I came to sustainability in the 1980s. It wasn’t a career move. It wasn’t a framework. It was simply part of the world I grew up in.

Back then, sustainability was not aspirational. It was about limits. Acid rain. Ozone depletion. Toxic waste. Nuclear fallout. The lesson was straightforward. Some damage cannot be undone. Once you cross certain lines, the system does not negotiate with you.

That understanding never left me.

So when sustainability entered business and project management years later, I did not experience it as a new idea. I experienced it as an overdue one. What surprised me was how quickly it was translated into language that could live comfortably inside systems that had no intention of respecting limits.

That is why the PMI Project Success research is so important. Not because it introduces something radical, but because it unintentionally tells the truth.

Only 7% of project professionals consistently practice M.O.R.E. Seven percent!

Not occasionally. Not when it’s convenient. Consistently. That number is not a capability gap. It is a design outcome.

What the Report Actually Shows

This was not a lightweight study. PMI surveyed thousands of practitioners across industries and regions, supported by interviews and modeling. They were not asking about sustainability specifically. They were asking a more basic question.

What does project success mean now. Their answer was a shift. Project success is no longer defined as execution alone. A successful project is one that delivers value worth the effort and expense. That definition matters. It breaks the assumption that time, cost, and scope are sufficient proxies for success. From there, PMI introduced M.O.R.E. as the behavior set required to deliver that kind of success. Manage perceptions. Own success. Relentlessly reassess. Expand perspective.

Then they measured how often that actually happens. Seven percent. The rest of the report explains why that number is not accidental.

The Part Some People Skipped

One of the strongest findings in the research is also the most uncomfortable. Sustainability and social impact are among the strongest predictors of perceived project success. Stronger predictors than schedule performance. Stronger than budget adherence. Stronger than scope control. Projects aligned with social good consistently score higher on the Net Project Success Score. They are more likely to be seen as successful by intended beneficiaries, executives, and stakeholders.

The data does not say sustainability is nice to have. It says sustainability works. And yet, sustainability remains optional in project governance. That contradiction explains the seven percent better than any maturity model ever could.

Why Seven Percent Is the Logical Outcome

This is not a motivation problem.

Most project professionals I know understand that delivery metrics are not the same thing as outcomes. They see the assumptions. They see the risks being deferred. They see the trade-offs being quietly made. What they lack is permission. Most operate inside systems where success is defined at approval, not at impact. Where reassessment is encouraged rhetorically but constrained structurally. Where stopping or reshaping a project is treated as failure, regardless of what the evidence says.

A project can reassess endlessly and still proceed unchanged.
A project can expand perspective without having authority to act on it.
A project can “own success” while success is narrowly defined.

That is not hypocrisy. It is survival inside a delivery-first system.

Seven percent are the people operating with enough authority, insulation, or institutional backing to challenge that system. Everyone else is executing rationally inside the incentives they are given.

Where Sustainability Actually Breaks

Sustainability does not fail in strategy decks or annual reports. It fails at approval gates.

It fails when climate risk is acknowledged but downplayed because redesign would delay delivery.
It fails when social impact is noted but scoped out because it complicates procurement.
It fails when long-term operational consequences are excluded because they sit outside the capital budget.

None of this requires bad intent. It only requires a system that rewards completion and treats consequence as someone else’s problem.

Projects close. Metrics look clean. Impacts surface later.

By the time the cost shows up, the project is already considered a success.

What M.O.R.E. Can’t Fix by Itself

M.O.R.E. correctly names what modern project success requires. It does not change the structure that prevents most people from practicing it.

Managing perceptions without the ability to stop work becomes messaging.
Reassessment without authority becomes ritual.
Expanded perspective without enforcement becomes commentary.

This is why adoption stalls where it does.

Seven percent is not resistance to change. It is the boundary of what the system currently allows.

The Pattern I’ve Watched for Decades

I have reviewed projects that met every delivery target and quietly transferred risk to operations, communities, ecosystems, and future budgets. The project teams did their jobs. The systems did what they were designed to do.

The consequences arrived later. When they did, they were described as unforeseen, even when they were clearly traceable to assumptions that were never allowed to be challenged once the schedule was locked. Over time, this erodes trust. Not because people are cynical, but because experience keeps contradicting the story being told. The PMI data does not describe a future problem. It documents a present one.

Why I Drew a Harder Line

I built the GPM-b because I stopped believing sustainability could survive as a theme, a KPI, or a section in a report.

It has to be part of the project's DNA.

GPM-b treats sustainability as something a project must satisfy to proceed, not something it aspires to improve later. It embeds people, planet, and prosperity into the decisions where capital is committed and risk is locked in.

Most importantly, it legitimizes refusal.

Refusal of projects that meet delivery targets by exporting harm.
Refusal of business cases that look efficient only because costs are displaced.
Refusal of success definitions that collapse once boundaries widen.

Seven percent already operate this way informally. The rest need systems that protect them when they do.

The Question That Really Means Something

PMI frames seven percent as an opportunity for growth.

The more important question is structural. What happens when ninety-three percent of projects continue to be approved under success criteria that ignore long-term impact, cumulative risk, and distributional harm. The answer is not abstract. It shows up in assets that underperform under stress. In communities that carry costs they never agreed to. In institutions that lose credibility one “successful” project at a time.

Seven percent is not a maturity curve. It is a warning signal.

Where This Leaves Us

In the 1980s, sustainability was about limits. About recognizing that some lines matter even when crossing them is legal, profitable, and convenient. Somewhere along the way, we taught ourselves that progress could be measured without reference to thresholds. That belief made its way into projects. The data now shows the result. Seven percent are the people still working as if limits are real.

The rest are delivering exactly what the system rewards. Until project governance treats refusal as a legitimate outcome, sustainability will remain something we talk about while continuing to do something else.

I learned that as a kid.

The report just put a number on it. Can we do something about that?  GPM-b the change!