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The purpose of this paper is to examine the alternative accounts produced by Green Earth Volunteers (GEV), a Chinese environmental non-governmental organisation, over a 10-year period in the context of their campaign to create visibilities about hydroelectric dam projects along the Chang Jiang.

Drawing on conceptions of the human–nature relationship, including those evident in ancient Chinese philosophy and mythology, and the Chinese way of viewing and resolving conflict, this paper offers an interpretive analysis of the alternative accounts of GEV in terms of their form and content.

In terms of their content, the alternative accounts reflect elements of interrelated thinking, being underpinned by a recognition of the relationship between humans and nature, which is evident in Confucianism, Taoism and ancient Chinese mythology. The strategies adopted by GEV are a non-confrontational but feasible way to promote their ecological beliefs in the Chinese context.

The study suggests that social and environmental accounting (SEA) in developing countries is steeped in local cultural and philosophical traditions that need to be considered and incorporated into the design of alternative accounts.

The study contributes to the very limited literature that offers qualitative analyses of SEA in developing countries.

Despite the technological paradigm shift presented to the architecture, engineering, construction and operations sector (AECO), the full-fledged acceptance of the building information modelling (BIM) methodology has been slower than initially anticipated. Indeed, this study aims to acknowledge the need for increasing supportive technologies enabling the use of BIM, attending to available human resources, their requirements and their tasks.

A complete case study is described, including the development process centred on design science research methodology followed by the usability assessment procedure validated by construction projects facility management operational staff.

Results show that participants could interact with BIM using openBIM processes and file formats naturally, as most participants reached an efficiency level close to that expected for users already familiar with the interface (i.e. high-efficiency values). These results are consistent with the reported perceived satisfaction and analysis of participants’ discourses through 62 semi-structured interviews.

The contributions of the present study are twofold: a proposal for a virtual reality openBIM framework is presented, particularly for the semantic enrichment of BIM models, and a methodology for evaluating the usability of this type of system in the AECO sector.