Safety first

Skanska HUB, photo credit: Diana Rothery

Skanska USA expresses its corporate commitment to the triple bottom line through its Sustainability Agenda. The following is the second of a five-part series exploring how Skanska is approaching the triple bottom line for the good of its clients, its respective businesses and for the good of the places we live, play and work. You can read the first article here.

The basics of construction safety are simple. Workers want to return home safe to their families. Contractors also want those employees to go home uninjured. Yet construction remains one of the country’s most dangerous industries. Why?

Our industry’s traditional thinking is a part of the reason. Too many in construction believe that dangerous conditions – and the resulting injuries – are an inherent part of building. Also, our industry has historically viewed safety as a matter of complying with governmental regulations, rather than seeing that going beyond the rules is the right thing to do.

Safety must be a major part of the sustainability equation for every industry because no business should tolerate the harm or loss of their employees. With construction, it’s also about ensuring that our industry will endure: we’re not going to attract and retain talented leaders if workers are continually injured on jobsites.

Among the nation’s leading construction companies, Skanska isn’t alone in our goal of zero injuries. But we think our innovative approach toward achieving that goal is worth sharing, as it might inspire others to raise the bar even more, taking us far beyond traditional thoughts and practice.

First, with our Injury-Free Environment

[source: http://sustainableindustries.com/articles/2013/02/safety-first]