It is a great honour that our Chairman has been invited by MTR Corporation (MTRC) to speak at its Annual Safety Forum on behalf of the HKIE Safety Specialist Committee (SSC).
A sincere thanks to MTRC for organising such a meaningful event and providing a valuable platform for safety professionals, engineers, contractors, consultants and developers to exchange ideas and strengthen our collective commitment to safety excellence.
During the presentation, we shared the fundamental concepts of Design for Safety (DfS), emphasising the importance of empathy, first-person perspective (POV) thinking, and shared responsibility among all project stakeholders. Safety should never be an afterthought. Through thoughtful engineering design from project inception driven by clients’ initiatives, through fabrication, logistics, installation, commissioning, operation and maintenance (O&M), risks can be eliminated or significantly reduced before workers are exposed to them.
We firmly believe that many accidents can be prevented, and one day potentially eliminated, if we collectively embrace DfS as a core project value rather than merely a compliance requirement.
As Chairman of HKIE SSC and Principal of HKIC, George Au strongly encourages all industry stakeholders to take immediate action by investing in DfS training and competency development. Programmes such as the HKIC’s “Design for Safety Master Class” provide a practical pathway for enhancing organisational capability. We would also encourage project teams to participate in the HKIE SSC’s “Design for Safety Excellence Award”, which recognises outstanding practices and innovations in safer design.
We were delighted to see overwhelming support from the industry, with more than 90% of major stakeholders participating either in person or online. This demonstrates the industry’s strong commitment towards building a safer and healthier construction environment.
We were also deeply impressed by the achievements shared during the forum, particularly an MTRC property that attained over 4 million man-hours without a reportable accident, as well as another MTRC property becoming the first recipient of the CIC’s 4S Labelled Scheme (4SLS) recognition. These accomplishments clearly demonstrate that safety excellence is achievable when leadership, culture and innovation come together.
Once again, thank you to MTRC for leading by example and continuously driving safety culture across the industry. Together, through leadership, design innovation and collective responsibility, we can move closer to our shared vision of a future with zero harm.
- HKIE SSC DfS Excellence Award 2026: View details
- HKIC Design for Safety Master Class: View programme
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