Organizations pledge to adhere to sustainability standards globally. The adherence to sustainability ensures businesses contribute to the country’s development, environment, and long-term societal values. Sustainable supply chain (SSC) has been receiving more focus from regulators, practitioners, and academicians nowadays. Among other industries, the building and construction industry has been accountable for using excessive resources and destroying the environment by producing pollution. The non-compliance to adopt sustainability creates barriers for the construction industry to implement SSC, which academia has given little attention to. The proposed research work is a critical study toward identifying SSC enablers in the construction industry and attempting to derive a causal relationship to evolve key enablers for SSC adoption based on hybrid MCDM methods. The novelty of the current work is the identification of key enablers in adopting SSC, and the interrelationship between enablers is of its first kind to be used for SSC. A case example was undertaken to find key enablers of sustainable procurement management in the construction supply chain to validate the proposed work. This study reveals that the obligation of an organization to adopt sustainable procurement management practices; government regulation to adopt sustainable procurement management practices; high incentive schemes for construction organizations in implementing sustainable procurement management practices; lower, middle, and top management involvement in adopting sustainable procurement practices; and sufficient checks and controls in adopting sustainable procurement management practices are the key enablers to be adopted by the businesses to achieve their sustainable goals.

1. Asadi, S., Pourhashemi, S., Nilashi, M., Abdullah, R., Samad, S., Yadegaridehkordi, E., Aljojo, N., & Razali, N. (2020). Investigating influence of green innovation on sustainability performance: A case on Malaysian hotel industry. Journal of Cleaner Production, 258, 120860. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.120860
2. Chang, P.-T., Huang, L.-C., & Lin, H.-J. (2000). The fuzzy Delphi method via fuzzy statistics and membership function fitting and an application to the human resources. Fuzzy Sets and Systems, 112(3), 511–520. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0165-0114(98)00067-0
3. Chauhan, A., Badhotiya, G., Soni, G., & Kumeri, P. (2020). Investigating interdependencies of sustainable supplier selection criteria: An appraisal using ISM. Journal of Global Operations and Strategic Sourcing, 13(2), 195–210. http://doi.org/10.1108/JGOSS-02-2019-0017
4. Chen, Z., Ming, X., Zhou, T., & Chang, Y. (2020). Sustainable supplier selection for smart supply chain considering internal and external uncertainty: An integrated rough-fuzzy approach. Applied Soft Computing, 87, 106004. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asoc.2019.106004
5. Chu, H.-C., & Hwang, G.-J. (2008). A Delphi-based approach to developing expert systems with the cooperation of multiple experts. Expert Systems with Applications, 34(4), 2826–2840. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2007.05.034
6. De Villiers, M. R., de Villiers, P. J., & Kent, A. P. (2005). The Delphi technique in health sciences education research. Medical Teacher, 27(7), 639–643. https://doi.org/10.1080/13611260500069947
7. Dutta, S., & Roy, S. K. (2014). Managerial perceptions of a low carbon economy: A study. Prabandhan: Indian Journal of Management, 7(8), 7–20. https://doi.org/10.17010/pijom/2014/v7i8/59349
8. Ershadi, M., Jefferies, M., Davis, P., & Mojtahedi, M. (2021). Barriers to achieving sustainable construction project procurement in the private sector. Cleaner Engineering and Technology. 3, 100125. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clet.2021.100125
9. Fontela, E., & Gabus, A. (1972). World problems: An invitation to further thought within the framework of DEMATEL. Battelle Geneva Research Centre, Geneva.
