Ethics Provisions Within New Zealand Professional Codes of Conduct, Towards a Construction-Wide Code of Ethics

Professional ethics in construction establish requirements for practitioners to uphold requirements such as acting impartially when carrying out claim certification, avoiding bribes, and maintaining confidentiality of commercially sensitive information. The Society of Construction Law UK published papers in the early 2000s that began exploring the potential for developing a code of ethics for the construction industry. The idea for a construction code of ethics have subsequently been reinforced by calls from academics. The advantage of a code of ethics is that it could cover those providing works and services who are not members of professional bodies and their associated codes of conduct. Ethics requirements contained in professional body codes of conduct are compared with each other, and with the ethics provisions highlighted as important in previous literature. Ethics provisions in codes of conduct were found to collectively cover most of the key ethical values identified in literature. However, variable ethics provisions existed across codes of conduct and individually each lacked coverage with literature in key areas, and some provisions could be made more specific. Findings can inform construction professional bodies about content in the codes of conduct. Codes of conduct also conduct provisions beyond those recommended by literature, including requirements for interpersonal communication, and considering the environment. They can also inform construction-related tertiary education providers about ethics requirements and may help inform the content of any future code of conduct for the construction industry.