So let's start with safety. The safety of construction workers. We have the risk of an acute injury, which something that will happen quite dramatically, and there will be an incident, and someone can get hurt. God forbid, even killed. And then we have chronic injuries, which can be due to do an exposure of a risk over a period of time. In terms of public and end users, we have safed operations of the assets. And once the asset is built, you obviously wanna maintain safety, safety for the people who are using it. But then you also wanna maintain security, particularly at transportation infrastructure projects or any infrastructure project. Security is a big issue. So how do we keep people safe? Well, on a construction project, the workers wear PPE, which is personal protective equipment. Typically that is a hard hat, glasses, gloves, a high-visibility vest, and work boots. In addition to their PPE, if they have a particular task that has other risks, say the air quality is being tested because they're doing some sort of lead paint removal, there will also be respiratory protection and there are grades of PPE depending on the risks of that activity. In order to determine the risk of that activity, you go through what's the second bullet point there, hazard analysis. So for every activity on a project, they will go through a hazard analysis where they review what is the scope of work. How materials get going to and from that site, how the material will be put in place, who's working on it, what tools will be used, are there any other environmental or health hazards that need to be addressed? Are there risks of fall from height, do they need tie off protection? All that will go into your hazard analysis. And each day we will have a daily briefing where you'll review the work that's intended for that day, and address any hazards that are particular for that day. That's really important when you look at areas like the north east where you go from winter, to spring, to summer. So you may have a hazard analysis that stretches over several months. But the beginning of the activity was, you were worried about ice and staying warm. And by the time you finish that activity it was 95 degrees out and you're worried about being overheated and staying cool. So that's why the daily job briefings are important as well. For the public and the end users, when an asset is completed obviously they'll be operation manuals and people need to be trained to operate the facility and maintain the facility, to preserve safety. They'll also be inspections and signage. Signage obviously to alert the public on where they need to go, and also signage to alert the public on where they shouldn't be going. And lastly, there's emergency response planning. In the event of an emergency, everyone should have a good handle on their response, and there should be a good delegation of duties to the people operating that asset that they know what to do in case of an emergency. Ethics, so let's start by just defining what is ethics and if you look up the good old Merriam Webster definition it says, rules of behavior based on ideas about what is morally good and bad. So each individual has a moral compass that helps them determine what's good and bad. Ethics, however, is a set of rules, and since we're talking about construction, those rules are the construction industry, and since we're talking about construction in the United States in this lecture, it would be doing construction in the United States. And it also depends on your company. Your company should have rules that they enforce that comply with their ethics code. Some things that you need to consider when talking about ethics, is the 21st century market. So you've heard in many industries the phrase, well we did it like this 20 years ago. Well, when times change, usually so do regulations and standards and business practices. So we need to be up on the 21st century market in terms of ethics. Another thing that's changed In lock step with the information technology boom, is that the globe is shrinking, we do a lot of knowledge sharing outside the United States, and we do a lot of business outside the United States. Skanska happens to be a multi-national company so we have business units throughout the world. And what may be acceptable in some parts of the world, are not acceptable in other parts of the world. So ethics has a cultural aspect to it as well. And then lastly, is private work versus public work. Public work typically because it's taxpayer funded, has a lot more regulations and restrictions in terms of procurement and what can and cannot be done. So we need to be conscious of the environment you're working in. And again, all these things factor into ethics, which is a set of rules, that govern your business decision making. So how do we promote ethical practices? Well the first thing is training. Companies should be training their personnel and employees on ethical practices. It should also be a value within your organization and a value within your team and the project that you're working on. And lastly, we should be acting transparently. If you question something or you're unsure, you should ask, and you should feel free to ask. And that's the idea of promoting ethics within the team. So next aspect of sustainability is quality, and I'm going through these In a random order. They're all equally important, but we'll talk about quality next. And first is durability. So durability is, we're building 2075 today, if you think about it. The assets we're building now are gonna be here for a long time. I think a typical lifespan of a bridge, a new bridge that's being