“Life First” Accreditation for Construction Safety Uniform

Hong Kong’s summer is hot and humid climatic change is expected to worsen. Workers spend their days under the scorching sun and is prone to heat stress and related health problems. Apart from reminding staff to stay hydrated, construction companies can also prepare functional uniforms to allow a more comfortable working condition for frontline staff. The Construction Industry Council is launching the “Construction Safety Uniform X Life First Accreditation Campaign” and is inviting construction organisations and companies to design uniforms that fulfills certain requirements for their staff and prevent accidents at site.

Successfully accredited uniforms will be invited to participant in CIC’s promotion activities and showcase!

Enrolment Process

Participating companies can submit current uniform or update the design with new materials to testing institution.

Companies should submit the below documents to CIC for confirmation:

1) testing report(s) showing the uniforms’ fulfillment of requirements

2) a full set of uniform (including a short sleeve tshirt, long sleeve tshirt and long pants)

3) Introduction of uniform (within 1,000 words, the introduction may cover design concept of the uniform and anti-heat stress functions)

Upon completion, CIC will issue accreditation documents to participating companies and invite companies to join related promotion and exhibition activities.

Participation Requirement

Enrolment from construction companies or construction related companies only.Construction companies may choose to partner with their own choice of uniform producer, however, the participating entity in this campaign must be a construction-related company

Each participating company should submit at least one set of uniform design that includes a short sleeve tshirt, long sleeve tshirt and long pants. Each company can submit up to 3 sets of uniform designs to acquire the Life First logo.

Construction Safety Uniform Requirement

Participating uniforms must comply with relevant requirements on moisture management, air permeability and retroreflective strap etc. Participating company should also commit to prepare the uniform for all frontline staff

Part A: Thermal-moisture properties

	Judging criteria	Recommendation	Test method / standard
1	Weight	Weight per unit area (g/cm²) Shirt: 130-200 Trousers: 130-300	ASTM D 3776
2	Thickness	Shirt: 0.5-0.9(mm) Trousers: around 0.4-1.0(mm)	ASTM D 1777
3	Air permeability	Air resistance (KPa s/m) Shirt: ≤ 0.3 Trousers: ≤ 1.0	ASTM D737-04
4	Overall Moisture Management Capacity	OMMC of shirts and trousers ≥ 0.4 (Grade 3)	AATCC 195
5	Water vapour permeability	>550 (g/m2/day)	ASTM E96 Procedure B - Water Method (正杯)
6	Design-related	Any aspects that can enhance thermal and moisture transfer (e.g., mesh fabric on the sides of the body; meshed retroreflective strip, etc.)	N/A
7	Loose-fitting	Avoid that is too loose as it may be entangled in the moving parts of machines	N/A
8	Material	Cotton, polyester (e.g., coolmax), or blended fabrics	N/A

Part B: Functional properties

	Judging criteria	Recommendation	Test method
1	Safety retroreflective strip	1) The minimum required area of retroreflective material is 0.13 m²; 2) The retroreflective material shall encircle the torso, trouser legs, and, where applicable, the sleeves; 3) Bands of retroreflective material shall be not less than 50 mm wide.	N/A
2	UV protection factor	UPF ≥40	AS/NZS 4399:1996
3	Anti-Abrasion	≤5% after 15000 cycles	ASTM D4966

Contact person of testing institutes

CIC has contacted the below 3 testing institutes to offer testing packages for the campaign:

SGS Hong Kong
Fiona Fok
☎️2334 4481
📧[email protected]

BUREAU VERITAS CONSUMER PRODUCTS SERVICES
Vanessa Ngan
☎️6113 5350
📧[email protected]

Intertek
Chris Lam
☎️3008 2099
📧[email protected]

Participating companies may also provide test reports done by other testing institutes.

Guideline for logo printing

Successfully accredited uniforms will be granted the right to print the Life First logo on the uniforms, printing requirement as below:

T-shirts

Logo should be printed 1 cm from the edge of the uniform’s left sleeve, facing outside
Logo should be at least 8cm wide in its original proportion
Companies can choose to print in single or multicolor
Logo can be printed with heat transfer or sewn on

Long pants