Safety clutter: An attribute-based conceptualization and taxonomy for diagnosis

Serious injuries and fatalities (SIF) in construction have plateaued despite decades of investment in safety management systems. Many organizations contend with expanding safety processes that feel impractical, duplicative, and weakly connected to operational risk control. This has raised concern that some safety effort functions as "safety clutter:" work that consumes time and resources without improving safety. Yet, without an empirical conceptualization and classification, clutter is hard to diagnose and remove safely.

This study addresses this gap by conceptualizing safety clutter and developing a taxonomy for construction. Three expert focus groups with experienced construction safety practitioners were conducted, along with rapid ethnography across 11 active jobsites. Thematic analysis was applied to conceptualize clutter and organize recurring patterns into clear categories. Triangulation between focus-group findings and rapid ethnography was then used to refine and validate category boundaries and definitions.

Safety clutter is best understood as waste within a safety effort that, as implemented, consumes attention, effort, and resources without improving the safety of work. Two overarching forms are identified: conditional clutter, where an otherwise useful effort becomes clutter because of its design, delivery, access, or use; and pure clutter, where the effort is inherently low value. Conditional clutter comprises three families (Excessive, Irrelevant, Inaccessible), while pure clutter comprises one (Invalid). Across these families, 11 clutter types are defined with diagnostic cues and empirical examples.

The taxonomy provides a shared language and supports more disciplined decluttering by clarifying what the waste is, where it resides, and how it can be recognized in practice.