The developer has pledged to work with its supply chain to reduce the risk of workers being exposed to carcinogens after making a pledge to IOSH's No Time to Lose campaign.
More than 60 organisations across the world have vowed to take direct action to prevent occupational cancers through No Time to Lose, while dozens of other businesses have expressed support for the initiative.
In making its own No Time to Lose pledge, Richard Travers, Regional Safety Manager at Berkeley Homes (South East London) Ltd, said: "We support IOSH's No Time to Lose campaign, with its focus on getting important information out to businesses to help tackle occupational cancer.
"We will work with our supply chain to come up with practical solutions to reduce exposure to carcinogenic substances, to promote health awareness, and to enhance arrangements to improve the health of direct and indirect employees. This will involve the implementation of a health and wellbeing programme branded 'Good Health'."
Berkeley Homes (South East London) Ltd is currently involved in a number of major home-building projects across the capital.
Schemes in progress include the construction of a 68-storey tower at Canary Wharf, a 43-storey tower in Croydon and a major mixed-use at One Tower Bridge.
Richard, who is a Chartered Member of IOSH, said the company aimed to build on its existing work to protect workers from exposure to dusts and UV rays onsite through No Time to Lose.
He said: "We started a dust-awareness campaign a while ago to educate our contractors and make them aware of the health risks associated with exposure to construction dusts at work.
"It is now part of the procurement process that contractors need to agree to provide their workers with ways of extracting and capturing the dust as the work takes place. This minimises the amount of dust in the air and eradicates the need for sweeping, which causes a huge amount of dust to become airborne.
"We're also wet plastering walls instead of dry lining as the latter generates masses of dust through the rubbing down process. That is a simple switch that anyone in the trade can make to protect workers, while we also think that wet plastering gives a higher quality finish.
"It is about designing out the risks and building good health and working practices into a project at the very outset."
The No Time to Lose campaign is alerting businesses and employees about five of the most common causes of work-related cancers, and how to take preventative action.
Free in-depth guidance around diesel engine exhaust emissions and solar radiation has been made available in the last year, with IOSH due to launch new materials about silica dust in 2016. Further guidance around asbestos and shift work is also planned.
For further details about No Time to Lose and to download the free campaign materials, visit www.notimetolose.org.uk.
