Towards a systems approach to built asset safety: challenges and an agenda

The safety of built assets is critically important, yet it is often approached in construction research and practice through a narrow lens focused on technical compliance and procedural risk mitigation. This contrasts with contemporary safety science, which frames safety as an emergent, system-level outcome shaped by complex socio-technical interactions. To address this gap, this paper introduces the Integrated Systems Approach to Lifecycle Safety as a conceptual foundation for construction professionals to rethink how safety is conceived and managed throughout the lifecycle of built assets. Drawing on literature in systems integration, the paper critiques the current delivery-oriented focus of integration practices that reinforce compartmentalisation and limit cross-system coordination. Integrated Systems Approach to Lifecycle Safety is not presented as a prescriptive framework but as a directional concept encouraging a more holistic, adaptive approach to safety. The paper identifies 23 non-exhaustive interrelated challenges across five types of integration templates – product, lifecycle, regulatory, contractual, and digital – grouped into three intersecting domains: conceptual orientation, practical orientation, and capabilities. These domains are proposed as critical areas for collective action, offering a foundation for future research, practice, and policy that reframes safety as a dynamic and continuously assured system-level concern.