Purpose In this paper, the authors challenge traditional views of project management and sustainable development as purportedly complementing each other. Rather, the authors apply a projectification perspective from a multi-disciplinary approach to sustainable development. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how we can better understand the interface between projects and sustainable development through the study of its practices.Design/methodology/approach The authors do this by outlining the global and the local dimensions of sustainable development as a business objective. For that reason, the authors also make a distinction between sustainability in projects and sustainable development through project coordination.Findings From the framing of sustainable development as projectification, the authors contribute with a set of research implications on how to proceed towards a better understanding of sustainable development through project coordination.Originality/value The paper contributes to a growing field of interest regarding the interfaces between project management and sustainable development.