10. Giri, B. C., Molla, M. U., & Biswas, P. (2022). Pythagorean fuzzy DEMATEL method for supplier selection in sustainable supply chain management. Expert Systems with Applications, 193(1), 116396. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2021.116396
11. Hassini, E., Surti, C., & Searcy, C. (2012). A literature review and a case study of sustainable supply chains with a focus on metrics. International Journal of Production Economics, 140(1), 69–82. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2012.01.042
12. Hendiani, S., Liao, H., & Jabbour, C. J. (2022). A new sustainability indicator for supply chains: Theoretical and practical contribution towards sustainable operations. International Journal of Logistics Research and Applications, 25(4–5), 384–409. http://doi.org/10.1080/13675567.2020.1761308
13. Ishikawa, A., Amagasa, M., Shiga, T., Tomizawa, G., Tatsuta, R., & Mieno, H. (1993). The max-min Delphi method and fuzzy Delphi method via fuzzy integration. Fuzzy Sets and Systems, 55(3), 241–253. http://doi.org/10.1016/0165-0114(93)90251-C
14. Kannan, D. (2018). Role of multiple stakeholders and the critical success factor theory for the sustainable supplier selection process. International Journal of Production Economics, 195, 391–418. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2017.02.020
15. Kannan, D., Govindan, K., & Rajendran, S. (2015). Fuzzy axiomatic design approach based green supplier selection: A case study from Singapore. Journal of Cleaner Production, 96, 194–208. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.12.076
16. Mahdiloo, M., Saen, R. F., & Lee, K.-H. (2015). Technical, environmental and eco-efficient measurement for supplier selection: An extension and application of data envelopment analysis. International Journal of Production Economics, 168, 279–289. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2015.07.010
17. Memari, A., Dargi, A., Jokar, M., Ahmad, R., & Rahim, A. (2019). Sustainable supplier selection: A multi-criteria intuitionistic fuzzy TOPSIS method. Journal of Manufacturing Systems, 50, 9–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmsy.2018.11.002
18. Menon, R. R., & Ravi, V. (2021). Analysis of barriers of sustainable supply chain management in electronics industry: An interpretive structural modelling approach. Cleaner and Responsible Consumption, 3, 100026. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clrc.2021.100026
19. Munny, A. A., Ali, S. M., Kabir, G., Moktadir, M. A., Rahman, T., & Mahtab, Z. (2019). Enablers of social sustainability in the supply chain: An example of footwear industry from an emerging economy. Sustainable Production and Consumption, 20, 230–242. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2019.07.003
20. Murray, T. J., Pipino, L. L., & van Gigch, J. P. (1985). A pilot study of fuzzy set modification of Delphi. Human Systems Management, 5(1), 76–80. https://doi.org/10.3233/HSM-1985-5111
21. Opricovic, S., & Tzeng, G.-H. (2003). Defuzzification within a multicriteria decision model. International Journal of Uncertainty, Fuzziness and Knowledge-Based Systems, 11(5), 635–652. http://doi.org/10.1142/S0218488503002387
22. Rajesh, R., & Ravi, V. (2015). Supplier selection in resilient supply chains: A grey relational analysis approach. Journal of Cleaner Production, 86, 343–359. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.08.054
23. Rezaei, J. (2015). Best-worst multi-criteria decision-making method. Omega, 53, 49–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.omega.2014.11.009
24. Roventa, E., & Spircu, T. (2003). Averaging procedures in defuzzification processes. Fuzzy Sets and Systems, 136(3), 375–385. http://doi.org/10.1016/S0165-0114(02)00218-X
25. Santos, F. C., Andrade, E. M., Ferreira, A. C., Leme, P. C., & Jabbour, C. J. (2013). Practices of environmentally responsible reverse logistics systems in Brazilian companies. International Journal of Business Performance and Supply Chain Modelling, 5(1), 63–85. https://doi.org/10.1504/ijbpscm.2013.051655
26. Sarkis, J., & Dhavale, D. G. (2015). Supplier selection for sustainable operations: A triple-bottom-line approach using a Bayesian framework. International Journal of Production Economics, 166, 177–191. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2014.11.007
27. Sharma, K., & Mathur, H. P. (2022). Contextualizing sustainability with reference to startups. Prabandhan: Indian Journal of Management, 15(7), 8–23. https://doi.org/10.17010/pijom/2022/v15i7/170788
28. Shete, P. C., Ansari, Z. N., & Kant, R. (2020). A Pythagorean fuzzy AHP approach and its application to evaluate the enablers of sustainable supply chain innovation. Sustainable Production and Consumption, 23, 77–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2020.05.001
29. Vazifehdan, M. N., & Darestani, S. A. (2019). Green logistics outsourcing employing multi criteria decision making and quality function deployment in the petrochemical industry. The Asian Journal of Shipping and Logistics, 35(4), 243–254. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajsl.2019.12.011
30. Xu, X., Wang, Y., & Tao, L. (2019). Comprehensive evaluation of sustainable development of regional construction industry in China. Journal of Cleaner Production, 211, 1078–1087. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.11.248
31. Yu, Q., & Hou, F. (2016). An approach for green supplier selection in the automobile manufacturing industry. Kybernetes, 45(4), 571–588. https://doi.org/10.1108/K-01-2015-0034
32. Zadeh, L. A. (1965). Fuzzy sets. Information and Control, 8(3), 338–353. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0019-9958(65)90241-X
33. Zhou, X., & Xu, Z. (2018). An integrated sustainable supplier selection approach based on hybrid information aggregation. Sustainability, 10(7), 2543. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10072543
34. Zimmer, K., Fröhling, M., & Schultmann, F. (2016). Sustainable supplier management – A review of models supporting sustainable supplier selection, monitoring and development. International Journal of Production Research, 54(5), 1412–1442. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2015.1079340