability in
its shaping of project management.
Oppong et al. (2017) also find that undisturbed progress, conflict mitigation, image
protection and cost performance are indicators for stakeholder management
performance. These appear to correlate with the economic outcomes identified from
the results. However, Tan, Ochoa, Langston and Shen (2015) find for international
construction that business performance increases with lower levels of sustainability
performance, but shows negative returns at higher levels of sustainability
performance.
This indicates that the inclusion of sustainability in project management for large
engineering projects in Africa may lie at lower levels of sustainability performance.
An implication of this, which is supported by the results, is that project management
practice for large scale projects in Africa may stand to show better economic
performance with increased focus on social aspects.
6.5.2 Trends
The results showed that dominant trends for the inclusion of sustainability in project
management for large-scale projects were toward sustainability beyond compliance
and an accompanying shift from organisations. This shift would appear in the form
of changes in design considerations, the entrenching of social experts within the
project team and a change in organisational strategy to support sustainability in its
mission.
Literature on the integration of sustainability within organisations is similar to the

results obtained. Sroufe (2017) finds that organisations are battling to respond to and
comply with the increasing pressures of incorporating sustainability into business
practice. This work revealed that compliance alone was not an appropriate response
to the incorporation of sustainability and that organisations needed to reconfigure
themselves to align with the sustainability agenda. This literature bears resemblance
to the results found in that project managers would need to go beyond mere
sustainability compliance in their projects. It also reflects the finding that
organisations need to align their strategy to support this. Sroufe (2017) also supports
90
that one of the means of achieving this is through the use of sustainability
professionals within teams.
The results therefore align with the findings in the literature and confirm the insights
on trends that are a consequence of the sustainability agenda. Project managers will
need to pursue sustainability beyond compliance and a key factor in achieving this
will be the use of sustainability professionals in the form of social experts within
project teams.
The findings identified meaningful outcomes for the inclusion of sustainability in

project management were social upliftment through measures that result in resilience
of local communities (Magis, 2010) and their lessened reliance on the project and
mine. Economic outcomes of this were improved project performance and which was
supported by a values based approach to the inclusion of sustainability in project
management (Silvius, 2017). To achieve this it has been found that organisations will
need to adjust their strategies to include social sustainability as a key performance
objective. This would require the inclusion of sustainability professionals within
project teams to drive these objectives. Results for this correlated with content found
in the literature.
CONCLUSION OF FINDINGS
The conclusions are presented in the context of inclusion of sustainability in project

management for large scale engineering projects in Africa. The industrial context is
within the mining sector. The findings of the study identified correlation of the results
on drivers, enablers, process outcomes and trends for the future. Two conceptual
findings have been cautiously put forward as contribution to the literature. These
conceptual findings were within the themes of context and challenges. These results
are summarised in Table 5 below.
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Table 5: Conclusion of Findings
Research Themes Findings Results and literature

Questions
1 Context Society and governance found Cautious conceptual finding for project
to be important contextual management literature is that project context in
factors. African countries makes social sustainability more
critical than other factors.
Drivers Social licence, project Correlated.

performance and conscience
found to be key drivers
2 Challenges Social Constraints and Nuanced conceptual finding of project client and
navigation of stakeholder project manager relational paradox.
expectations are key Project client expectations for project managers to
challenges take on social responsibility is constrained by
conventional contractual relationship where project
manager has authority limitations on
implementation.
Enablers Local engagement and Correlated.

governance clarity are key
enablers
3 Process Early stakeholder alignment Correlated.

and constant stakeholder
engagement are vital for
inclusion of sustainability
4 Outcome Local upliftment and resulting Correlated.

corporate performance and
conscience through better are
valuable outcomes from
inclusion of sustainability
Trends/Future Sustainability beyond Correlated.

