1672 1. CONTEXT AND PROBLEM STATEMENT Mining and metals has historically recorded one of the highest workplace fatality rates of any major industry. In the 10–15 years leading up to 2015, many leading companies made material advances in fatality prevention—most notably by distinguishing injury reduction from fatality elimination, introducing critical risk management, and investing in organisational culture and operating models. Those innovations continued to deliver benefits as they were embedded across operations after 2015. However, from around 2015 onward, corporate HSE strategy and investment attention increasingly shifted toward wider sustainability requirements (ESG, decarbonisation, standards, certification, and disclosure). While important, this shift coincided with a reduction in new fatality prevention development and enterprise-wide improvement energy. Figure 1: ICMM member cumulative fatalities Between 2018 and 2023, several leading companies demonstrated that sustained fatality-free performance was achievable—for example, BHP (2019–22), Newmont (2018–22), and Rio Tinto (2019–23) each delivered unprecedented 4–5 year fatality-free runs. Yet those records were later disrupted. Each organisation subsequently returned to performance levels of one or more fatalities per year. At the same time, ICMM member cumulative fatalities increased for a second consecutive year in 2024. After the industry proved fatality-free consistency was possible, something changed. If mining and metals is to return to—and scale—fatality-free execution, the determinants of past success, the causes of derailment, and the improvements required must be understood. These insights can inform the architecture of the next generation of fatality prevention programs and enable a step-change in industry performance.
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