Sustainable procurement of water supply infrastructure projects: a building information modeling-based approach

Triple Bottom Line (TBL)-based project proposal evaluation is highly data-intensive. The above challenge is elevated when considering the complex nature of construction projects. Emerging concepts, such as Building Information Modeling (BIM), provide a data repository that aids TBL-based proposal evaluation. Despite national-level BIM mandates, there is a lack of BIM-based TBL performance evaluation tools. Hence, this study developed a BIM plugin toolkit to automate proposal evaluation of water supply infrastructure projects by considering the TBL performance. This toolkit incorporates a unique TBL-based evaluation methodology that integrates environmental product declarations, social life cycle impact, and life cycle costing. The case study revealed that the selected proposal had superior environmental and social performance while the bid price was slightly higher (6.5%) than the lowest-cost proposal. The proposed method provides a user-friendly tool for TBL-based proposal evaluation and promotes BIM implementation in the construction industry.