Prevention through Design: An important aspect of social sustainability
T. Michael Toole1, Ph.D., P.E., F. ASCE and Gabrielle Carpenter2, S.M. ASCE
Abstract. Design and construction professionals who have studied sustainability
know that sustainability encompasses social equity and economic equity as well as
environmental equity. The vast majority of literature on social sustainability in the
built environment focuses on regional urban planning issues, not on specific actions
that capital projects owners and design professionals can take. Prevention through
Design (also known as Design for Construction Safety) is an emerging trend in the
design and construction industry in which design professionals consider the safety of
construction workers during the design phase. The paper provides an overview of the
PtD concept and suggests PtD should be a required aspect of social equity on capital
projects. The barriers to diffusion of PtD—lack of knowledge, higher costs, industry
structure and fear of liability—will likely challenge other social sustainability
initiatives as well.
Introduction
The growing recognition that sustainability must underlie all aspects of the design and
construction of the built environment is evidenced by the number of books, articles
and courses on sustainable design and construction and by the success of this
conference itself. The environmental aspect of sustainability has always dominated
the economic and social aspects of sustainability. One goal of this paper is to
contribute to the conference dialogue by reviewing the concept of social sustainability
found in the literature. A second goal is to suggest that socially sustainable practices
on capital projects should include Prevention through Design (PtD), which is a
proactive life-cycle approach to improving the safety and health of construction
workers.
Introduction to Social Sustainability
The seminal document on sustainable development, what is commonly referred to as
the Brundtland Report (WCED 1987), delineated two fundamental obligations
associated with sustainability. One obligation is to allow future generations to have
the same conditions and opportunities as are enjoyed by current generations. A
second obligation is to meet the needs of deprived people, namely of the poor.
Embedded in both obligations is the notion of social equity, also referred to as social
justice.
The Brundtland Report focused on the responsibilities of both individual nations and
nations collectively, and only implied responsibilities for corporations and other
groups. Elkington (1998) explicitly identified sustainability-related corporate
responsibilities and articulated how corporate sustainable behavior was being driven
by market mechanisms that have changed corporate values, implemented life cycle
perspectives and influenced corporate governance. For example, consumer
1
2
Assoc. Prof., Civil & Env. Engineering, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA. ttoole@bucknell.edu.
Undergrad. civil & env. engineering student, Bucknell Univ., Lewisburg, PA. gnc002@bucknell.edu.
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preference for recycled and chlorine-free paper has led to increased pressure on all
aspects of the paper industry (Elkington 1994). As policies stall at the government
level, consumers have been proactive in patronizing companies that are proactive in
their sustainability efforts. Companies are realizing that if they wish to succeed as a
business, profits and economic sustainability alone are not the way. Investing in
social sustainability and minimizing their environmental impact have become part of
the new way of succeeding in the emerging sustainable market.
The concept of social sustainability has continued to evolve since Elkington’s
groundbreaking book, Cannibals with Forks (1998). Polese and Stren (2000) identify
social sustainability as “policies and institutions that have the overall effect of
integrating diverse groups and cultural practices in a just and equitable fashion (p.
229, cited in Dillard, Dujon and King 2009, p. 2). Dillard et al (2009) suggested
nearly ten years later that the “social aspect of sustainability should be understood as
both (a) the processes that generate social health and well-being now and in the
future, and (b) those social institutions that facilitate environmental and economic
sustainability now and in the future” (p. 4).
Sustainability concepts and principles clearly draw from related literature on
professional ethics and corporate responsibility. For example, Vesilind and Gunn
(1998) suggest that engineers have ethical obligations to deprived people, distant
people and future people. Werna, Keivani and Murphy (2009) point to the World
Business Council for Sustainable Development’s definition of corporate social
responsibilities as, “The continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and
contribute to economic development while improving quality of life of the workforce
and their families as well as of the local community and society at large.’ (WBCSD
1999). Dyllick and Hockerts (2002) argue that corporate sustainability is much like
the Brundtland’s Commission’s general definition of sustainability in that
corporations seek to meet the needs of the present – shareholders, clients, employees,
communities – without compromising their ability to meet the needs of the future
shareholders / clients / employees / communities.