compliance and adjustment of
organisational strategy to
include sustainability stance
are trends for sustainability in
project management
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CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
INTRODUCTION
This study set out to explore the inclusion of sustainability in project management for
large scale engineering projects in Africa. As described in Chapter 1 the intersection
of these is of interest to both academics and business. The mining sector was chosen
as the industry of analysis and the participants were selected according to their
experience in this sector. The participants included in the study were project
managers from engineering project management backgrounds and project clients
who were the owners of the mines. Whilst these participants were considered part of
the same sample group and were asked the same questions, the difference in their
respective focuses was seen to be of value. As such their responses were compared
throughout the research to gain insight into difference in views.
The insights drawn centred strongly on engagement with local stakeholders and how
their interests influence the inclusion of sustainability in project management. These
insights were, for the most part, corroborated within the literature, however, there
were some nuanced findings offered as contributions to the literature on project
management.
This chapter presents the conclusions of the research and their contribution to the
academic literature. Insights are drawn from this to provide recommendations for
managers in practice. Limitations of the study are highlighted and provide a basis for
the recommendation of further research.
PRINCIPAL CONCLUSIONS
Guided by the research problem described in chapter one, the research has provided
insight in an exploratory manner to understanding the problem as experienced by
project managers. The research has described a dominant focus on stakeholder
engagement, specifically with regard to a project's local stakeholders. It is concluded
that the inclusion of sustainability in project management practice in this context
should keep local stakeholder engagement at the forefront of project managers’
considerations.
The social needs of local stakeholders in Africa create a context where projects are
pressurised to help resolve these, and the research has exposed that commensurate
93
attention from project managers is necessary for sustainability (Eweje, 2006;
Labuschagne & Brent, 2006; Martens & Carvalho, 2017). This study deviates slightly
from the reviewed literature in that it emphasises the importance of the social
dimension as a contextual factor for projects in Africa, above that of environmental
sustainability. Accordingly project managers are driven to ensure they have social
licence to operate from these stakeholders (Bond et al., 2012; Zeng et al., 2015). By
ensuring this through a values-based approach they stand to improve their project
performance through lessened social unrest.
Attendance to social licence brings with it challenges as social and organisational

factors make it difficult to navigate stakeholder expectations (Conde & Le Billon,
2017; Davis, 2014; Hall & Sandelands, 2009). Challenges such as lack of skills,
illegal mining and attaining stakeholder equity are difficulties faced by project
managers. A prominent organisational challenge exposed is the paradox that lies
within the relationship between the project manager and the project client. Project
clients' expectations for project managers to take on social responsibility is
constrained by their conventional contractual relationship. Due to the project clients’
obligations dictating the choice on sustainability inclusion, project managers have
authority limitations over implementation of social sustainability. These limitations
come in the form of early engagement restrictions and budgetary constraints.
Nonetheless, this expectation from the project client has emphasised the need for
project managers to develop capabilities in social engagement which they have
previously typically lacked.
The results find that early political and local engagement should be managed
effectively in order to identify solvable social needs as a means to sustainability and
project success (Eweje, 2006; Kealey et al., 2005; Marcelino-Sádaba et al., 2015;
Martens & Carvalho, 2017; Project Management Institute, 2017; Yu et al., 2018).
This engagement should then occur consistently throughout the project. An
economic advantage of this is risk reduction by preventing social unrest from local
communities. For these actors, this aids project success through the meeting of PC
time and cost constraints. This perception by PMs may appear self-serving of
economic stakeholders. However, the success of projects from lack of social unrest
would be a factor that encourages further investment in projects that can mimic this,
and subsequently further local upliftment. Therefore it becomes evident that
community engagement strategies are a scalable concept that can be employed by
94
project managers to the benefit of both economic and local stakeholders.
The ideal outcomes that would measure the effectiveness of the inclusion of this
would be social upliftment. This upliftment is ideally in forms that improve the lives of
local communities and allow them to become less dependent on the project and the
mine over time (Magis, 2010; Oppong et al., 2017). To achieve this, project
management companies must consider organisational strategies that bolster their
social engagement capabilities so that they move toward sustainability beyond
compliance (Sroufe, 2017).
RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION
The discussion chapter identified areas where the findings were different form the
literature. These are presented cautiously as contributions to the project
management literature below:
- The first contribution of this report to project management literature is that the
social context should be the most significant focus of project management in its
management of stakeholders, to support the inclusion of sustainability.
- The second contribution is that the paradoxical relationship between project
managers and project clients, with regard to the inclusion of sustainability in
management of projects, is a nuanced limitation. Sustainability requires an
integrated approach that does not stop at the boundaries of organisations.
Despite project clients' desires for project managers to take more ownership of
social sustainability, the extent of inclusion is ultimately defined by the project
client and their obligations to others, and project managers imposing
sustainability standards on their clients unlikely to gain capital support.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR MANAGERS IN PRACTICE
The recommendation for project managers is to foster an integrated approach to

