Our Health, Safety and Wellbeing Vision

"Berkeley is committed to operating incident and injury free and aspires to have a positive health impact on all those employed and affected by what we do."

Our Health, Safety and Wellbeing Objectives

To continue to strengthen risk management in all areas
To demonstrate enhanced commitment through leadership
To raise standards and promote excellence
To actively engage with our supply chain and workforce
To drive cultural change through the business and influence the industry
To promote Health & Wellbeing arrangements
To ensure clear and effective communication at every level across the business
To demonstrate legal compliance

The Berkeley Group’s Health, Safety and Wellbeing Policy (available here) applies to all employees, direct operations and the on-site activities of our contractors. It sets out what we will do to meet our objectives, ensuring that the highest levels of Health, Safety and Wellbeing standards are being met. This Policy is supported by Health and Safety Management System (HSMS) Standards establishing the Health, Safety and Wellbeing requirements that apply across all sites. These Standards are incorporated into contractor procurement and contractual processes; all contractors approved to work for the Berkeley Group will have signed to accept our Management Rules for Contractors incorporating HSMS Standards alongside the Sustainability Standard for Contractors.

Central to our ongoing improvements are three core corporate programmes which are designed to provide a platform for actively delivering Health, Safety & Wellbeing enhancements across all our operations. A summary of their purpose is set out below:

Good Order

To raise standards of the physical working environment to the highest possible, thus creating a work environment which has reduced risk, allows for efficient production and is appreciated by the workforce.

Good Work

To promote a positive culture and develop attitudes and behaviour. To focus on hazards and risks, work planning and delivery through effective management and supervision, thus reducing the potential for injury.

Good Health

To improve Health and Wellbeing awareness and promote enhanced arrangements to create conditions which have a positive impact on Health and Wellbeing in the working environment.

The principles of these programmes are applied Group-wide to all our operations and are delivered through local arrangements within each business.

Performance

Over recent years our Health, Safety & Wellbeing strategy has been recognised as providing a sector-leading approach. This is reinforced through the leadership work that Berkeley actively does externally and through our strong performance demonstrated by accident rates and achievement of awards.

Berkeley Group’s Annual Injury Incidence Rate (AIIR) per 100,000 people (covering both direct employees and on-site contractors) is 102, compared to the construction sector average of 306 (Health and Safety Executive (HSE), November 2024). This is well below our AIIR target of 250. Our Accident Frequency Rate (AFR) per 100,000 hours is 0.05.

Measures that Berkeley implements to help us to achieve positive health, safety and wellbeing outcomes include:

Identifying all high-risk locations and activities, including those in respect of potential harm to the public.
Requiring all contractors to meet health and safety competency criteria throughout prequalification and tender processes.
Ensuring all workers have site inductions and any further information and training needed for their work.
Evaluating site activities (including contractor works) against our HSMS Standards on an ongoing basis via dedicated Group assessment team audits. This is in addition to audits being conducted by operating company Directors twice a month.
Providing workers with access to an intervention app to raise issues, enabling them to participate in workplace health and safety management and improvement.
Instilling a focus on key high-risk activities, such as Working at Height, through targeted campaigns. These complement our core corporate programmes of Good Order, Good Work and Good Health.
Promoting mental health awareness to reduce stigma, training employees to be mental health first aiders and upskilling managers on mental health risks.
Minimising safety risks for residents through the implementation of robust Building Safety and Quality Assurance arrangements, in addition to achieving Gold status under RoSPA’s Safer by Design framework across many of our developments. This helps to make new homes safer to live in, particularly for young people and the elderly.
Being an active member of industry bodies such as BuildUK and the Construction Leadership Council (CLC) who seek to raise standards across the industry, including through enhancing training.