Enhancing Construction ESG Management Through Integrated 4D BIM and Blockchain Technology

The construction industry is progressively integrating Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles to foster sustainable development. These principles are vital for promoting responsible practices that address the environmental and social impacts of construction activities. However, existing ESG management approaches are often inefficient and costly, posing significant challenges to the industry. The complexity and fragmentation of ESG data management hinder the ability to monitor and report sustainability indicators in an authentic and effective manner, thereby limiting the industry’s progress in achieving its sustainability goals. Based on this situation, this paper proposes a comprehensive data management framework leveraging 4D Building Information Modelling (BIM) to enhance sustainability practices in construction projects. The proposed framework aims to streamline ESG data collection, processing, and analysis, ultimately improving the efficiency and effectiveness of ESG management in the construction sector. The study focuses on two main areas: (1) Identified a construction ESG knowledge graph for openBIM, (2) Proposed a construction ESG data collection and processing framework for 4D BIM, and (3) Developed smart contracts to serve the blockchain in framework. The framework simplifies the ESG data collection process in construction projects, enabling real-time monitoring and optimization of sustainability performance. We verified the feasibility of the proposed framework based on the Hong Kong OPark2 project, which demonstrated the availability of the designed data flow and technical components.