sustainability. This should begin with project management organisations adopting a
focus on sustainability in their organisational standards. Companies that lack the
skills of social experts should support this by bringing these capabilities into the
project team environment. In so doing they are able to better integrate social
expectations into their project planning in early stages and entrench stakeholder
engagement. This would allow tactful handling and smooth transition of social
95
engagement from the project managers to the project client at the end of the project.
Despite the difficulties that may be faced in trying to impose these standards on
unwilling project clients, having an organisational strategy that takes a stance on
sustainability issues will likely attract business from blue-chip clients and
collaborators that consider this valuable. It will also help guide smaller clients in
strategies that better avoid project risk and prevent exposure to projects that
terminate due to social unrest. Ideally, project clients need to foster this by bringing
project managers into the social interactions with local and political stakeholders
earlier so that a wholistic view of the sustainability goals can be carried through the
project.
LIMITATIONS OF THE RESEARCH
During the course of the study certain limitations presented due to the chosen scope
and design of the study. These limitations were as follows:
- The study only considered large-scale projects. This could imply a limitation on
transferability of findings to smaller projects which do not benefit from the
economies of scale that come with size.
- Whilst the inclusion of sustainability is seen to provide economic advantages, the
extent to which projects should go to maximise could not be quantified within this
study.
- Organisational change to respond to the need for sustainability within projects
was concluded from the findings. Recommendations for the inclusion of
sustainability specialists in the project team was described to be a necessary
factor in achieving this. However, the questions in the interview guide prevented
further enquiry on how this would be successfully implemented from the
perspective of organisational strategy and structure.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
The findings from this research showed opportunities of interest that were not able
to be explored in this report. These have been noted as recommendations for further
research below:
- The study revealed consistently that blue-chip or mature mining companies have
a propensity for better sustainability performance than junior mining companies.
96
Junior mining companies are seen to be lean in their focus and spend on
sustainability due to the significant costs involved and constraints on their access
to capital. This raises the question of how economically feasible it is for junior
mining companies to implement proportionally equivalent efforts toward
sustainability in their project focus and presents an opportunity for further
research.
- The costs of the inclusion of sustainability were described as being prohibitive in
many cases but the research suggests project managers should consider it a
small investment to prevent large project risk from social unrest. Tan et al. (2015)
find that with increased performance in sustainability for companies in the
construction sector, they may see increasing returns initially but find that these
start to drop with further expenditure. However, their research shows that despite
the decreasing returns, they start to see increasing revenue growth. A
recommendation for further research is to investigate this relationship for mining
projects in Africa. This may allow better understanding of the economic benefit of
sustainability and empower project managers to make more informed decisions.
- The research identified that organisations should adjust their strategies to align
with a focus toward sustainability and recommendations were made for
sustainability specialists to be included as part of the project team. A
recommendation for further research is to understand how company structure,
project structures and performance measures should be arranged to nurture this
focus.
- Some of the project managers interviewed described the highly subjective and
contextual nature of each mining project, and the corresponding need for a
tailored social engagement response. However, they also highlighted the lack of
the structured and formal inclusion of social sustainability within project
management teachings. This is currently limited to the inclusion of “stakeholder
engagement”, but does not necessarily accommodate the level of time, energy
and investment required to entrench social sustainability and drive success
factors, such as long-term social upliftment. Therefore, it is recommended that
further research be conducted into how the inclusion of social sustainability
milestones and actions could be formalised and built into recognised project
management structures, such as PMBOK (Project Management Institute, 2017).
97
CONCLUSIONS
This study explored the inclusion of sustainability in large-scale engineering projects

in Africa. The industry of analysis was the mining sector. The participants chosen to
explore this topic were project managers from engineering backgrounds as well as
project clients, who had experience in this context. Semi-structured interviews were
conducted with eleven project managers and six project clients. Though these
interviews valuable insights were obtained on the challenges faced for this inclusion
in their projects. Social sustainability was a dominant theme of the findings and this
exposed the need for project managers to prioritise local stakeholder engagement.
It was found that through appropriate inclusion of sustainability in project

