For decades, hazard signs have been a staple of industrial safety programs. These signs: "Danger: High Voltage," "Hard Hat Area," "Caution: Slippery Surface", are designed to alert workers to immediate risks. While they play an important role in maintaining baseline awareness, they are ultimately passive. They rely on the worker to notice, interpret, and act. In high-risk environments like offshore platforms or wind farms, where operational complexity and physical hazards are constant, this approach is no longer enough.
One of the key limitations of hazard signage is that it’s static and generic. Over time, workers become desensitised: a phenomenon often referred to as “sign blindness.” Warning signs blend into the visual noise of a busy worksite, and the impact of the message diminishes. Moreover, signage rarely provides behavioural guidance. A “No Open Flames” sign doesn’t explain the procedure for isolating ignition sources before maintenance. A “Trip Hazard” label doesn’t foster a culture of proactive housekeeping or intervention.
To address these gaps, industry bodies have introduced Life-Saving Rules—clear, actionable principles that focus on the high-risk activities proven to lead to serious incidents and fatalities. In oil and gas, the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (IOGP) created a streamlined set of nine Life-Saving Rules based on decades of incident data. These cover critical areas such as energy isolation, confined space entry, working at height, and bypassing safety controls. Similarly, in offshore wind, the G+ Global Offshore Wind Organisation developed a tailored set of ten Life-Saving Rules to reflect the specific challenges of that sector—like vessel transfers, cable handling, and working over water.
Unlike hazard signs, these frameworks are designed to shape behaviour, not just signal danger. They establish a universal safety language across diverse, often international, teams. They help contractors and operators align on expectations without ambiguity. Most importantly, they are built to be embedded, not just posted on a wall, but used actively in training, toolbox talks, digital reporting, and leadership messaging.
By using a consistent set of Life-Saving Rules, organisations can build familiarity across sites and teams, reducing variation and eliminating guesswork. This consistency supports faster onboarding, strengthens contractor integration, and ultimately drives operational efficiency. When everyone is trained to the same standard and speaks the same safety language, safety practices become more repeatable, measurable, and effective—especially in dynamic offshore environments.
At Fennex, we’ve embedded this thinking directly into our technology. In the oil and gas industry, our Behaviour-Based Safety Solution (BBSS™) enables frontline teams to record safety observations using the IOGP Life-Saving Rules as context. Rather than ticking a box or submitting a generic observation, users are prompted to select which Life-Saving Rule their observation relates to. This not only encourages more meaningful reporting, but also helps organisations detect patterns, identify blind spots, and intervene before incidents occur.
In offshore wind, we’ve brought that same intelligence to WindSafe™. Built on our award-winning BBSS™ architecture, WindSafe™’s Safety Observation module is aligned to the G+ Life-Saving Rules, ensuring teams can capture and analyse data in a way that reflects the unique safety challenges of offshore wind.
Why does this matter? Because asking someone to choose a relevant Life-Saving Rule doesn’t just improve reporting quality, it builds awareness. It makes people pause and reflect on why their observation matters, and what rule was at risk. It reinforces critical safety behaviours, deepens engagement, and helps embed safety as a shared responsibility.
It’s time to move beyond signs on the wall. With the right frameworks and the right tools, we can turn safety from static compliance into dynamic prevention.
