diff --git a/client/ayon_core/lib/applications.py b/client/ayon_core/lib/applications.py
index 60ef2a6708..d79f18a707 100644
--- a/client/ayon_core/lib/applications.py
+++ b/client/ayon_core/lib/applications.py
@@ -1658,6 +1658,7 @@ def apply_project_environments_value(
 
     env_value = project_settings["global"]["project_environments"]
     if env_value:
+        env_value = json.loads(env_value)
         parsed_value = parse_environments(env_value, env_group)
         env.update(acre.compute(
             _merge_env(parsed_value, env),
diff --git a/client/ayon_core/settings/ayon_settings.py b/client/ayon_core/settings/ayon_settings.py
index 12d4833469..6d2163ee6e 100644
--- a/client/ayon_core/settings/ayon_settings.py
+++ b/client/ayon_core/settings/ayon_settings.py
@@ -406,14 +406,6 @@ def _convert_global_project_settings(ayon_settings, output, default_settings):
     # Publish conversion
     ayon_publish = ayon_core["publish"]
 
-    # Project root settings - json string to dict
-    ayon_core["project_environments"] = json.loads(
-        ayon_core["project_environments"]
-    )
-    ayon_core["project_folder_structure"] = json.dumps(json.loads(
-        ayon_core["project_folder_structure"]
-    ))
-
     # Tools settings
     ayon_core["sync_server"] = (
         default_settings["global"]["sync_server"]