management there are economic gains to be had. It also revealed opportunities for
improvement by way of better integration of sustainability practice into project
management planning and implementation. Organisational re-structuring to improve
stakeholder engagement between local stakeholders and project clients were shown
to be areas where such improvement could be made.
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106
APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW GUIDE
Introduction
The topic of sustainability is one that expects practitioners in business to consider

social and environmental sustainability as well as economic sustainability in their
search for economic gain. The concept of sustainability is seen by many to be
contextual and its inclusion in project management roles for large engineering
projects within Africa is one such area that has attracted attention of business and
academics. The purpose of this interview is to explore the individual experiences of
individuals in project managerial roles that pertain to the inclusion of sustainability
when managing large engineering projects in Africa.
This shall be a semi-structured interview of approximately one-hour duration.
Protocol for Semi-Structured Interviews
Question Question Question Asked

Number Theme
1 Opening / What has your role and experience been in large scale
projects?
context
2 Context Can you tell me about the social and environmental

situations and issues in the projects you've been
involved in?
3 Drivers In your experience what drives the inclusion of social

and environmental issues into project management of
large-scale projects?
4 Challenges In your experience, what are the challenges of

incorporating social and environmental issues into
project management in large scale projects?
5 Enablers In your experience, what are the factors that facilitate

the inclusion of social and environmental issues into
project management of large-scale projects?
107
Question Question Question Asked
Number Theme
6 Process In your experience how would you go about including

social and environmental issues into project
management of large-scale projects?
7 Outcome In your experience what would be meaningful outcomes

of social and environmental inclusion in project
management of large-scale projects?
8 Outcome In your experience how can you recognise/identify

when these meaningful outcomes have been achieved?
9 Closing From your experience, how do you anticipate that

project management for large scale projects will change
with respect to social and environmental issues?
* Clarification Please could you clarify what you mean by that?
* Probing Please can you tell me more about that?
* Asked at any point during the interview.
108
APPENDIX B: ETHICAL CLEARANCE LETTER
109
APPENDIX C: CONSENT FORM
I am currently a student at the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business

Science and completing my research in partial fulfilment of an MBA.
I am conducting research on the inclusion of sustainability in project management

