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Key Takeaways

• Hazardous energy is a significant factor that contributes to SIFs. Identifying and controlling hazardous energy is essential for SIF prevention.
• Control-of-work software helps to manage hazardous energy risks through digital isolation plans, digital P&IDs where isolation points are shown, and verification workflows.
• Control-of-work software also gives contractors full access to digital permits and isolation plans, and strengthens coordination with host employees.

     
The recently released Global Corporate Survey 2025: EHS Budgets, Priorities and Tech Preferences report from independent research firm Verdantix reveals that reducing serious injuries and fatalities (SIFs) is the single most important EHSQ operational goal for the next two years for 42% of survey respondents.

That’s more than twice the number (19%) of those who say their top priority is “implementing programs and technology to develop a firm-wide safety culture.”

Unlike improvements seen in conventional incident rates, such as LTIR and TRIR, the occurrence of SIFs remains stubbornly consistent for many and is even rising in some cases, especially in high-risk industries like oil and gas, mining, chemicals, construction, and industrial manufacturing.

Hazardous energy is a major cause of SIFs

SIF prevention, the need to anticipate potential SIF events, and move away from the traditional total recordable incident rate (TRIR) were major discussion topics at the recent Campbell Institute’s annual forum held at the National Safety Council (NSC) Safety Congress.

Key takeaways from the forum included:

• Present TRIR is not predictive of future TRIR or fatalities.
• Companies with low TRIRs can also have high SIF rates. There is no relationship between lagging indicators, such as the TRIR, and the number of SIFs.   
• Identifying high-energy hazards is the first step to anticipating SIFs.
• High-energy hazards are known as STCKY (Stuff That Can Kill You).
• The percentage of high-energy hazards that are under control is a good leading indicator of SIF prevention.

There is broad industry agreement that identifying and controlling hazardous energy is a key element of a SIF prevention strategy. While many factors contribute to SIFs, hazardous energy is one of the most significant.

Control-of-Work software helps manage hazardous energy risks

A comprehensive SIF prevention program includes many elements, including strong leadership commitment, a mature safety culture, well-designed processes, and a relentless focus on risk. Technology is only one component, but when used appropriately, it can significantly improve the effectiveness and reliability of critical safeguards.

With regard to managing hazardous energy risks – one of the most frequent contributors to SIFs – control-of-work (CoW) software provides tangible benefits. Beyond core permit-to-work (PtW) functionality, CoW systems also include isolation management (or lockout/tagout) capabilities. These two components work together to ensure hazardous energy sources are identified and isolated before work begins.

CoW software can be used to create detailed digital isolation plans, view the latest versions of digital Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams (P&IDs) where isolation points are visually marked up, enforce verification steps, and prevent work from being authorized and started until isolations are confirmed. Automated workflows reduce human error risks, drive accountability, and help ensure all hazardous energy sources are controlled to protect workers and assets.

In addition, contractors often face the highest SIF exposure and may be unfamiliar with a host employer’s equipment, processes, or site-specific risks. Bringing them into the same CoW workflows as internal employees and verifying their competence is an important step forward.

By having access to the same digital permits and isolation plans, contractors become aware of required isolations before starting work, reducing potential misunderstandings and human error. This strengthens coordination between host employees and contractors.

Because hazardous energy is one of the most significant causes of SIFs, CoW software should be part of every SIF prevention strategy. Its ability to strengthen isolation practices, improve visibility, and enforce critical steps makes it essential.

How to choose the right CoW software

With so many CoW software providers in the market and multiple capabilities to evaluate, selecting the right solution for your organization can be challenging.

The Smart Innovators: Control of Work Software report from Verdantix can help. It provides a high-level assessment of vendors and their offerings, and compares capabilities across five key assessment criteria: job hazard analysis, PtW, isolation management, simultaneous operations (SIMOPS), and shift management.

For example, in the area of isolation management capability, Wolters Kluwer Enablon achieved an evaluation of “Market-leading and innovative functionality,” which is the highest assessment possible.

Download your complimentary copy of the report to learn more about the key benefits, drivers and innovations shaping the CoW software market, and find the vendor that is the best fit for your organization.

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Yields on Japan’s benchmark government bonds rose to their highest level since 2007 as investors fretted over Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s spending plans and braced themselves for an interest rate increase.

The 10-year yield on Thursday climbed 0.02 percentage points to 1.91 per cent in early trading, approaching levels at which analysts said domestic banks could begin fundamentally adjusting their bond-buying strategies. Yields move inversely to prices.

The rise takes 10-year yields to levels last seen before the collapse of Lehman Brothers sparked a global financial crisis and ushered in an era of lower interest rates worldwide.

