The Vital Link Between Green Construction & Occupational Safety

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IDGA: In what ways are the areas of occupational safety and health and green construction kept separate in construction?  Why does that happen, and why should it not happen?

MG: Occupational safety and health, energy conservation, and environmental protection are all active practice areas. Professionals have a lot of developments to keep up on within their own specialties. Everyone is busy and we all typically have blind spots with regard to other disciplines.

Construction itself is complex and involves many specialized domains and disciplines.  Each project is unique and involvement changes over the course of the project.

One of the key attributes of green construction is getting energy and environmental professionals involved up front in design and planning prior to construction.  The D in LEED is for Design.  But it’s generally much less common for safety and health professionals to be in on these important early discussions.  They tend to get involved later when construction begins.

So in some respects this pattern sets the stage for working separately.

Why should it not happen?  Working separately increases the chances that costs and or risks can be unintentionally shifted from the environment to workers or vice versa.  And it means that design and planning opportunities for improving construction safety–and for later maintenance activities–are not taken advantage of.

Let me give you an example.  A green building might include banks of skylights to improve daylighting.  When you think of skylights you think of the wonderful light that they can provide.  Workers are not really in the picture you think of.  But skylights get dirty and do need to be maintained.  They are fragile and unfortunately there are about 25 fatalities a year from falling through skylights.  Awareness about this hazard is pretty low. Getting safety and health input during the design phase makes it more likely that construction and maintenance worker tasks are considered and that design features such as non-fragile glass, skylight guards, or built-in anchors for harness use are discussed so that the most appropriate option can be selected.

We know from studies that it is much more cost effective to address safety during design and engineering than to make changes later during construction or after building completion.

IDGA: What are the primary challenges faced in developing sustainable construction projects?

MG: The primary challenge is to successfully move from green to sustainable. Green building goals have been evolving and maturing over the last decade. They are moving toward a more comprehensive vision of true sustainability and social responsibility.  At NIOSH, we think this is a good development, because it means that leaders are open to thinking more comprehensively about sustainability. And we think we can make a compelling case that construction and maintenance worker safety and health should become a fundamental dimension of true sustainability.

Of course, care is needed in how best to expand and grow the scope of green construction without reducing the effectiveness of the original aims. The pejorative term “mission creep” comes to mind.  Expansion needs to be done thoughtfully.

IDGA: Can you describe the efforts with collaborators to accomplish the goal of integrating safety & health into green construction?

MG: NIOSH is working strategically on these efforts.  Here are some examples:

First, we engaged our construction industry stakeholders to get their input on this effort and the feedback we get is that it is an important issue and opportunity to consider.

Second, NIOSH is working with partners to develop and disseminate a concept we call “Prevention through Design” (PtD).  This involves using the design process to eliminate or minimize occupational safety and health risks in all industries including construction.  For example, NIOSH is developing new engineering student curricula on PtD and we have held two major PtD conferences. We also worked with the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) and others to develop ANSI Z590.3-2011 Prevention through Design: Guidelines for Addressing Occupational Hazards and Risks in Design and Redesign Processes to help provide guidance on how to do PtD.  We are also working to develop web tools to help practitioners do PtD.  For example, we are currently working on a PtD web product that will link specific safety and health activities to the steps in the engineering design process.  So it will start at the initial concept step, go to preliminary and detailed design, then to project execution, commissioning, and maintenance and operation.  We will grow it over time and include case studies, checklists, tools, and return-on-investment (ROI) examples.

Third, we are working with the academic construction researchers to research and better understand the links between green construction and safety and health impacts and opportunities.

Last but not least, we have spent time learning how the US Green Building Council LEED rating system works and how the pilot credit program is used to test out new credit ideas.  We have had some great meetings with USGBC staff to discuss the links between green construction and occupational safety and health.  We have performed a credit-by-credit review of the LEED credits for relevance to safety and we have taken six credits and explored how safety and health can be integrated right into the credit.  We will be continuing these efforts during 2012 and hope to pilot some of these new credit ideas.

Matt Gillen will be speaking at IDGA’s Military Construction Summit, to be held from March 19-21, 2012 in Washington, DC. (He notes that the findings and conclusions in this interview have not been formally disseminated by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and should not be construed to represent any agency determination or policy.) For more information on the event, visit www.militaryconstructionevent.comor call 1-800-882-8684.

Contributor:   Christopher Dauer