and am trying to find out more about this intersection for large engineering projects
in Africa. Our interview is expected to last about an hour and will help us understand
how sustainability is being incorporated into the project management profession
these large projects in the setting of developing economies.
Your participation is voluntary, and you can withdraw at any time without penalty. All
data will be reported and stored without identifiers and will therefore be completely
anonymous. If you have any concerns, please contact my supervisor or me. Our
details are provided below.
Researcher Name: Scott Brooks
Email: 18377816@mygibs.co.za
Tel: +27844767975
Supervisor Name: Dr. Jill Bogie
Email: BogieJ@gibs.co.za
Tel:
Participants Name:
Participants Signature:
Date:
Researcher Signature:
Date:
110
APPENDIX D: NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENTS FOR TRANSCRIBERS
111
112
113
114
APPENDIX E: NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT FOR EDITOR
115
116
APPENDIX F: CODE BOOK
Codes PM PC TOTAL
Challenge/need for PMs on sustainability is to understand 4 2 6
expectations
Challenge: Attaining stakeholder equity 7 2 9
Challenge: Business with junior miners' sustainability risk 5 3 8
Challenge: Change in legislation and interpretation thereof 3 0 3
Challenge: Client deemed to have more sustainability drive 10 2 12
ownership
Challenge: Client not volunteering information 1 0 1
Challenge: Client prioritisation of environmental sustainability 1 1 2
Challenge: Contractors expected to hire locals 5 0 5
Challenge: Corruption harms governance 3 3 6
Challenge: Developing sustainability skills in technical vocations 0 1 1
Challenge: Disputes with communities can terminate projects 1 0 1
Challenge: Driving safety of employees 4 0 4
Challenge: Getting funding for sustainability costs 1 0 1
Challenge: Government capacity to enforce sustainability lacking 2 2 4
Challenge: Identify stakeholder influenced by or that can influence 1 2 3
project
Challenge: Identifying local stakeholder's representatives 2 1 3
Challenge: Intimidation/violence by local stakeholders 5 0 5
Challenge: Language/cultural dynamics 2 1 3
Challenge: Late additions to sustainability expectations costly 4 1 5
Challenge: Lessening local long-term dependency on project 0 2 2
Challenge: Local middlemen costly 1 0 1
Challenge: Local skills/capabilities difficult to source 8 3 11
Challenge: Logistics a major project concern 1 0 1
Challenge: Long term environmental sustainability difficult to 1 0 1
define
Challenge: Managing client project cost/time expectations 2 0 2
Challenge: Miscommunication between stakeholders 1 0 1
Challenge: Multitude of government stakeholders 1 0 1
Challenge: Non-equator bank sustainability performance not strict 0 1 1
Challenge: PM attaining work permits for expats 2 0 2
Challenge: PMs need to bring in specialist contractors 2 2 4
Challenge: Political agenda 2 2 4
Challenge: Pollution overflows 1 0 1
Challenge: Preference for local vs standardization and design 1 0 1
compliance
117
Codes PM PC TOTAL
Challenge: Process to recruit the right skill is onerous 1 0 1
Challenge: Project conflict with local population 4 1 5
Challenge: Project employment limited duration 2 0 2
Challenge: Project risk is immigration compliance 1 0 1
Challenge: Project sites occupied by artisanal/illegal miners 2 3 5
Challenge: Project vs operation skill mismatch 1 0 1
Challenge: Provision for environmental rehabilitation 0 2 2
Challenge: Relocation/habitation of stakeholders 1 3 4
Challenge: Separation between local and national stakeholders 3 0 3
Challenge: Short term costs vs long term gains 1 2 3
Challenge: Social spend a grudge purchase 1 0 1
Challenge: Social spend squandered 2 2 4
Challenge: Social sustainability a low priority 1 0 1
Challenge: Social sustainability lacks definition 4 1 5
Challenge: Staying abreast of community expectations 1 2 3
Challenge: Sustainability cost/time 5 3 8
Challenge: Sustainability expectations differ by project/country 4 0 4
Challenge: Technology drives unemployment 2 0 2
Challenge: Training for local labour 5 1 6
Challenge: Understanding environmental expectations 0 1 1
Challenge: Understanding sustainability expectations through 7 2 9
reactive experience
Challenge: Unskilled labour affects quality/time 3 1 4
Challenge: Wealth creation exacerbates competitive conflict 0 1 1
Context: Approval constraints 4 0 4
Context: Area sensitivity/context determines drivers 1 1 2
Context: Avoidance of imposed performance obligations 0 2 2
Context: Blue chip mine owner 1 0 1
Context: Brownfields/optimisation project work 1 0 1
Context: Community ignorance to long-term environmental 1 0 1
sustainability
Context: Community voice overrules others 1 2 3
Context: Compliance to avoid risk a recent maturity 1 0 1
Context: DRC legislation unclear 1 0 1
Context: Efforts to improve productivity/reduce downtime 1 0 1
Context: Engineering skills well regarded 1 0 1
Context: Environmental impact during construction small 1 0 1