built today, is 100 years. So, we wanna focus on the durability of that asset, which also factors into resilience. I'm not gonna get into resilience too much in this presentation, but resilience is also creeping its way into sustainability. Performance, performance is another key part of quality right? If you're building an airport terminal, you want to perform a certain way, you wanna get a number of flights out of that airport per day. Maybe you're building a light rail. You want a number of end users who can take that light rail to work. So this performance criteria that you would wanna set up and you would wanna meet. So those two points are more involved with the design. That you've got quality of what you're building, so build quality. And that is the conformity with the specifications. So I mentioned previously that in a bid build situation, the owner will hire a design firm to come up with plans and specs. Well quality, build quality will be to determine whether or not, you built what was there according to those plans and specs. Another aspect is that the as-built condition of the asset is defect free. And usually that goes hand in hand with the standard of workmanship. So all these things factor into the build quality of the asset. So how does a project maintain a high level of quality? Well the first step is a quality assurance program. So you wanna be assured that quality is a focus of the team and you do that by developing typically a quality management plan. And that management plan is a very structured approach to insuring compliance and it lists out all the different ways that a project team is going to comply with the drawings and specifications of a project. And more importantly how they're gonna check up on it, that it was actually done. The second, is quality control, and that's where you check up on the work that was performed. You will have inspectors in the field who will stay with an activity and monitor that work and make sure that the materials that are being delivered are the materials that were specified or required by the specification. And then if they are installed in the proper manner and protected if they needed to be protected once they're installed. Periodically you'll run audits. These audits are just to assure the team that the overall quality assurance and quality control program is effective and is being managed properly. The next concept within sustainability is economics. And you can have a whole class dedicated to just the economics and I'm sure there are degrees that are dedicated to just economics, project economics. But let's just talk a little bit about internal and external. And I labelled them internal and external because internal is the economics around the delivery of the project, right? So you have the capital cost of the project, and that is strictly to engineer it, and design it, and build it. With that you may have revenue sources, whether it be collecting taxes, or, if there are other services associated with that asset, like retail. Or if it's a port facility, there may be some sort of a fee associated with moving cargo in and out of that port. But there's the funding and financing and revenue sources that are within the project which ties directly into life cycle costs, right? So the project is going to operate over a certain life span, and you'll need to take a look at the operations and maintenance cost associated with that asset. So all those form the internal economics of a project. And then you've got more of the externalities that are associated with a project. You've got job creation, job creation in the form of supplying the materials that need to be used to build that asset, and also the labor to build the asset. Not only does it create jobs during the construction, but also the operation and maintenance. So you may need to hire people to operate the asset, and maintain the asset. Increased community productivity, this is a hard one to wrap our minds around. But If you were to put in a light rail system that alleviated congestion. Well, now you get people out of cars and you put them on a light rail, can they get to work in less time than they did before having that light rail? And they had to sit in several hours of traffic each day. So some of the assets that are being designed and developed will have an overall benefit to the community in terms of their productivity. And then lastly quality of life. If you take a, for example, an abandoned piece of infrastructure, a good example would be the High Line Park in New York City. It was an abandoned railway that was closed off to the public. It was unsightly, it was, Bringing down the real estate value in that area. And they decided to restore the High Line and plant a park on the top of it. And by doing so they created public space, and they improved quality of life. And you'll notice a huge difference in the real estate around that project. People are moving to that area. It's a great place to live, great place to hang out. So there are shops and restaurants popping up all over that part of New York City. So, increasing quality of life will have an economic benefit as well. So how do you manage economics? Well, getting back to one of my first points. Doing a proper risk assessment, understanding the funding and finance mechanisms, understanding the lifecycle costs, and finding sustainable solutions. That's key to managing the economics. Industry outreach, right? So, we talked about creating jobs. Well, we have to let the community know that those jobs are out there. So there's gotta be a good communications plan where you roll out the opportunities for people to get involved.
