Abstract
Infrastructure projects, such as highways, railways, and underground tubes, are critical policy interventions and investments with long-term societal and economic impact. While project management scholarship increasingly recognises value as multidimensional, the economic value in sustainable development remains conceptually fragmented and inconsistently operationalised. This paper addresses the question: how is economic value defined, operationalised, and measured in infrastructure projects? Adopting a qualitative approach, this study combines an integrative literature review across finance, business, economics, investment, management, project management, and sustainability literatures with semi-structured interviews of infrastructure professionals. This research aims to contribute to the economic pillar of sustainable project management, informing robust business cases and evaluation approaches that demonstrate lasting societal and economic value, supporting responsible and long-term oriented infrastructure investment.