Context: Environmental sustainability not strict outside South 1 0 1
Africa
118
Codes PM PC TOTAL
Context: Environmental sustainability strict in South Africa 2 1 3
Context: Experience in Botswana 1 0 1
Context: Experience in DRC 3 3 6
Context: Experience in Ghana 4 1 5
Context: Experience in Guinea 2 0 2
Context: Experience in Mali 0 1 1
Context: Experience in Mozambique 1 0 1
Context: Experience in Sierra Leon 1 0 1
Context: Experience in South Africa 9 4 13
Context: Experience in Tanzania 0 2 2
Context: Experience in Zambia 1 1 2
Context: Experience in Zimbabwe 3 2 5
Context: Family reliance on job holders 1 0 1
Context: Geotechnical complexity affects feasibility 0 1 1
Context: High payback on optimization work 1 0 1
Context: Illegal mining a big culprit in environmental harm 1 0 1
Context: Increase in focus on environmental issues 1 1 2
Context: Lack of local infrastructure 3 1 4
Context: Lack of local legislation 1 1 2
Context: Legislation is clear in Ghana 2 0 2
Context: Less governance increases sustainability responsibility of 0 1 1
project orgs
Context: Local communities very resilient 1 0 1
Context: Local communities vulnerable 2 1 3
Context: Local engagement easier without established unions 1 0 1
Context: Local focus on short-term sustainability 1 0 1
Context: Long term sustainability responsibility resides with client 1 1 2
Context: Low environmental legislative focus 1 0 1
Context: Mine owner historically deemed responsible for 3 0 3
sustainability efforts
Context: Mine rights application process specific to country 1 0 1
Context: Nationals have more skills and easier to bring in 1 0 1
Context: Platinum processing plant 1 0 1
Context: PM Legitimacy 7 6 13
Context: PM/Client project vs product lifecycle focus 0 1 1
Context: PMs drive environmental agenda 2 1 3
Context: Prior Experience in social vocation 0 1 1
Context: Prior experience in technical vocation 4 2 6
Context: Prior inclination toward sustainability 0 1 1
119
Codes PM PC TOTAL
Context: Project in conflict area 1 1 2
Context: Project JVs to ensure skills 1 0 1
Context: Project management theory insufficient 1 1 2
Context: Project site rural/informal with poverty and unemployment 5 2 7
Context: Project sponsors 1 0 1
Context: Projects gather large attention 1 2 3
Context: Sensitive locations 1 0 1
Context: Social bigger focus in South Africa 0 1 1
Context: Social concerns in Africa contentious 4 0 4
Context: Social stakeholder considerations vast 1 2 3
Context: Social sustainability a larger focus than environmental 2 2 4
Context: South African communities more vocal on sustainability 0 1 1
than other African nations
Context: Sustainability a low priority historically 4 2 6
Context: Water a focus of environmental sustainability 3 2 5
Driver for environmental sustainability is conscience/responsibility 2 2 4
Driver for environmental sustainability is legislation 4 2 6
Driver for PM sustainability is social awareness 3 0 3
Driver for social sustainability is legislation 3 2 5
Driver for sustainability is local community 9 4 13
Driver: BEE Spend 1 0 1
Driver: Black Economic Empowerment 1 0 1
Driver: Client sustainability expectations/needs 5 0 5
Driver: Environmental activism 2 0 2
Driver: Environmental legislation strict 1 1 2
Driver: Equator bank sustainability performance onerous 1 2 3
Driver: Funders expectations 2 2 4
Driver: Large cost of labour/social unrest 4 1 5
Driver: Organisational standards 0 2 2
Driver: Reducing cost 1 0 1
Driver: Reputation is a driver for sustainability 3 1 4
Driver: Ripple events 1 1 2
Driver: Social capability a competitive advantage 2 1 3
Driver: Social driven by conscience/responsibility 1 1 2
Driver: Social licence to operate required 5 4 9
Driver: Water optimization improves production 1 0 1
Drivers for PM sustainability is legislation 3 1 4
Enabler for PM is client engagement with locals 6 0 6
Enabler: Better educated labour 1 0 1
120
Codes PM PC TOTAL
Enabler: Blue chip companies better at sustainability compliance 5 3 8
Enabler: Clarity in social legislation 1 1 2
Enabler: Communication forums 3 3 6
Enabler: Contractor partnerships with local businesses 0 1 1
Enabler: Early stakeholder engagement positive for PM 5 3 8
Enabler: Environmental compliance easy 3 1 4
Enabler: Environmental requirements well defined 5 1 6
Enabler: Establishment of local office provides employment 1 0 1
Enabler: Giving locals a fair chance at employment 2 1 3
Enabler: Government speeding up application processes 1 0 1
Enabler: Healthy PM/client relationship 1 1 2
Enabler: IFC benchmark standards 0 2 2
Enabler: Legislation on sustainability has become clearer 1 0 1
Enabler: Legislation 0 1 1
Enabler: Local capability reliance improves over long-term 2 2 4
Enabler: Local governments ensuring provision of local 1 0 1
employment
Enabler: Local labour eager to learn 1 0 1
Enabler: Local partnerships beneficial 4 2 6
Enabler: Locally based HR 4 0 4
Enabler: Nurture local business creation 5 3 8
Enabler: Organisational strategy on sustainability 1 4 5
