Counting Down to Zero

Yet despite this, zero has become the biggest number in construction site safety. 

Many large construction contractors, and even some large projects, have made clear commitments to zero in terms of their safety programmes, and it s easy to see why. From moral perspectives zero is an absolute necessity. It is the only possible benchmark - no one working in construction sets out to have an accident, or to cause one for someone else. So no other number will do. 

Although seemingly simple in its goals and intentions, the use of zero within construction site safety may not be so straightforward when considered from a constructionist perspective, and placed with the inconsistent, incoherent and ever changing realities of construction site life. Indeed, how zero manifests on sites, and how it is associated with safety, has the potential to influence its 

Unpacking Construction Site Safety, First Edition. Dr Fred Sherratt. 

As explored in Chapter 4, accidents and their statistics remain a key measure of safety, and as a result this continued focus on the numbers has somewhat inevitably led to the need to Target Zero. This approach also draws on understandings of cause and effect if all causes can be identified then all accidents can be prevented and therefore zero accidents can be achieved (Hollnagel 2014 63). Associating with ideas of safety as a non-event, zero therefore benchmarks safety in practice - no accidents making zero the true measure of safety. 

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However, it is maturity of thinking that is critical here, and the most recent developments of safety engagement in the form of zero target safety management programmes have perhaps not sufficiently considered these wider issues of how safety works in practice - and so counting down to zero may not be as simply as we may think. 

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