DOI: 10.4324/9781003157571-13
10 Fire insurance and the
‘sustainable building’
The environmental politics
of urban fire governance
Pat O’Malley 1
In 2017, a fire destroyed the Grenfell Tower apartment building in London,
killing 72 people and generating global concerns over building fire safety.
In practice, concern had been growing internationally for some time about
the fire safety of building cladding, which eventually was determined to be
the principal factor in that disaster. Similar fires had been recorded in the
recent past such as ‘The Torch’ building blazes in Dubai, both in 2015 and
2017, the Sharjah fire in the UAE in 2012, and the Lacrosse apartment building in Melbourne. Almost immediately after Grenfell, enquiries were established around the world to investigate the issue. In Australia, for example,
the Victorian Cladding Task Force Interim Report (2017) was fairly typical
in focusing on the regulation of the problematic cladding materials themselves. Despite the concerns with cladding, the Task Force surprisingly
reported without comment a ‘widely held view that combustibility standards (of building materials) are too onerous and stifle new product innovation.’ At the same time, the report recognised that performance-based
fire engineering standards did not lay down the law about materials used in
construction, since performance-based engineering:
permits a fire safety engineer to develop a design, involving the use
of combustible cladding, that meets the performance requirements of
the BCA (Building Code of Australia). In other words, that the use or
design of a fire protection system’s facade would otherwise achieve the
same ‘performance standard or outcome’ as a non-combustible facade.
(Victorian Cladding Task Force Interim Report 2017,
p. 11, emphasis added)
The report went on to recommend modification of aspects of the performance-based model and its standards. What is not obvious is that the
report’s acceptance of combustible cladding – provided that it met performance standards – reflected the preferences of one side in a politics of fire
prevention that stretches back many years. In recent times this politics has
centred the environmental concept of sustainability. While this may appear
as progressive in an environmentally conscious world, it will be shown that
10 Fire insurance and the
‘sustainable building’
The environmental politics
of urban fire governance
Pat O’Malley 1
In 2017, a fire destroyed the Grenfell Tower apartment building in London,
killing 72 people and generating global concerns over building fire safety.
In practice, concern had been growing internationally for some time about
the fire safety of building cladding, which eventually was determined to be
the principal factor in that disaster. Similar fires had been recorded in the
recent past such as ‘The Torch’ building blazes in Dubai, both in 2015 and
2017, the Sharjah fire in the UAE in 2012, and the Lacrosse apartment building in Melbourne. Almost immediately after Grenfell, enquiries were established around the world to investigate the issue. In Australia, for example,
the Victorian Cladding Task Force Interim Report (2017) was fairly typical
in focusing on the regulation of the problematic cladding materials themselves. Despite the concerns with cladding, the Task Force surprisingly
reported without comment a ‘widely held view that combustibility standards (of building materials) are too onerous and stifle new product innovation.’ At the same time, the report recognised that performance-based
fire engineering standards did not lay down the law about materials used in
construction, since performance-based engineering:
permits a fire safety engineer to develop a design, involving the use
of combustible cladding, that meets the performance requirements of
the BCA (Building Code of Australia). In other words, that the use or
design of a fire protection system’s facade would otherwise achieve the
same ‘performance standard or outcome’ as a non-combustible facade.
(Victorian Cladding Task Force Interim Report 2017,
p. 11, emphasis added)
The report went on to recommend modification of aspects of the performance-based model and its standards. What is not obvious is that the
report’s acceptance of combustible cladding – provided that it met performance standards – reflected the preferences of one side in a politics of fire
prevention that stretches back many years. In recent times this politics has
centred the environmental concept of sustainability. While this may appear
as progressive in an environmentally conscious world, it will be shown that