It’s a question that keeps coming up. Especially when safety is the reason for an investment.
We hear it as vendors. We hear it inside operations.
What’s the ROI?
It’s not an easy one to answer, and maybe that’s the point. When you’re talking about something designed to prevent harm, save lives, and avoid irreversible outcomes, putting a financial value against it can feel uncomfortable. But it’s a real question. And the people asking it aren’t wrong to do so.
At TOC Europe 2025, I joined a panel titled "Investing in safety innovation and equipment." The conversation was honest. It had to be. Because the pressure to deliver value is everywhere, on suppliers, on internal teams, and on the businesses that carry the risk.
What does it cost not to act?
One of the best responses came from fellow panelist Max Doyle of Doyle Shipping Group. When asked about ROI, he said:
“If you’re worried about spending X on a safety solution, ask yourself how much it costs to deal with one, two, or three serious incidents. You can’t put a price on a life.”
That struck a chord. Because the reality is, you can actually put a price on inaction.
You can quantify the impact of a fatality. Of a major injury. Of a port-wide shutdown.
You can add up the investigation time, legal exposure, reputational loss, insurance premiums, and delays to operations.
And that’s before considering what it does to trust inside the organisation.
Safety and efficiency are not separate goals
Max made another point worth repeating:
“A safe operation is an efficient operation.”
Some hear that and think it’s too broad. It isn’t. In every industry, avoidable failures create waste. They cause disruption. They force teams to slow down, redo work, or introduce more controls after the fact.
When systems are clear and consistent, and people know what’s expected, the result is not just a safer environment. It’s a more stable and productive one.
Good safety decisions reduce rework. They improve reliability. They avoid distraction.
And that’s where the business case starts to become obvious.
Safety is now a performance metric
What came through clearly at TOC is that external expectations are changing.
Investors want visibility on safety performance. Clients want to know whether you are proactive or reactive. Insurers want evidence of risk maturity. Safety is no longer buried in compliance reports. It is a visible indicator of operational discipline.
The world wants to see that you take safety seriously, not just in policy but also in process, performance, and behaviour.
So how do you answer the ROI question?
You start by reframing it.
The goal isn’t to justify safety spending after something goes wrong. It’s to show what you’re avoiding by getting ahead of the issue.
There are ways to measure it:
- Fewer repeat incidents
- Shorter investigation cycles
- Less unplanned downtime
- Fewer safety actions stuck open
- Stronger reporting culture
- Reduced variation between sites
- Increased workforce confidence
These are not theoretical. These are outcomes COMET customers are already seeing when they apply structure to investigations, train their people well, and follow through with truly ‘preventive’ not just corrective actions.
Helping you make the case
If you are building a case for adopting COMET, we can support you as you build that all-important business case. We’ll help you map your current gaps. Estimate the cost of repeat failure. Show the business impact of inconsistency. And present a clear path to sustained improvement.
Not just in numbers. In outcomes that matter.
If safety and profitability matter to your business, it’s of course worth getting it right.
Explore how COMET helps businesses improve the certainty in their operations.
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