The USGBC’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system promotes sustainable construction; however, despite the system’s focus on occupant health and comfort, LEED turns a blind eye to worker safety. The building practice, by the nature of its scale, will always rely on mass labor for construction. Yet from early monuments like the Egyptian pyramids or the Great Wall of China to recent slavery charges in the UAE documented by the Human Rights Watch, architecture has always had a complicated relationship with labor rights.

Should issues of worker health and safety fall beneath the purview of LEED? The simple answer is yes.

By its own mission statement, which promotes “strategies for better environmental and health performance,” LEED gives equal weight to traditional green issues and human health and comfort. Yet a 2006 study from Oregon State University and East Carolina University of 86 LEED and non-LEED projects found no difference in the safety performance between the two types of construction.[1] While LEED attempts to stride forward in questions of occupant health, it stays stagnant in regards to worker safety.

The LEED 2009 credit rating system makes frequent mention of occupant comfort, while it completely lacks a section for workers’ well-being. Many who are unfamiliar with LEED’s infinitely detailed credit system may believe that the USGBC is only interested in issues of energy savings, carbon emissions, or renewable materials. Yet designing for occupant comfort is rewarded in everything from tobacco smoke control, air delivery monitoring, to individually controllable lighting systems. LEED however, only makes mention of worker safety in one credit (IEQ credit 3.1) which seems to be an afterthought. No section comprehensively tackles the issues that are specifically relevant to construction workers. As such, the “health performance” promoted by the mission statement only refers to future occupants. Including construction worker safety in the LEED purview would more justly fulfill its own stated goals.

Worker safety could be another opportunity for the USGBC to advertise the financial returns of their rating system. (LEED also prides itself on the increased “productivity” of occupants in green buildings as a market benefit.) Workers on all types of construction (LEED or conventional) face higher rates of injury and death than other professions according to the National Safety Council, which costs the industry over $15 billion dollars per year.[2] No positive recognition system yet exists that would reward contractors for safe work; LEED could capitalize on these cost- and life-saving issues.

Additionally, LEED, because of its influence, may also be uniquely responsible for instituting a worker safety recognition program. Some workers, according to a case study by Sathyanarayanan Rajendran, who has done the foremost research on these issues, point to LEED construction as creating new dangers in the workplace. Sorting and diverting construction waste from landfill (MR credit 2) requires more material handling and exposure.[3] A list generated by Center for Construction Research and Training brings to light other dangers specifically generated by green construction such as exposure to toxics in solar power, falls and electrical risks in wind power, exposure to isocyanate in weatherization and exposure to silica and nanomaterials used in some LEED projects.[4]

Still, this is not say that LEED construction is worse than conventional construction, only that it is no better than conventional construction. New dangers replace the old. Even if “green” jobs make no new dangers, LEED is wrong to ignore, or deem negligible, the working conditions of those who construct these buildings when some of the risks are created by its own the credit system.

The most potent question remains: What does sustainability mean after all? Few definitions of sustainability address sociological issues. Should “sustainable” also mean sustaining the communities that we build in? LEED has the opportunity to recognize that, despite preserving the ecological environment, “sustainable” buildings can threaten lives as well.

It is, after all, lives at stake. The MGM CityCenter in Las Vegas, an $8.5 billion dollar project constructed in 2008, includes six LEED gold rated buildings.[6] Yet six workers died during construction, a rash of tragic deaths that resulted in union picketing and workers refusing to continue on unsafe job sites.[7] Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) responded by opening a new office in Las Vegas which will provide more oversight in the future; yet LEED accreditation went forward unhindered. While the future occupants of the Mirage may enjoy higher productivity and comfort from their individually controlled lighting or thermal systems (credits 6.1, 6.2), the workers who constructed these buildings toiled in life-risking conditions.

In some international LEED projects, the story worsens. The conditions in Las Vegas were shocking and caused outrage from the public sector. Yet LEED, unlike OSHA, building codes, or institutional checks on workplace safety, knows no international bounds.

Five museums on the newly constructed Saadiyat Island, off the coast of Abu Dhabi, including a branch of the Louvre and the Guggenheim, are all seeking “the highest” LEED certification according to AECOM, the cultural district’s program manager.[8] Another thing that these building have in common? They are also on the watch list released by the Human Rights Watch in 2009, which documents the indentured servitude — which in many of these cases may also be called slavery — of workers, including suicides and horrific daily conditions. These same buildings may also bear the shining plaque of LEED certification. According to the USGBC in 2009, United Arab Emirates has 656 certified or registered projects[9] — more than any country other than the United States, followed by China at 251.

