What Happens After the Project Ends: Rethinking Sustainability in Practice

A few years ago, I was closely involved in a project where air purifiers were installed along busy urban roads to address worsening air quality. The intention was sincere. The technology showed promise. For a while, the installations symbolised action and hope.

Then the funding cycle ended.

Gradually, the air purifiers stopped running. Maintenance became irregular. Operational costs went uncovered. Eventually, the units stood still, present, visible, but no longer functional.

When questions were raised, the government’s response was simple and honest: there was no budget to keep them running. Without internal financial provision, the only option left was to look for new external funding.

Over time, these installations became something else entirely. They turned into idle assets on public roads, often highlighted by the public as examples of “failed infrastructure.” What began as an innovative intervention quietly became a burden.

This experience stayed with me because it raised an uncomfortable but important question:

Are we designing projects to function as sustainable systems, or are we completing activities within a project window and hoping sustainability follows?

Where Good Ideas Lose Momentum

Projects like these rarely fall apart because of poor intent or weak design. They struggle in the space between installation and operation.

The air purifiers worked, technically. What was missing was a long-term operating model. Who would pay for electricity? Who would manage maintenance contracts? Who would respond when something failed?

Without a recurring budget line, clear ownership, or a transition plan, the assets slowly shifted from being solutions to becoming liabilities, not because they lacked value, but because their long-term requirements were never fully absorbed into the system meant to sustain them.

In many projects, sustainability is discussed towards the end, through handover notes, exit strategies, or final capacity-building sessions. In reality, sustainability cannot be retrofitted. It is shaped by early design decisions: technology choices, cost assumptions, institutional alignment, and financial planning.

When these decisions are driven mainly by funding timelines, the project’s lifespan often mirrors those timelines.

Why This Keeps Happening

Most development projects operate within three-to-five-year cycles. The challenges they address, air quality, public health, urban resilience, do not.

Governments, on the other hand, operate within constrained fiscal realities. Adding new recurring operational costs, especially for technology-heavy interventions, is rarely straightforward. Without early integration into budgets or schemes, even well-performing projects become difficult to sustain.

Looking back, the response *“we do not have the money to keep it running” *was not dismissive. It reflected a structural reality that the project design had not fully accounted for.

There is also a subtle tension between visibility and viability. Highly visible interventions attract attention and demonstrate action. But visibility alone does not guarantee longevity. The quieter work, budget integration, institutional processes, operational simplicity, is often what determines whether an intervention survives.

What This Experience Changed for Me

This project was not a failure. It was a lesson.

It reinforced that:

• installing assets is not the same as sustaining services
• external funding can enable innovation, but it cannot replace ownership
• without internal absorption, projects remain dependent, even when successful
• relying on future external funding is not a sustainability strategy

Most importantly, it highlighted that sustainability is not about extending funding, it is about designing for independence.

Rethinking Sustainability in Project Design

A simple shift in perspective can make a difference.

Instead of asking only “What can this project demonstrate?” it helps to ask, “What happens when the funding stops?”

If the honest answer is that the system cannot function, then the design itself needs rethinking.

Acknowledging operational costs early, aligning with existing institutional systems, and being realistic about what should or should not scale can prevent pilots from turning into long-term liabilities.

Not every intervention needs to become permanent infrastructure. Some pilots are meant to inform policy, test ideas, or build evidence. Being clear about that distinction helps manage expectations and protects institutions from unintended burdens.

A Closing Reflection

The air purifiers on the road did not fail because the idea was wrong. They struggled because the system around them was not designed to carry them forward.

This experience clarified something fundamental for me:

Sustainability is not about whether a project ends, all projects do. It is about whether what remains can stand on its own.

As professionals working in sustainable development and urban management, our role is not just to deliver projects, but to design interventions that survive beyond us.

Because when the money stops, and it always does, the design choices we made at the beginning are the ones that remain.