Why has the design and construction sector been slow to adopt an ethical model?

Why has the design and construction sector been slow to adopt an ethical model that insists on supply chains clean of forced labor? One explanation is that the construction industry is one of the largest industrial sectors in the world, the most disaggregated, and least modernized.  

Construction accounts for more than 11 percent of global GDP. It is disaggregated because a myriad of local actors and decision-makers persist even as finance and materials supply chains become globalized. There have been many different waves of change in the construction industry-industrialization, the explosion of specialists, the liability crisis, globalization, sustainability, and digitally-enhanced technology. All of these disruptions create opportunity, but they also increased disaggregation.  

Systemic change within the construction sector is also difficult because of its very nature. While the stereotype of the construction industry is either one of global mega-builders or of regionally-based medium-sized enterprises (which could not only bear the costs of adopting new technology but also train their staff and monitor implementation), in the United States, 75 percent of construction firms are owned and operated by one individual with no payroll, working either as freelance contractors or reliant on subcontractors for additional labor. Large international firms are not the only firms that are impacted by forced labor in the supply chain: a major homebuilder in Minnesota was rocked by allegations that subcontractors had held their workers in servitude through beatings and threats of deportation, including threats made to a hospitalized worker in order to cover up a serious jobsite accident.