Ranking of Risks for Existing and New Building Works

Rita Yi Man Li, Kwong Wing Chau and Frankie Fanjie Zeng
Additional contact information
Rita Yi Man Li: Department of Economics and Finance/Sustainable Real Estate Research Center/HKSYU Real Estate and Economics Research Lab/Centre of Interdisciplinary Research in Evidence-based Practice, Hong Kong Shue Yan University, Hong Kong, China
Kwong Wing Chau: Ronald Coase Centre for Property Rights Research, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, China
Frankie Fanjie Zeng: Faculty of Social Science, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 10, 1-26

Abstract: Site safety is one critical factor affecting the sustainability of skyscrapers and decoration, repair, and maintenance projects. Many newly-built skyscrapers exceed 50 storeys in Hong Kong and decoration, repair, and maintenance projects are widely performed to extend the lifespans of buildings. Although many cities do not contain skyscrapers at present, this will change in the future. Likewise, more decoration, repair, and maintenance projects will emerge. Thus, the present research, which compares the safety risks among the new and DSR projects, provides insights for builders, policymakers, and safety personnel. Moreover, research studies which rank and compare decoration, repair, and maintenance projects and new skyscraper constructions are scarce. The use of the evidence-based practice approach, which aims to narrow the gap between practice and academia in construction safety research, is the first of its kind. In this paper, we firstly provide a systematic literature review from 1999 to 2019 regarding construction safety, and then study the industry’s perspectives by analysing the construction practitioners’ interview results, court cases, and analytic hierarchy process survey results to compare them with the literature. It is found that the generation gap and prolonged working hours lead to accidents—a phenomenon which is unique in Hong Kong and absent from the literature. It also reveals that most accidents happen on new building sites due to tower crane failure, while those on DSR projects are linked with the circular saw. Although many of the contractors involved in new buildings are wealthier than DSR contractors, it is surprising to learn that lack of funding for safety is the most important factor linked to safety risks on the sites.

Keywords: evidence-based practice; construction safety; AHP; sustainable risk ranking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/10/2863/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/10/2863/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:10:p:2863-:d:232680

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().