Literature on the social sustainability of urban development (see, for example,
Hammer 2009) argue that the social benefits to a community should be considered as
strongly as financial and environmental impacts. The benefits of a socially
sustainable development may be returned in numerous ways, such as creation of jobs
and improved quality of life. The Hong Kong government has been attracted to this
approach because international experience has proven “that sustainable development
creates good communities serving different needs of current population without
sacrificing the resources available for the future generations” (Chan and Lee 2008).
Different community needs include a wide range of services, including jobs,
affordable housing, affordable and accessible health and child care, healthy foods and
recreation (Chan and Lee 2008, Hammer 2009). Communities that incorporate these
socially sustainable services into their development see the compounding benefits,
both economically and socially. Much of today’s literature expands upon the belief
that social sustainability not only promotes equality of amenities among community
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residents but also the development of stronger and more robust communities. The
common themes discussed with regards to the sustainable developments are: an
increase in social networking, community participation, community stability, feeling
of security, and sense of place (Bramley et al. 2006).
Social Sustainability in Design and Construction
As the limits of the natural environment become an increasing concern, sustainability
in the built environment has become of even greater importance. Following the lead
of the Brundtland Report (1987), much of the literature on sustainable development
that explicitly refers to the built environment is on the regional planning level, that is,
on the portfolio of facilities that comprise the urban environment, as discussed in the
previous section.
An emerging concept in infrastructure design, construction and management is
infrastructure resilience, which may be conceived as “the ability to reduce the
magnitude and/or duration of disruptive events” (National Infrastructure Advisory
Council 2009). Disruptive events may include natural disasters, such as floods and
tornadoes, terrorist attacks, or large scale system failures. The implications of
resilience for social equity are that it is not sufficient to merely ensure that all people
have the same level of infrastructure (i.e., public fresh water, public sewer).
Government officials must also ensure that all people have infrastructure with the
same risk of failure and ability to recover quickly from a catastrophic event. Clearly,
this issue was raised after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans.
Perhaps the most important set of social sustainability characteristics pertain to an
individual project’s effect on the surrounding neighborhood and local community.
Examples include whether the project will change the overall character of the
neighborhood in desirable ways. Often, whether the effects are desirable or not vary
with one’s perspective. Urban gentrification may be desirable to the people moving
into a neighborhood and to the local politicians who seek a higher tax base, but is
often undesirable to the less wealthy homeowners who are forced to move by higher
tax rates. Other community-level effects include the increased risk of harm
associated with new industrial facilities, such as a risk of explosion or chemical leak.
Social sustainability project characteristics that affect occupants of a new building
include the extent to which the building is accessible to individuals with physical
handicaps, is accessible to mass transit systems, facilitates bicycle commuting and
offers reasonably convenient parking.
A final set of social sustainability factors associated with the construction of an
individual project are associated with contracting requirements. One factor is
whether the bidding process for the general contract and subcontracts is fair and open
to local firms. Public owners, such as cities and state departments of transportation,
are required to follow strict bidding processes for awarding the general contract, but
the award of subcontracts is typically only constrained to having a small percentage
of the work set aside for firms owned by minorities or women. Most private owners
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do not have to ensure a fair and open bidding process for either the general contract or
subcontracts.
Other contracting-related social sustainability factors affect individual workers,
namely wages and safe working environments. The physical challenges and required
skills of construction work typically ensure that wages paid to construction workers
are well above what would be considered a “living wage.” However, proponents of
regulations that require all project workers to receive prevailing wages (i.e., union
scale wages regardless if the worker is a member of a union) typically justify such
requirements using social sustainability language. Regarding safe working
environments, most of the sustainability literature (including the Brundtland Report)
mentions safe and healthy living and working conditions as a key component of
social sustainability. Literature addressing social sustainability in developed
countries, however, typically do not dwell on worker safety, probably because nearly
all developed countries have implemented effective occupational safety laws and
enforcement mechanisms over the past forty years. Federal OSHA (Occupational
Safety and Health Administration) regulations establish minimum levels of safety and
health in all occupational environments, including on construction sites.
Because the U.S. has such stringent occupational safety regulations, organizations
seeking to be socially sustainable on their capital projects (i.e., non-residential
construction projects costing over $1,000,000) typically overlook an emerging
technique that can substantially improve safety and health on construction sites. The
technique is called Prevention through Design (PtD) and is the focus for the
remainder of this paper.
