Sustainable Performance Measurements for Public–Private Partnership Projects: Empirical Evidence from China

The world is witnessing a global momentum of public–private partnership (PPP) development, along with the inherent complexities associated with the long-term construction, operation, and maintenance periods of numerous PPP projects. Performance measurements for PPP projects are critical for ensuring stakeholders’ interests in a sustainable way, without scarifying future generations’ interests in terms of economic, environmental, and social sustainability. A system of five-dimension sustainable performance measurements for PPP projects is proposed in this study and a questionnaire survey was conducted to solicit professional opinions on its effectiveness based on current PPP practice in China. A total of 79 professionals with PPP working experiences in China participated in the survey, among which five were chosen for interviews to validate and deepen the understandings of the findings. It reveals that the five dimensions have essential impacts on current PPP practice in China, though with varying extent of importance. The private sector has developed a sense of achieving a long-term financial return, which might have indeterminate results on the benefits of end users. The increasing trend of sustainability concerns in the PPP project performance measurement is confirmed, and it is partially due to the central government’s “High-Quality Development” initiatives. This study contributes to the theoretical discussions of establishing sustainable performance measurements for PPP projects, and it has practical implications for the public sector to improve PPP project evaluation methods and incentive mechanisms, so as to promote project sustainability.