The Development Bureau today launched the Smart Site Safety System Labelling Scheme (4S Labelling Scheme) and a series of relevant measures with the Construction Industry Council to drive a wider adoption of 4S in the industry for providing a safe working environment for site personnel.

Speaking at the scheme’s launch ceremony, Secretary for Development 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.

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 will introduce a 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 an 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 scheme, the council will issue the labels to those approved sites with proper usage of 4S. The issued label will be placed in a conspicuous place around the construction sites for identification and ease of monitoring.

It is expected that around 500 worksites, representing more than 60% 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.

Regarding subsidising the application of 4S in private works projects, the scope of support of the Construction Innovation & Technology Fund will be extended to cover relevant additional expenses in various aspects of adopting 4S.

These include upgrading the network capacity, additional manpower to be employed for maintenance and technical support, and helping applicants obtain quotations for commonly used 4S products in advance from suppliers arising from the use of 4S.

Click here for details of the scheme.