Introduction to Prevention through Design
Perhaps the simplest definition of Prevention through Design (PtD) in construction
(also known as Design for Construction Safety and Safety by Design) is safety
constructability. Gambatese, Behm and Hinze (2005) stated, “Designing for
construction safety entails addressing the safety of construction workers in the design
of the permanent features of a project.” Some PtD advocates would add the safety of
maintenance workers to this definition. The PtD concept is associated with the design
stage of a project only. PtD is completely unrelated to managing the safety of
construction workers during the construction of a facility.
The most direct benefits of PtD are reduced construction injuries and increased
construction worker health. Construction is one of the most hazardous industries in
the U.S., typically accounting for approximately 1,000 fatalities and 200,000 serious
injuries each year (www.bls.gov). Once mentioned, the idea that design can improve
safety is fairly intuitive for most people. All design and construction professionals
recognize that the design affects the cost, quality and duration of a construction
project, so it makes sense that the design also affects the inherent risk to the workers
constructing the project. Behm (2005) summarizes the research on the link between
design and construction and analyzed several government databases to find that
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design was associated with 22% of 226 injuries that occurred from 2000-2002 in
Oregon, WA and CA and with 42% of 224 fatalities in U.S. between 1990-2003.
Examples of PtD include:
 Locating groundwater watering wells away from overhead power lines to
reduce the chances that the drill rig will contact the lines,
 Identifying locations on steel members where fall protection anchorage points
can be attached,
 Locating column splices and connections in steel framing at reasonable
heights above the floor,
 Locating the bottom of windows at least 36” above the floor to ensure
adequate fall protection as soon as the wall is framed,
 Specifying caged skylights that will support a roofer or maintenance worker if
he or she trips and falls on it,
 Facilitating the use of prefabricated modules, such as steel stairs, architectural
wall panels, and sheathed roof truss assemblies, segmented bridge sections,
plumbing pipes, and power plant modules.
Although the need for PtD was suggested in the National Safety Council’s 1955
Accident Prevention Manual, application of PtD in the U.S. construction injury did
not occur until the Construction Industry Institute sponsored research by Professor
Jimmie Hinze and doctoral student John Gambatese in the 1990s (Gambatese, Hinze
and Haas 1997). PtD-related publications and industry interest increased dramatically
after a 2003 symposium at the University of Oregon (Hecker, Gambatese and
Weinstein 2004). The United Kingdom first mandated that designers perform PtD in
1995 and other European nations and Australia have since mandated or strongly
encouraged PtD. Large design-builders such as URS, Jacobs, Parsons and Bechtel
have implemented PtD programs. Large owners who have implemented PtD on at
least one project include Intel, the Southern Company, the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers and BHP Billiton. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and
Health (NIOSH) has recognized PtD as a highly promising safety approach (see
www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/PTD).
Challenges to the Diffusion of PtD
Although PtD offers practical and important benefits, its diffusion across the U.S.
engineering and construction industry has been hampered by a number of significant
practical barriers. These barriers will be briefly examined because they offer insights
into the diffusion of other social sustainability initiatives.
Several PtD researchers and practitioners have noted that nearly all designers lack the
construction safety knowledge and design tools needed to perform PtD. If design
professionals are to effectively contribute to worker safety it is essential that they
possess at least a limited degree of expertise in construction safety. Unfortunately,
this is not the case for the majority of architects and engineers. A 2003 article in the
International eJournal of Construction (Gambatese 2003) reported that very few civil
engineering programs included construction safety in their curriculum. Only 20% of
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the 75 US design engineering firms surveyed in 2002 by a Bucknell University
graduate student indicated that over 50% of their employees had received safety
training while nearly 70% indicated that less than 25% of their employees had
received safety training. The same study also found that less than one-quarter of the
US participants believed that employees in their firm were often capable of
identifying site hazards to which workers are exposed (Toole and Marquis 2004).
Potential solutions include adding construction safety training to engineering and
architectural curricula. Unfortunately, academics have noted that most engineering
curricula are already so full due to the need to meet accreditation criteria that a full
course in safety is not feasible (Toole 2005).
