Study on Mitigation Finds that Updated Codes Save Lives
The National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) released the Natural Hazard Mitigation Saves: 2018 Interim Report at their annual conference, Building Innovation 2019. The study found that adopting the 2018 International Codes (I-Codes) generates a national benefit of $11 for every $1 invested. The I-Codes are the most widely used and adopted set of building safety codes in the world.
This report follows a multi-year study on natural hazard mitigation and comes more than a decade after NIBS’ original report on mitigation. The project team studied flood risk, hurricane wind hazards and earthquake risk. They found that the national mitigation benefit-cost ratio associated with code adoption is $6 to $1 for floods, $10 to $1 for hurricanes, and $12 to $1 for earthquakes, with benefits coming through avoided casualties, post-traumatic stress, property damage, business interruptions and insurance premiums. The results show that all building stakeholders benefit from regularly updated codes – from developers, titleholders and lenders, to tenants and communities. Communities that consistently meet the latest editions of the I-Codes, culminating in the 2018 editions, have added 30,000 new jobs to the construction-materials industry. Last year’s interim report also found that adoption of the 2015 International Wildland Urban Interface Code provided a $4 to $1 mitigation benefit against wildfire risk.