“Based on interviews with migrant workers, and meetings with UAE and French government officials,” the HRW published in a press release, “as well as officers of international institutions and corporations with projects on the island, the Human Rights Watch report documents a cycle of abuse that leaves migrant workers deeply indebted, badly paid, and unable to stand up for their rights or even quit their jobs.”[10] Saadiyat Island is ironically billed as the “Island of Happiness.”

At the barest minimum, LEED should institute the United States or European worker safety regulations (OSHA) as a prerequisite for compliance, just as it has adopted other existing standards (like ASHRAE) into its code.

Beyond OSHA, researcher Rajendran also created Sustainable Construction Safety and Health Rating System. The system consists of 50 health and safety elements which were decided upon after a Delphi survey of construction workers and other industry professionals. The system is unprecedented because it requires involvement from all four major parties in the construction of a building (owner/developer, designer, general contractor, sub-contractors) and gives credits for accomplishing requirements such as “Requir[ing] site specific safety program” and “Top management investigates every safety incident” and “Safety incentive based on zero-incident objective.”[12]

While this system may not be the final word in worker safety recognition, it is proof that an objective, evaluative system can be written. In the same way that LEED makes “green” design more understandable and approachable for the architecture industry, it also has the power to influence conventional building practices by shedding light on these issues.

The USGBC is in a unique position of power. Once, green design was regarded as costly effort with no immediate payback, now LEED has become a prestigious certificate which can attract tenants, garner publicity, and even help get discounts from government agencies. It’s no secret that many owners and developers clamor to attain LEED certification whether or not they truly care about sustainability; this has been proven as LEED-rated buildings checked years later for performance frequently do not out perform their non-rated peers, and in some cases, significantly under-perform them.[11] Still: according to Michelle Moore, the USGBC’s senior vice president for policy and public affairs, 10% of new construction in the United States is LEED certified.

What does sustainability mean after all? Developers and designers should be literally and figuratively designing better communities. The architecture industry carries the weight of climate change, almost half of carbon emissions come from buildings. Many have spoken out on the need to create buildings with a lesser environmental footprint. But we can’t just build for future communities — as LEED does with its occupant health standards — we need to also privilege existing communities. A truly sustainable building practice should — for its own interests, financial, ethical and otherwise — harbor good will, maintain a mutually financially lucrative relationship with its workers, and be able continue fiscally, socially, and culturally, as well as ecologically. Workers rights and safety should be a pivotal point for any sustainability discussion: the environment is not just the air, ground, and water, but the people with whom we work and live.

Ann Lui, a recent Cornell University graduate, is a Chicago-based writer and
designer. She is working at an architecture firm and has also written for Architect's Newspaper, Metropolis Magazine POV, and ArchNewsNow.

[1] Sathyanarayanan Rajendran, “Sustainable Construction Safety and Health Rating System” (Oregon State University, 2006).
[2] National Safety Council (NSC) (2006). Injury Facts 2005-2005 Edition. Itasca, Illinois.
[3] Sathyanarayanan Rajendran, “Sustainable Construction Safety and Health Rating System” (Oregon State University, 2006).
[4] Chen, Helen. "ELCOSH : Green & Healthy Jobs." ELCOSH - Electronic Library of Construction Occupational Safety and Health. The Center for Construction Research and Training, 2010. Web. 19 May 2011.
[5] Ibid.
[6] CityCenter Las Vegas. Communications. City of Gold: Vegas' CityCenter Earns Six LEED Gold Certifications. Press Room. 20 Nov. 2009. Web. 19 May 2011.
[7] Las Vegas Sun, Construction Deaths: Fatal Construction Accidents on the Strip (2010, accessed May 4 2010)
[8] AECOM. Saadiyat Island Cultural District. AECOM Program Management. AECOM, 2010. Web. 19 May 2011.
[9] Hincha-Ownby, Melissa. "USGBC Releases Updated LEED Statistics." Mother Nature Network. MNN, LLC, 28 Dec. 2009. Web. 19 May 2011.
[10] Human Rights Watch. UAE: Exploited Workers Building ‘Island of Happiness’. Human Rights Watch. 19 May 2009. Web. 19 May 2011.
[11] Navaroo, Mireya. "Some Buildings Not Living Up to Green Label." New York Times. New York Times, 30 Aug. 2009. Web. 19 May 2011.
[12] Rajendran, pg. 124.