A second barrier is that PtD will likely increase both direct and overhead costs for
designers (Toole 2005). Direct costs will likely increase because designers will need
to communicate with field personnel, check databases or use checklists to identify
PtD opportunities, which are tasks that are not currently performed. Overhead costs
will increase in two ways. First, designers will have to receive safety training as part
of their professional development. Second, if designers begin explicitly attempting to
contribute to worker safety, insurance carriers providing designers with general
liability and errors and omissions insurance may increase their premiums to cover
anticipated increased costs associated with defending lawsuits against designers. The
solution to increased designer fees is to educate owner-clients such that they
recognize that the costs associated with designing for construction safety will result in
a net savings in total design and construction costs for them. In other words, owners
must be willing to pay slightly higher design fees to save themselves money in the
long run, i.e., they must take a life-cycle cost approach.
A third barrier is that the traditional design-bid-build process does not allow the
constructor to provide the designer with safety constructability input during design.
Because designers typically lack expertise in construction safety and field methods, it
will be important to have construction personnel review designs to identify PtD
opportunities. With most design-bid-build projects, the contractor is not identified
until after the design is complete. Potential solutions are to hire seasoned
construction personnel to review in-progress design documents or to use an
alternative delivery order method. Design-Build and Integrated Project Delivery are
much more conducive to enabling the safety constructability communication needed
for effective PtD (Toole and Gambatese 2008).
Perhaps the greatest challenge to PtD is the resistance by design professionals
participating in traditional design-bid-build projects. Members of several design
professional organizations have expressed concern that the growth of PtD will
increase the number of inappropriate lawsuits against designers by injured
construction workers. Opponents of PtD acknowledge that PtD is a promising
concept but reject the PtD initiative because they feel the risks of their organization
being sued outweigh potential benefits to their clients and to construction workers on
the projects they design.
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Proponents of PtD do not deny the increased potential for lawsuits with PtD but state
that ethical considerations must trump business interests. The National Society of
Professional Engineers (NSPE), American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and
other engineering societies have a common statement in their code of ethics:
Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public. ASCE’s
Code also states that, “Engineers shall recognize that the lives, safety, health and
welfare of the general public are dependent upon engineering decisions….” Both of
these statements would seem to affirm the ethical mandate to perform PtD. The
traditional interpretation by members of these organizations, in order to reduce
exposure to lawsuits by injured construction workers, are that construction and
maintenance workers are not considered part of the public. The American Institute
for Architects even goes so far as to state that all references to safety of the public in
their code of ethics only apply to the finished project (AIA 2011).
While not rejecting the notion that exposure to lawsuits is a real challenge for design
professionals, excluding construction and maintenance workers from professional
codes of ethics seems rather circumspect and raises a host of ethical questions. Do
not design professionals have the same duties for construction and maintenance
workers as for the public? Are construction workers a less important group of people
than the collective general public? Do not design professionals have ethical duties for
reasonably minimizing all of the risks that they have control over, not just the risks
that they are unlikely to be sued over? The safety of the public is given such a
prominent position in the codes of ethics because it is recognized the public lacks the
detailed technical knowledge of risks associated with structures that design
professionals possess. Can design professionals state with certainty that construction
workers possess the same set of technical knowledge and understanding of the risks
associated with exposure to fall, physical forces, electricity and chemicals as do
design professionals? These issues suggest that a designer who is not willing to
consider design decisions that could reduce the inherent risks to construction workers
to a reasonable level is not committed to maximizing the social equity of a project.
Conclusions
A review of the sustainability literature shows that the concept of social sustainability
continues to evolve. While both older and very recent literature addresses social
sustainability in the built environment, there is relatively little that focuses on specific
steps that owners of capital projects and design professionals can take. Prevention
through Design (PtD) is an emerging method for reducing the inherent risk to
construction workers in implementing a design professional’s design and would seem
to be an excellent application of social sustainability principles. Yet the diffusion of
PtD has been hampered by several practical factors relating to lack of knowledge,
higher costs, industry structure, and fear of liability, and practitioners have resisted
viewing the issue in terms of ethical obligations.
It is likely that the PtD concept is not unique and that other aspects of social
sustainability will face similar barriers. The solutions suggested here—education, life
cycle approaches, choosing processes that allow collaboration between stakeholders,
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and unabashedly pointing out applicable ethical principles—will likely also be needed
to diffuse other promising social sustainability concepts.
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