Reconfiguring project management: a meta-aggregative review of sustainability as a structuring axis

Abstract

The present study aims to analyze the evolution and conceptual configuration of sustainability as a structuring axis of project management, identifying trends, thematic cores, and theoretical shifts within the international academic literature. To this end, a systematic review was conducted following the PRISMA protocol and a PICO model adapted to management studies, complemented by a bibliometric analysis and a meta-aggregative approach aimed at integrating and reinterpreting the core constructs. A total of 765 documents published between 2000 and 2025 were analyzed, revealing an annual growth rate of 7.43%, a high level of international collaboration, and a marked acceleration in scholarly output since 2018. The co-occurrence analysis identified the articulation between project management and sustainability as the structuring core of the field, with sustainable development functioning as a bridging node, alongside the consolidation of organizational, technological, normative, sectoral, and transformational dimensions. The findings indicate that sustainability has evolved from a peripheral and predominantly environmental focus toward an integrative logic that redefines the concepts of value, success, and governance in projects. It is concluded that sustainable project management emerges as an expanding socio-technical field in which sustainability is not an ancillary attribute but a structuring principle that reconfigures decision-making, risk management, and value creation in contexts characterized by increasing complexity and uncertainty.