Rethinking Safety Performance & ESG Measurement Frameworks

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards have shaped corporate investment in recent years, but many such ratings and standards use outdated methodologies to measure workplace safety. In the article "Safety Performance Measurement in Environmental, Social & Governance Frameworks," Exponent's Elif Erkal and coauthors, including academics and industry professionals from the Construction Safety Research Alliance (CSRA), outline new, more accurate methods for measuring workplace safety. The article was published in the July 2024 issue of the Professional Safety Journal of the American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP).

In their critique of the current state of ESG reporting, the authors argue that many of today's safety measurements rely on outdated and misaligned metrics like injury rates, which do not reflect modern safety science. To combat this challenge, the article proposes alternative safety metrics that are statistically valid and aligned to organizational values and practices.

From the publication: "The time for changing the way we measure and report safety performance is now, and it is our responsibility as safety professionals to help bring about that change."