APAC firms cut severe injuries 74% with integrated risk

Avetta has published its Insights and Impact Report 2026, which found that integrated risk strategies were linked to a 74% reduction in severe injury rates among surveyed APAC organisations.

The report analyses three years of data from 2022 to 2024, examining how nine risk management measures affect safety outcomes across global supply chains. It focuses on severe injuries and fatalities, comparing results across Asia-Pacific, North America, Europe and Latin America.

A central finding is that organisations achieve the strongest safety improvements when they combine multiple risk controls rather than rely on isolated programmes. The biggest gains came from first building a basic health and safety framework, then expanding visibility across the supply chain and linking those measures into a broader system.

That is significant in Australia, where workplace harm remains a persistent issue. Safe Work Australia recorded 188 worker deaths from work-related injuries in 2024, while 146,700 serious workers' compensation claims involving at least one week of lost work were reported in 2023-24.

Regional findings

In APAC, severe injury rates improved by 74% when organisations layered risk management approaches over time. That compared with 20% in North America, 20% in Europe and 52% in Latin America, making APAC the strongest regional result in the study.

Some of the strongest gains came from what the report described as foundational measures, including prequalification, safety audits, insurance verification, worker management and worksite controls. In APAC, organisations that completed Avetta's insurance verification process saw severe injury and fatality rates improve by 36% and 16% respectively, according to the findings.

Another part of the research looked beyond traditional workplace safety controls, finding that broader oversight of sustainability, business and cyber risks can help organisations identify exposures outside standard health and safety functions. APAC organisations that implemented and improved ESG and sustainability risk visibility recorded 41% fewer severe incidents and 37% fewer fatalities on average.

New metric

The report introduces a measure called the global severe injury rate, or GSIR. Avetta said the metric is intended to provide a more consistent basis for comparing serious safety outcomes across regions where definitions and reporting practices differ.

GSIR is presented alongside fatality rates to add context while occupational safety reporting becomes more standardised. Avetta linked the move to the publication of ASTM E2920-26, a standard for recording and benchmarking priority occupational health and safety incidents.

Avetta said it has participated in the development and maintenance of that standard and has begun incorporating its framework into the platform. The report presents GSIR as an interim step while broader reporting standards develop across the industry.

Company view

Arshad Matin, Chief Executive Officer of Avetta, commented on the broader trend identified in the data.

"Supply chains have become increasingly distributed and unpredictable, forcing organisations to navigate risk faster than ever before. Our 2026 report confirms that health and safety performance doesn't improve by simply adding individual programs in a vacuum. The organisations seeing the most dramatic results - and building safer, more resilient operations - are those that shift from a siloed approach to a connected, strategic system. They aren't just managing compliance - they're cultivating a state of readiness," Matin said.

The report also addresses the role of artificial intelligence in risk management, arguing that AI can help identify patterns across different risk signals and support co-ordinated action when used within a broader system of trusted data and controls.

Rather than treating AI as a standalone productivity tool, the report argues it is more useful when applied to supply chain oversight and decision-making in a structured way. It says this can help organisations maintain auditable and explainable visibility across operations.

Matin returned to that theme in a second statement.

"What stands out in the data is that meaningful improvements in health and safety performance aren't driven by individual actions, but by how organisations build and operationalise their overall approach to supply chain risk management. A strong foundation creates consistency, greater visibility brings clarity and a coordinated strategy ensures those elements work together so work can move forward safely, predictably and confidently. When AI is introduced into a system like that, it acts as a force multiplier, turning insight into action at scale," he said.

Avetta said it works with more than 360,000 businesses in over 120 countries, providing a large pool of supplier and hiring client data for analysing safety and risk trends.