Enabler: PM social sustainability benefits client long term 0 2 2
Enabler: Political engagement 1 1 2
Enabler: Project wide basic conditions of employment good for 3 0 3
stakeholder expectations
Enabler: Projects dedicated environmental specialist 5 2 7
Enabler: Skills available to address environmental sustainability 2 3 5
Enabler: Social spend from project budget 4 0 4
Enabler: Technology 4 0 4
Enabler: Train for non-project related vocations 0 1 1
Enabler: Transparency 0 1 1
Enabler: Understanding of sustainability requirements 3 3 6
Enabler: Use of social experts/consultants 5 3 8
Enabler: Vetting of local capabilities/skills 3 1 4
Environmental legislation examples 1 0 1
External companies brought in to do EIAs 1 0 1
Outcome: Access to electricity 2 0 2
Outcome: Attracting corporate citizenship 0 1 1
121
Codes PM PC TOTAL
Outcome: Avoidance of bad publicity 0 1 1
Outcome: Clean water supply is a measure 3 1 4
Outcome: Clear conscience of responsibility 2 1 3
Outcome: Community upliftment 2 4 6
Outcome: Competitive advantage 1 3 4
Outcome: Conflict avoidance through local engagement 2 1 3
Outcome: Environmental sustainability is through mitigation of 4 1 5
damage
Outcome: Environmental sustainability success through 2 2 4
compliance with latest regulations
Outcome: Environmental sustainability through EIA compliance 2 0 2
Outcome: Happy workforce meaningful 2 1 3
Outcome: Increase in local disposable income 1 0 1
Outcome: Increased schooling/education 2 1 3
Outcome: Increased transportation access 1 0 1
Outcome: Local business growth 6 3 9
Outcome: Local infrastructure improvement 5 1 6
Outcome: Meeting predefined goals 0 1 1
Outcome: Meeting project time/cost schedule 1 0 1
Outcome: Mine area provide environment sanctuary 1 0 1
Outcome: Post project employment of locals 7 2 9
Outcome: Proactive sustainability 2 0 2
Outcome: Productive workforce is meaningful 1 0 1
Outcome: Project provide skills upliftment 8 3 11
Outcome: Project providing local employment 5 0 5
Outcome: Provision of decent meals is meaningful 1 0 1
Outcome: Reliance on renewables 1 0 1
Outcome: Safety of employees 3 0 3
Outcome: Social sustainability measure is amount of training 1 0 1
Outcome: Social sustainability success measure is compliance 1 0 1
with legislation
Outcome: Spreading work spreads profits and lowers risk 0 1 1
Outcome: Stakeholder support 1 4 5
Outcome: Successful sustainability audits 1 1 2
Outcome: Sustainability success measure is lack of industrial 6 2 8
action/stoppage
Outcome: Sustainability awareness 0 1 1
Process: Account for lessons learned 1 1 2
Process: Client communication 1 0 1
122
Codes PM PC TOTAL
Process: Constant community engagement on expectations 5 2 7
Process: Define internal standards 0 1 1
Process: Define sustainability accountability 0 1 1
Process: Develop trusted relationships/networks 0 1 1
Process: Engage with contractors on sustainability expectations 2 0 2
Process: Environmental impact study needed for mining licences 2 0 2
Process: Environmental management plans needed 1 1 2
Process: Environmental sustainability achieved through design 5 1 6
Process: Establish and commit budget for social spend 1 2 3
Process: Identify social stakeholders 2 1 3
Process: Identify solvable social needs 2 4 6
Process: Monitor and direct social spend without giving money 1 1 2
Process: Monitor and record environmental effects 1 0 1
Process: Need to engage with politicians/chiefs/leaders 3 3 6
Process: PMs must engage with political/government entities 2 1 3
Process: Project feasibility needs due time and attention 1 0 1
Process: Public participation hearings 1 0 1
Process: Reliance on client sustainability input for feasibility 2 0 2
studies
Process: Self-imposed audits 1 2 3
Process: Social sustainability achieved through design 2 0 2
Process: Stakeholder engagement best driven by senior 1 1 2
management
Process: Sustainability expectations must be defined upfront 8 5 13
Process: Systems for long term compliance 1 2 3
Process: Track PESTLE 0 1 1
Trend: A more proactive approach to sustainability 3 2 5
Trend: Corporate conscience of sustainability responsibility 3 1 4
required from PMs
Trend: Design for sustainability 1 0 1
Trend: Earlier and onerous stakeholder engagement for licence to 1 1 2
operate
Trend: Economic stakeholders want sustainability beyond 0 1 1
compliance
Trend: Increase in sustainability consciousness 1 5 6
Trend: Investor scrutiny on sustainability 1 0 1
Trend: Legislation becoming more stringent 1 2 3
Trend: Need for fast and accurate reactions to expectations gaps 0 1 1
Trend: PMs will need to be skilled in sustainability 2 1 3
123
Codes PM PC TOTAL
Trend: Projects will have higher focus on social engagement 2 0 2
Trend: Projects will need to hire more locals 2 0 2
Trend: Projects will require sustainability specialists alongside 1 3 4
PMs
Trend: Reframing organisational mission for sustainability 2 1 3
Trend: Shift of social responsibility onto PM 7 2 9
124
APPENDIX G: NEW CODES PER INTERVIEW FOR PROJECT MANAGERS

