The aluminium industry has spent decades proving that safety improves fastest when companies learn together. Writing in the Safety Guide 2026 edition of Aluminium International Today, the IAI’s Dr Paul Marsh and Dr Jim Wesdock examine what the data now shows, and where the next gains will come from.
The easy victories are behind us
The IAI’s safety benchmarking now covers 29 years of continuous data across the primary aluminium sector. Each year, members report worked hours and incident data across refining, mining, smelting and associated operations. It is more than a compliance exercise; it is the industry’s memory bank.That record tells an encouraging but complicated story. Reported incident frequency rates fell sharply from the start of data collection in 1999 until around 2005. After that, the decline slowed and the rates plateaued. Lost time injuries, in particular, have stayed broadly constant for close to two decades.
Mature safety systems cannot rely on headline numbers alone. When the rates flatten, the question changes from “are we improving?” to “which decisions, exposures and failures in critical controls still allow serious incidents to happen?”
What the database reveals
The IAI’s incident database runs from early 1997 to early 2026 and holds 5,507 safety-related incidents, including 293 fatalities. Within that record the danger points are clear: work at height, mobile equipment, and road, rail or port transportation recur again and again, linked to falls, falling or moving objects, crushing and vehicle impact.Risk follows the work, not the payroll
One of the strongest signals is about contractors. They account for 28.6% of all recordable incidents, but 44.5% of fatalities. That does not make contractor work inherently less safe. It shows that the boundary between company systems and contractor execution is a critical risk interface, where fatal exposure can emerge when roles, authority and control of work are not aligned. Managing it well is central to fatality prevention.From database to intelligence
Since July 2023, the IAI’s online safety incident database has made anonymised reports searchable and filterable. More than 1,850 are already online, and the archive is growing. Artificial intelligence is now being used to turn that history into insight, not to replace professional judgement, but to accelerate pattern recognition: the recurring weak signals and combinations of task and hazard that precede serious outcomes.Towards a common language
A quieter barrier to learning is language. Members use different terms for serious incidents and judge severity differently, so two companies can classify the same event in different ways. A proposed work programme would harmonise how incidents are categorised and investigated, supported by a secure database and real-time dashboard, so the industry can compare like with like.The next curve
The central lesson is that the industry’s safety journey is not finished. Half a century of collaboration has built a culture of open sharing, and that openness is itself a competitive advantage, because rare fatal events cannot be understood company by company. The evidence base has to be pooled.The next decade will test whether the sector can move from reporting lagging indicators to identifying and controlling the pathways that lead to serious injury and death. The industry has come a long way. The data show how much further it can still go.
Adapted from “Beyond the plateau” by Dr Paul Marsh, Health, Safety and Environment Program Manager at the IAI, and Dr Jim Wesdock, occupational health physician and retired Global Health Director for Alcoa, first published in the Safety Guide 2026 edition of Aluminium International Today.
