Government further promotes adoption of Smart Site Safety System (with photos)

     The Development Bureau (DEVB) announced today (May 20) that the Smart Site Safety System Labelling Scheme (4S Labelling Scheme) and a series of relevant measures will be jointly launched by the DEVB and the Construction Industry Council (CIC) to drive a wider adoption of 4S in the industry for providing a safe working environment for site personnel.

     Speaking at the launching ceremony of the Labelling Scheme, the Secretary for Development, Ms Bernadette Linn, said the Government has been striving to speed up the adoption of technologies for site safety and to promote the full adoption of 4S in recent years. Currently, all capital works contracts with a contract sum exceeding $30 million have fully adopted 4S. The Government has also subsidised private works projects to widely adopt 4S through the Construction Innovation and Technology Fund (CITF) and provides the latest information and support on relevant training and equipment through the CIC. However, adoption of 4S at private worksites remains relatively low. In this connection, the Government will roll out three new measures to promote and facilitate a wide adoption of 4S in the industry.

     The Buildings Department (BD) will introduce mandatory measure starting from July 1. Conditions will be imposed under the Buildings Ordinance requiring the adoption of 4S to provide qualified supervision of building works when granting the first approval or major revisions of superstructure plans of private development projects. For building works with estimated cost exceeding $30 million and involving the use of mobile plants and tower cranes, registered contractors are required to adopt relevant 4S alert systems.

     Under the 4S Labelling Scheme jointly launched by the DEVB and the CIC, applications can be submitted to the CIC. After on-site inspection and evaluation of proper usage of 4S, the CIC will approve the application and issue the labels. The issued label will be placed in a conspicuous place around the construction sites for identification and ease of monitoring. The list of worksites with labels will also be uploaded to the CIC’s website, with a view to encouraging more worksites to adopt 4S. It is expected that around 500 worksites (including public works and private works), representing more than 60 per cent of the total number of construction sites at present, will participate in the scheme and labels will be issued to the first batch of around 100 worksites in July this year and the approval will be largely completed by the end of this year.

     Regarding subsidising the application of 4S in private works projects, the CITF has increased the amount of funding available to each applicant for 4S from $6 million to $7.5 million from April 1, 2023. Premised on this basis, the scope of support of the CITF will be extended to cover the relevant additional expenses in various aspects of adopting 4S, including upgrading the network capacity, additional manpower to be employed for maintenance and technical support, helping applicants obtain quotations for commonly used 4S products in advance from suppliers etc. arising from the use of 4S. To further support the industry to adopt 4S, the DEVB and the CIC have launched respective packages of 4S products for different types and scales of private works projects.

     Representatives attending the launching ceremony of the 4S Labelling Scheme included members of the Legislative Council, government departments, statutory bodies, developers' associations, professional bodies, contractors and subcontractors' associations, and construction trade unions. Sharing the view that 4S can effectively enhance site safety, they expressed support for the DEVB and the CIC in promoting a wide adoption of 4S within the industry on all fronts.

     Following the launching ceremony, representatives from the DEVB, the CIC, and the BD conducted a sharing session to brief the industry on the details of the new support measures for 4S.

     For details of the 4S Labelling Scheme, please visit the following website (www.cic.hk/4s-labelling/en/home).