Key Takeaways

• Global safety metrics are not comparable today due to inconsistent regional definitions and reporting standards, limiting organizations’ ability to accurately benchmark performance and identify risk.  
• Severity-based lagging indicators (SBLI) provide a stronger, more predictive view of risk than traditional frequency-based metrics, by focusing on high-consequence incidents rather than minor events.  
• ASTM E2920-26 establishes the first standardized global framework for measuring severe safety incidents, enabling consistent data capture, benchmarking, and decision-making across regions.  
• Standardization is critical for effective risk management, allowing organizations to align stakeholders, allocate resources accurately, and proactively address systemic safety issues.  
• GSIR serves as a transitional calculation, helping Avetta begin measuring and benchmarking severe injuries consistently today while industry adoption of ASTM E2920-26 scales.

For global organizations, safety performance should be a universal language. But today, it isn’t.

Instead, companies operating across regions face a fundamental challenge — the metrics used to measure safety are inconsistent, misaligned, and often impossible to compare. What qualifies as a recordable injury in one country may not meet the threshold in another. Even widely used metrics like lost time injury (LTI) vary significantly in how they are defined and applied.

The result is a fragmented view of safety performance — one where leaders lack the clarity and confidence needed to make informed, enterprise-wide decisions.

The problem: no global standard, no global insight

At the core of this challenge is a simple fact: there is no universally adopted global standard for safety measurement.

Organizations with operations in multiple countries must navigate a patchwork of regional definitions and reporting requirements. In the United States, lost time incidents may be recorded after several days away from work, while in other regions, they may be counted immediately. These inconsistencies make it incredibly difficult to compare performance across locations.

Without standardized metrics, organizations struggle to:

• Benchmark safety performance globally
• Identify high-risk regions or operations
• Align leadership around a single version of the truth
  

When the data isn’t consistent, the insights can’t be either.

The second challenge: measuring the wrong things

Even when metrics are consistent within a region, they often fail to capture what matters most.

Traditional safety metrics — like Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) in the USA — tend to focus on lower-severity outcomes. While these metrics provide some visibility, they don’t always reflect the risks that have the greatest potential for harm.

Severity-based lagging indicators (SBLI), by contrast, provide a clearer signal. They focus on serious injuries and high-consequence events, offering deeper insight into where systems are breaking down and where the greatest risks exist.

These indicators are not only more meaningful, but also more predictive of future serious incidents.

Yet historically, organizations have lacked a consistent way to measure them globally.

Why it matters: you can’t improve what you can’t compare

When safety metrics are inconsistent, the consequences go far beyond reporting — they directly impact how organizations manage risk and make critical decisions.

Leaders are often working from data that appears precise but lacks true comparability. A region may seem to outperform others, when in reality it is simply operating under a different reporting threshold. This creates a false sense of confidence and can obscure meaningful risk exposure.

The downstream impact is significant:

• ‍Misallocated resources: Investment may be directed toward perceived underperformance rather than actual risk
• ‍Blind spots in risk visibility: Inconsistent data masks systemic issues across regions
• ‍Ineffective benchmarking: Organizations cannot accurately measure progress or performance globally
• ‍Executive misalignment: Leadership lacks a clear, defensible view of safety performance
• ‍Increased exposure to serious incidents: High-consequence risks are less likely to be identified and prevented

This is the gap the industry has been missing, and the reason standardization is so critical.

ASTM E2920-26: Establishing a global standard

That gap is now being addressed.

With the introduction of ASTM E2920-26 in January 2026, the industry has, for the first time, a standardized framework for capturing and benchmarking severity-based safety data at a global level.

Developed in collaboration with leading organizations including NSC and ASSP — with active participation from Avetta — ASTM E2920-26 establishes a consistent approach to defining and measuring severe incidents across regions.

This represents a foundational shift.

By standardizing how severity-based lagging indicators are captured, ASTM enables:

• True comparability across countries and business units
• More reliable identification of high-risk exposures
• Stronger alignment across stakeholders and leadership
• More effective, data-driven safety strategies

In short, it transforms fragmented data into actionable, globally consistent insight.

A practical bridge: introducing GSIR

While ASTM defines the future, adoption will take time.

As a new standard, ASTM E2920-26 data is still limited across global supply chains. But the need to focus on severe injuries — and to standardize how they are measured — is immediate.

To help close this gap, Avetta developed the Global Severe Injury Rate (GSIR).

GSIR is a standardized calculation designed to measure the frequency of severe injuries across the 130,000+ suppliers in Avetta’s global network. By normalizing inputs such as hours worked, it enables consistent benchmarking of safety performance despite differences in local reporting requirements.

Importantly, GSIR is not intended to replace ASTM.

It serves as an intermediate step, helping organizations begin aligning around severity-based measurement today while the industry transitions toward full ASTM adoption.

From today to tomorrow

The path forward is clear.

ASTM E2920-26 establishes the global standard for safety measurement — one built on severity, consistency, and comparability.

GSIR provides a way to start that journey now, enabling Avetta’s globalized safety data to move beyond fragmented metrics and begin aligning with that future state.

Together, they create a transition:

• From fragmented to standardized
• From frequency-focused to severity-driven
• From reactive reporting to proactive risk management

Be part of the standard

The shift toward global safety standardization is already underway.

For Avetta members, this represents a unique opportunity; not just to adopt a new framework, but to lead the industry forward. By aligning with ASTM early, organizations can strengthen their safety programs, improve risk visibility, and play an active role in shaping the future of safety measurement.

Because better data leads to better decisions, and better decisions lead to safer outcomes.

Now is the time to move from fragmentation to standardization.