The new strategy for Sustainable Construction must have workplace safety at its heart, says Bob Towse, head of techical and safety at the HVCA
THE Strategy for Sustainable Construction launched last month sends out a strong message that no industry can consider itself sustainable if those employed within it are not safe.

One of the targets set out in the strategy, which was developed by the construction sector and the government, is a 10% cut in work-related deaths year-on-year from 2000 levels.

This is a key element of the overall aim to: 'set out in one document key government and industry commitments and targets relevant to sustainable construction; demonstrate joint commitment by government and industry to a step change in performance on sustainability'.

While environmental issues, such as waste management and carbon emissions, take pride of place in this document, it is refreshing that safety targets have also been made central to the strategy. No sustainable targets could be met without putting people at the heart of your aspirations and workplace conditions are also critical to reducing waste and improving productivity.

Main focus

This should not just be about avoiding deaths, however. The well being of people sits at the heart of Corporate Social Responsibility agendas for very good reasons. It is no longer possible to regard construction work as taking place in a vacuum removed from social implications, such as good neighbourliness and staff welfare, and a construction business can neither be sustainable nor profitable if its main focus is not on its workforce.

If financial leaders need more encouragement to focus on this issue, they need look only at the cold financial statistics relating to people missing work through illness or injury. According to insurance firm Axa, absent staff cost UK firms more than £12B a year.

This includes the cost of paying staff who are not there, paying overtime and temporary staff to cover the missing people, and lost service or production time.

These losses are simply not sustainable and this level of absenteeism has a crippling impact on the industry's ability to deliver projects on time and to budget.

It also means firms have less freedom to innovate and to tackle technical challenges in a creative way as they are struggling just to keep projects on track.

A safe industry is a sustainable one. It is also far more profitable.