Fire insurance and the ‘sustainable building’ 131
structural integrity of the building may be put in sufficient doubt to prevent
fire brigades from fulfilling their statutory duties. The building’s very durability may thus be compromised, with ramifications on life, property, the
environment, and business continuation. From this other side of the fire
politics, ‘sustainability is just an excuse used by the building designers and
owners for why fire protection measures are excluded’ (Carter 2011, p. 52).
A building that is so heavily dependent on sprinklers and other active fire
prevention measures, and that has been stripped of those passive fire protection features that would mitigate the damage in the event of sprinkler
failure, is a building bearing excessive fire risks. In short, ‘(e)nergy efficiency
measures, a critical component of green construction, may increase the risk
of fire substantially’ (Tidwell & Murphy 2010, p. 7).
This begins to open out the conflicts concealed behind the apparently
clear-cut issue of sustainability. For the fire insurers and their allies there is
an alternative conception of sustainability, one that deals in durability, life
chances, and resilience. In essence, it is a more generalised definition of sustainability. Thus leading global fire insurer FM Global speaks of ‘sustainability in general,’ by which is meant ‘the protection not only of properties
and their assets, but also of people, their livelihoods, the environment, the
local community, the economy’ (McGrath 2008, p. 3). It is this opposition
to identifying sustainability with fire protection minimalism, that distinguishes the insurers’ more expansive (but still economised) definition of
sustainability.
The insurers’ approach to sustainability is just as much predicated on
securing economic gain as is that of the developers: insurance after all is the
capitalisation of risk (Ewald 1992). But where developers have an economic
focus on reducing the capital expenditures in construction and the operating
costs of their buildings, insurers have an economic focus on mitigating the risks
that might befall the buildings they guarantee. To insurers the durability of
the buildings in question is therefore of prime importance and like developers the insurers have deployed a green vocabulary to give their traditional
economic concerns with property protection an aura of universality. For
insurers, only when both passive and active fire prevention measures are
optimised, rather than minimised, will a building have reached the apex of
sustainability. Clearly, the discourse of sustainability functions here as a
discursive means in the pursuit of very long established interests.
This is highlighted by the contrast with the concerns of the insurers’ key
allies the fire services, for whom durability and resilience are similarly central components of their approach to sustainability. While insurers have a
shared economic interest with the passive fire-protection industry, fire services are motivated not by economic gain, but by their statutory responsibility to protect life and property, as well as by their concern with the safety
of firefighters themselves. The contrast is instructive, but all of this, and the
insurer’s vision, are brought into sharper focus once we move to the methodological dimension of sustainability.
structural integrity of the building may be put in sufficient doubt to prevent
fire brigades from fulfilling their statutory duties. The building’s very durability may thus be compromised, with ramifications on life, property, the
environment, and business continuation. From this other side of the fire
politics, ‘sustainability is just an excuse used by the building designers and
owners for why fire protection measures are excluded’ (Carter 2011, p. 52).
A building that is so heavily dependent on sprinklers and other active fire
prevention measures, and that has been stripped of those passive fire protection features that would mitigate the damage in the event of sprinkler
failure, is a building bearing excessive fire risks. In short, ‘(e)nergy efficiency
measures, a critical component of green construction, may increase the risk
of fire substantially’ (Tidwell & Murphy 2010, p. 7).
This begins to open out the conflicts concealed behind the apparently
clear-cut issue of sustainability. For the fire insurers and their allies there is
an alternative conception of sustainability, one that deals in durability, life
chances, and resilience. In essence, it is a more generalised definition of sustainability. Thus leading global fire insurer FM Global speaks of ‘sustainability in general,’ by which is meant ‘the protection not only of properties
and their assets, but also of people, their livelihoods, the environment, the
local community, the economy’ (McGrath 2008, p. 3). It is this opposition
to identifying sustainability with fire protection minimalism, that distinguishes the insurers’ more expansive (but still economised) definition of
sustainability.
The insurers’ approach to sustainability is just as much predicated on
securing economic gain as is that of the developers: insurance after all is the
capitalisation of risk (Ewald 1992). But where developers have an economic
focus on reducing the capital expenditures in construction and the operating
costs of their buildings, insurers have an economic focus on mitigating the risks
that might befall the buildings they guarantee. To insurers the durability of
the buildings in question is therefore of prime importance and like developers the insurers have deployed a green vocabulary to give their traditional
economic concerns with property protection an aura of universality. For
insurers, only when both passive and active fire prevention measures are
optimised, rather than minimised, will a building have reached the apex of
sustainability. Clearly, the discourse of sustainability functions here as a
discursive means in the pursuit of very long established interests.
This is highlighted by the contrast with the concerns of the insurers’ key
allies the fire services, for whom durability and resilience are similarly central components of their approach to sustainability. While insurers have a
shared economic interest with the passive fire-protection industry, fire services are motivated not by economic gain, but by their statutory responsibility to protect life and property, as well as by their concern with the safety
of firefighters themselves. The contrast is instructive, but all of this, and the
insurer’s vision, are brought into sharper focus once we move to the methodological dimension of sustainability.