Suggested citation:
Lloyd’s Register Foundation (2020) The safetytech market: accelerating digital innovation for safety [online] Available at: https://www.lrfoundation.org.uk/en/publications
‘The safetytech market’, the first report of its kind, predicts that the market will expand rapidly led, in the short-term, by start-ups and tech-driven businesses combining digital technologies that will disrupt traditional approaches to safety in the workplace.
Safetytech - the collective term for technology, products and services that are starting to significantly enhance safety management in safety-critical industries and infrastructure - is only recently defined, yet this new research shows that it is set for aggressive growth.
For safety-critical industries alone, the market for safetytech is set to grow by up to $455bn by 2023. These industries and their associated supply chains have yet to realise the full potential of real-time operational insight, made possible from continuously generated data and analytics enabled by digital technologies.
The largest proportion of the safetytech market, by technology, is IoT which represents nearly 77% of the market, followed by wearables, robotics and analytics.
Globally, 2.8m deaths each year are directly attributed to inadequate safety measures and hazardous work environments. Work-related safety incidents result in the significant loss of approximately 3.9 % of worldwide GDP, equating to approximately $3,146 billion. It is hoped that the market growth outlined in today’s report will contribute to a reduction in such incidents and accidents.
More findings on Safetytech market size from the report:
- Wearables represents the fastest growth within the Safetytech market at 28% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR).
- The largest sub-sector by market size within manufacturing and natural resources is natural resources and materials, forecasted to be worth $89.8 bn by 2023 and exhibiting a growth (CAGR) of nearly 14%.
- The largest sub-sector by market size within transportation is warehousing and couriers (forecasted to be worth $34.9bn by 2023 with a growth of 14% CAGR).
- Amongst Lloyd’s Register Market Focus industries (Energy, marine and manufacturing), the energy industry has the largest market size as it is forecasted to grow to $25bn in 2023 with a CAGR of 8.3%, the fastest growth rate amongst the Lloyd’s Register Market Focus sectors.
- The other sub-sectors that are likely to see large growth and adoption of Safetytech are motor freight (forecasted to be $9.6bn with a CAGR of 10.2%) and air & marine transportation (forecasted to be $6.9bn and $6.5bn with CAGRs of 10% and 7.7% respectively).
Safety statistics taken from the report include:
- 153 workers have a work-related accident every 15 seconds which equates to 317 million accidents annually worldwide, many leading to the extended absences.
- Across the globe nearly 7,620 people are estimated to die as a result of occupational accidents or work-related diseases every day which amounts to more than 2.8 million deaths per year that are directly attributable to inadequate safety measures and hazardous work environments.
- Work-related safety incidents result in the loss of approximately 3.9 % of the world’s GDP, while the financial cost of safety incidents to organisations is primarily suffered as an indirect consequence and is often unaccounted for in official figures.
- The largest proportion of the costs (between 68% and 72%) related to safety incidents are indirect and not immediately visible.
- Nearly 47% of the costs incurred by organisations, post-incident, are usually unaccounted for.
- Analysis of financial markets typically show that shareholders suffer a loss of 1.3% over the two days immediately following disasters, one fatality or serious injury is associated with an additional loss of $164 million, while the occurrence of a toxic release corresponds to an additional drop of around $1 billion.