Transparent safety data reporting

Monitoring and reporting on occupational health and safety indicators plays an important part in driving performance improvement.

ICMM produces an annual mining safety report covering the fatality and injury data of its members. The aim of which is to encourage information and knowledge sharing among members, and catalyse learning across the industry.

ICMM safety data

For ICMM member companies, any harm is unacceptable. While mining is an inherently hazardous activity, this does not mean that accidents are inevitable. Health and safety are core values guiding an unwavering commitment to the wellbeing of workers, their families, communities and wider society.

Year	Fatalities	Fatality Frequency Rate*
2021	43	0.017
2020	44	0.018
2019	287	0.118
2018	50	0.022
2017	50[1]	0.026[1]
2016	63	0.032
2015	60	0.027
2014	56	0.024
2013	91	0.035
2012	90	0.033

^{* per 1 million hours worked}

Indicators

Prevention of negative occupational health and safety outcomes is both a key moral imperative and an important business value driver. Health and safety indicators are a key measure of performance and an effective identifier of problem areas. Analysis of this data can stimulate actions and reinforce improvements in behaviour.

Historically, the most commonly used indicators for health and safety are those that measure after the fact data. These lagging indicators record data on harm after an incident has occurred. This data is the basis for the ICMM’s safety data reporting. ICMM has a set of standard health and safety performance indicators.

Ideally, a hazard will be prevented before it occurs by understanding and managing the circumstances that could give rise to it. These leading indicators give advanced warning that help companies identify whether proactive risk-lowering decisions and actions are being effective and why a desired result has or has not yet been achieved.

Leading indicators are an important element of critical control management and are largely specific to particular, evolving operating environments. This can make general comparisons problematic as it’s unlikely that a single set of leading indicators can be used in perpetuity within an organisation or appropriately across organisations. Our guidance on critical control management focuses on how leading indicators can be used to monitor real-time performance and respond accordingly. ICMM has also developed an overview on leading indicators for the mining and metals industry.

While recording actual incidents of harm is important, it’s vital that mining and metals companies invest in critical controls to better fulfil their responsibility of protecting the health and safety of workers, their families, communities and society.

Read Our Safety Data Reports