The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) supports the development, adoption, and enforcement of model building codes as a key method to protect public health, safety, and economic vitality.

The purpose of a building code is to establish minimum requirements necessary to protect public health, safety and welfare in the built environment. Model building codes provide for protection from fire, structural collapse, general deterioration, as well as extreme loads related to man-made and natural hazards. Safe buildings are achieved through code-based design and construction practices in concert with a code administration program that ensures compliance. Model codes serve to keep construction costs down by establishing uniformity in the construction industry. This uniformity permits building and materials manufacturers to do business on a larger scale — statewide, regionally, nationally or internationally. This larger scale, in turn, creates cost savings for the end consumer. Codes also help protect real estate investments, commercial and personal, by providing a minimum level of construction quality.

Experienced volunteer professionals work together and develop model codes under a multi-step process. Most professional engineering organizations maintain code development committees that initiate code provisions based on the practice in their technical areas and these are often augmented by university-based research. Topics for code provisions are often introduced in case study reports or research papers. In time, many of these provisions are gathered together and published as design guidelines. Eventually the guidelines are transformed into standards and incorporated into the model code. ASCE, as a premiere American National Standards Institute (ANSI) approved standards organization, develops and maintains many of the standards referenced or incorporated in the model codes. Through a thoughtful and extensive process, ASCE assures that each standard represents a broad consensus of the related professional community.

The standards developed by the U.S. voluntary consensus standards system empower our nation domestically and globally. For many years, local, state and federal governments have maintained a strong and effective reliance on the non-government sector for development and maintenance of the standards at use across all sectors of our economy.

Legislative bodies are not obligated to adopt model building safety or fire prevention codes, and may write their own code or portions of a code. A model code does not have legal standing until it is adopted as law by a legislative body (state legislature, county board, city council, etc.). When adopted as law, owners of property within the boundaries of the adopting jurisdiction are required to comply with the referred codes. Because codes are updated, existing structures usually are required to meet the code that was enforced when the property was built. The primary application of a building code is to regulate new construction. Updated building codes usually only apply to an existing building if the building undergoes reconstruction, rehabilitation, or alteration, or if the occupancy of the existing building changes, as defined by the locally adopted building code.

Responsible building is essential to assure safety, durability and to reduce vulnerability to future hazards. Traditionally, design practice and building codes have been the responsibility of the local communities. Unfortunately, many of the nation's cities have not been built under mandatory code provisions. Until 1994 there were three major model code-writing bodies in the United States and their provisions were inconsistent and based on different generations of understanding. The three organizations banded together and formed a single national organization for the development and promulgation of model codes.

Hurricane Katrina demonstrated a high level of interdependence between the viability of local cities and the national economy. The traditional assumption that local jurisdictions could determine the level of safety to which they would build has yielded to the recognition that uniform national standards are needed to assure that the economic impact to the nation is controlled when a catastrophic event occurs. These national standards are best delivered in a national model code that can be adopted by local jurisdictions.

ASCE Policy Statement 525
First Approved in 2008