Thursday’s move echoed broader jitters in global bond markets, which have been jolted by renewed speculation that the Bank of Japan is preparing to raise interest rates at its meeting on December 18-19.

Yields on 30-year JGBs rose to a record high of 3.44 per cent in early trading on Thursday.

Minoru Kihara, the government’s top spokesperson, said on Thursday that the administration was “closely watching” market moves in long-term interest rates.

“It is important to comprehensively understand the impact of rising interest rate effects on the economy,” he said.

Yields on two-year bonds, which are most sensitive to interest rate expectations, rose to a 17-year high of 1.01 per cent on Wednesday and held there on Thursday.

Weighing on sentiment is an impending auction of about ¥700bn ($4.5bn) in 30-year JGBs on Thursday. Traders said they expected the bonds to attract lacklustre demand, with Japanese life insurers and pension funds appearing reluctant to buy.

Investors have been concerned about Takaichi’s $135bn spending plan, Japan’s largest stimulus package since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Shoki Omori, chief desk strategist at Mizuho, said JGB markets were steadily absorbing the risk of Takaichi’s fiscal spending and were reflecting doubts about a proposed government efficiency drive.

He added that, while past JGB moves had limited impact on global bond markets, this time around “the JGB sell-off will have an effect on global rates”.

“I’ve been waiting 25 years for this,” says Annie Sattler.

A quarter of a century after she emigrated from Germany, and seven years since the store was first announced, Sattler was prepared to wait just a few hours extra to be among the earliest through the doors of Ikea’s first outlet in New Zealand.

She was joined by hundreds of shoppers queueing on Thursday morning to mark the end of the national waiting game. Ikea was founded more than 80 years ago – and now has more than 400 stores worldwide – but the Swedish furniture giant had until now been absent from these shores, making New Zealand one of the last developed nations to get a store.

Sattler, who grew up with family trips to Ikea to furnish her childhood bedroom, says the opening event reminds her of home. “It was such a treat. I loved it – the staff, the furniture, the whole story of it.”

The store was announced in 2018, with foreign minister Winston Peters at the time taking credit for the move, saying he was sure his decision to open an embassy in Stockholm had played a part. By Thursday, excitement had reached fever pitch, with one local media outlet running a live blog and signs appearing along major roads warning motorists to “plan their journey” accordingly.

By 9am, solid lines had formed at the two main entrances, although one queue member, there for the spectacle more than the shopping, described it as “a bit of a fizzer”.

However, others said they would have camped overnight if it hadn’t been banned in advance, and Ulla Bennet – wearing a Denmark football jersey under her Swedish flag throw – was at the front, having established a “pre-line” outside the property boundary at 4am. “We thought it would be like it is now at 6am, but people didn’t really start arriving until six or seven,” she says.

In the end, the long-promised traffic jams failed to materialise, but a steady stream of shoppers continued to arrive as the 11am opening neared.

As local media assembled, beaming their reports live into morning TV, the awaiting customers spoke of their excitement to try Ikea’s iconic meatballs, with one group chanting “meatballs, meatballs” at a nearby reporter.

‘New Zealand is always the last to get anything’

Bennet sees the opening as a sign of global recognition. “New Zealand is always the last on the list to get anything. Every other country gets things but [companies] think ‘Oh, they’re little and way down there’. But they’re here! I’m rapt!”

The opening is a significant event for a country grappling with a sharp cost of living crisis. Ikea’s global pitch of affordability lands amid a squeeze on household budgets, with year-on-year Black Friday spending having fallen by 4-6%.

Keen to amplify any whiff of economic optimism, New Zealand prime minister Christopher Luxon arrived to cut the ribbon. As the doors opened, Luxon, who was meant to be the first customer, lost the honour to a faster shopper.

The crowds were greeted by staff in bright yellow T-shirts who alternated between genuinely enthusiastic cheering and well-practised chants of “Hej! Hej! Hej!”.

The sight of shoppers piling trolleys high with cushions, lamps, and storage solutions suggests that for many, the novelty and promise of value outweighed the wider economic gloom, at least for today.

The company has signalled competitive pricing, with its Billy bookcase advertised at NZ$99 (£43), undercutting most local competitors.

After the initial rush, Luxon denied the opening was a slap in the face for local small business owners, many of whom are struggling in a stalled economy. He told journalists it was “great for competition and great for consumers” and he was confident local businesses would “stand up and compete”.

The launch’s scale is a statement of intent, with a full online shopping network and 29 collection points from Kaitaia in the North Island to Invercargill down south. But for a nation accustomed to waiting, the era of Swedish self-assembly has, finally, begun.