80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
PM01 PM03 PM04 PM05 PM06 PM07 PM08 PM09 PM10 PM11 PM11
Figure 7: New Codes Per Interview for Project Managers
125
APPENDIX H: NEW CODES PER INTERVIEW FOR PROJECT CLIENTS

18
16
14
12
10
0
PC01 PC02 PC03 PC04 PC05 PC06
Figure 8: New Codes Per Interview for Project Clients
126

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Sustainability in Project Management

A research report submitted to the Gordon Institute of Business Science, University

(ORIGINAL SIGNED) 11 November 2019

Signed: Scott Brooks Date

The inclusion of sustainability in project management has gathered significant

The topic of sustainability has found prominence in business practice. Organisations

The discipline of project management is deemed to be the cornerstone of industrial

With multinational enterprises (MNE) constantly being exposed to the risks of

The research problem identified is a lack of inclusion of sustainability in project

The overall research question is to understand how sustainability can be included in

The contribution of this research is toward project management academic literature.

• Discussion (comparison of results to literature)

Figure 1: Overview of Report

The theory provided by this body of knowledge is scant on reference to sustainability

Definition of these phases is an important consideration in application of tools and

Stakeholder engagement is key feature of project management theory and it is

2.2.1 Project Success

The Project Management Institute defines project success measures as product

More recent literature includes risk management as a means to achieving project

2.2.2 The Context of Large Engineering Projects

The definition of sustainability as per the World Commission on Environment and

The International Institute for Sustainable Development (1996) answered this by

Nonetheless, the topic of sustainability has found increasing support in business

2.3.1 Sustainability Within Project Management

2.3.2 The Gap

Implementation of sustainability requires a conduit through which its principles may

2.3.4 Determination of Sustainability

Ugwu, Kumaraswamy, Wong and Ng (2006) highlight the European Environmental

Marcelino-Sádaba et al. (2015) present a framework for sustainable project

2.3.5 Sustainability Contextuality

2.3.6 Barriers to Practice

A survey conducted by McKinsey (2011) spoke of other barriers faced by business

It therefore seems paramount that to overcome these challenges, project managers

2.3.7 Drivers of Sustainability

The influence of funders over sustainability practice is likely to encourage companies

STAKEHOLDER THEORY: A KEY TO SUSTAINABILITY IN PROJECT

Freeman (2010), one of the forefathers on the stakeholder theory approach to

Garvare and Johansson (2010) place sustainability within stakeholder theory by

The theory is considered to be a tool for prescribing how to approach stakeholders,

This is a confirmation of Garvare and Johansson's (2010) research, where they

Despite this recognition of the importance of sustainability it is not specifically

The research problem is the lack of inclusion of sustainability in project management.

How is sustainability being incorporated into project management of large-scale

What are the meaningful outcomes for inclusion of sustainability in project

A consistency matrix was created to ensure alignment between the research

Table 1: Consistency Matrix

3 How is sustainability being incorporated (Marcelino-Sádaba et al., 2015; Yu et 6

Saunders and Lewis (2018) illustrate the appropriateness of using an exploratory

This research project intends to explore the adoption and implementation of

Research can be conducted cross-sectionally or longitudinally with the former

DATA GATHERING PROCESS

Saunders and Lewis (2018) emphasise the importance of doing background

Selected participants identified through the author’s professional network were

Descriptive coding is a method by which short meaningful labels are assigned to

During analysis cognisance was given to the nature of definition of drivers,

Table 2: Thematic Analysis

1st Order Codes 2nd Order Categories

DESCRIPTION OF PARTICIPANTS AND CONTEXT

Table 3: Participant Details

Interview Number Participant Pseudonym Layer Exposure