Construction has a reputation as one of the slowest industries to adopt new technology. AI is starting to change that, though not in the way most vendors will tell you.

Scott Cuthbert sits down with Joe Stevenson, Senior Safety Consultant at Terracon, for an honest look at where AI genuinely helps EHS teams in construction and where it falls short. Joe has spent more than 20 years in the field and owned two construction companies, so this is a grounded conversation rather than a sales pitch. His point throughout: AI is an assistant to professional judgment, not a replacement for it.

In this episode:

🔹 How AI gives time back to safety professionals by cutting administrative work

🔹 Where camera systems and wearables genuinely help, from restricted zones to heat stress

🔹 How to handle Big Brother concerns without damaging the safety culture you built

🔹 The ROI argument that actually lands with leadership

🔹 Why a realistic pilot takes 2 to 3 years, and the vendor promises worth questioning

Timestamps:

00:00 Welcome, and why Safeopedia and Terracon teamed up

01:00 Meet Joe Stevenson

03:00 Why Joe started looking at AI

04:00 Giving time back to the safety professional

06:00 Construction's slow adoption problem, and what is changing it

09:00 From gut instinct to data-driven oversight

12:30 Camera systems and the limits of walking the site

15:00 Wearables, heat stress, and the crane operator example

18:00 Big Brother concerns, worker trust, and data privacy

20:30 Employee involvement and protecting your safety culture

24:00 What AI will not do for you

26:30 Making the case to leadership and building the ROI argument

30:00 Time savings, JHAs, and subcontractor prequalification

34:00 What management actually cares about

36:00 Realistic timelines and why a pilot takes 2 to 3 years

42:00 Vendor promises worth questioning, and the edge for early movers

44:30 Closing thoughts

About the guest

Joe Stevenson, GSP, ASHM, ECO, CQCM, is a Senior Safety Consultant at Terracon with more than 20 years across construction, manufacturing, and oil and gas. He has owned and operated two construction companies.

About the show

Factor of Safety is a collaboration between Safeopedia and Terracon, bringing practical EHS conversations straight from the field. Hosted by Scott Cuthbert, co-founder of Safeopedia.

Join the Safeopedia Community, free for safety professionals: https://join.safeopedia.com/signup

Prefer the video version? Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN5jO5w2DnY

Fines and shutdowns get plenty of attention. But do they actually change how people work?

In this episode of Safeonomics, Scott Cuthbert sits down with Mary P Foley, Expert Services Strategy Director at Enhesa, for a conversation about what enforcement really does inside an organization, and what it does not do.

Mary has spent close to 30 years in EHS and sustainability, starting as an environmental scientist on contaminated land sites and working across ISO certification, consultancy, and expert services. Her answer to whether enforcement drives change is refreshingly honest: it depends entirely on context.

She uses three pieces of driving legislation to make the point. Seat belts, speeding, and drink driving all carry similar penalties, and all three produced completely different outcomes. Nobody would dream of getting into a car without buckling up. Drink driving went from commonplace to shameful. Speeding is still treated as a joke, and still kills people. Same enforcement model, three very different results, because the social context around each one is different.

From there the conversation gets practical. How do you tell a company that has built a safety culture from one that is just afraid of getting caught? What does it take for a mid-sized organization without a compliance department to turn regulatory pressure into lasting change instead of a paperwork scramble? And what is the pitch that finally gets a skeptical CFO to take safety spend seriously?

Mary's answer to that last one is disarmingly simple, and it starts with reading your biggest customer's sustainability report.

What you will take away:

🔹 Why enforcement only works when it is paired with self-regulation and real engagement at every level

🔹 How to read a site in person, and why metrics only tell you part of the story

🔹 The difference between compliance theater and using enforcement as a catalyst to unlock investment

🔹 Applicability and materiality: how to figure out which regulations actually matter to your business and what non-compliance would cost you financially and reputationally

🔹 Why supply chain pressure has become one of the strongest forces for good in safety

🔹 Value protection versus value creation, and how safety becomes a competitive advantage instead of a cost centre

🔹 Who should own regulatory risk internally, and why responsibility without authority burns out good people

🔹 What happens to your reporting numbers when leadership finally starts taking safety seriously, and why a spike is good news

Chapters:

00:07 Welcome back to Safeonomics

01:08 Mary's background: 30 years in EHS and sustainability

02:17 Does enforcement actually change behavior, or is it just a cost of doing business?

03:53 Seat belts, speeding, and drink driving: three laws, three outcomes

09:14 Telling safety culture apart from fear of getting caught

11:56 Compliance theater, or a catalyst for genuine investment?

15:36 Mid-sized organizations without a compliance department

18:56 Personalizing it: tone at the top and why smaller companies show it faster

22:20 When enforcement backfires and reporting goes underground

24:03 Should safety metrics be tied to compensation?

26:42 Supply chain pressure as a force for good

29:31 Learning to speak the language of risk and financial impact

30:57 The pitch that wins over a skeptical CFO

33:46 Value protection versus value creation

35:34 Who should own regulatory risk: legal, safety, or the C-suite?

39:39 Risk appetite, then and now

45:26 The one thing to bring to your next budget meeting

About the guest:

Mary P Foley is Expert Services Strategy Director at Enhesa. She has spent close to 30 years in the EHS and sustainability space, beginning as an environmental scientist working on contaminated land sites, and going on to work in ISO certification and consultancy. Connect with Mary on LinkedIn, and find more of her work at enhesa.com.

About Safeonomics:

Safeonomics is a Safeopedia Community series about the business of safety. We help safety professionals learn to speak the language of the business, so they can make the case for the work that matters.

Links:

Watch the full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJUynZ-MuDs

Enhesa: https://www.enhesa.com

Join the Safeopedia Community, free: https://join.safeopedia.com/signup

Safety Connect 2026, October 20-22: https://register.safetyconnect365.com/home

Your people say they feel safe to speak up, so why does critical information still go unspoken? Jen Long of The Accountability Lab joins Safeonomics to unpack the gap between knowing it's okay to speak up and being ready to do it in the moment. She introduces psychological readiness, reframes accountability as clarity and "having each other's back" rather than blame, and shares practical conversational tools safety leaders can bring to their teams this week, no big budget or corporate learning department required.

Jen Long: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifertlong/

Own Up!: https://jennifertlong.com/book/.

Website: https://dramafreeworkforce.com/

"Sometimes there is no low hanging fruit and you have to go climb the tree."

That is Josh Schroedter, CIH at Terracon, on Episode 01 of Factor of Safety, describing what actually separates the consultants who get called back from the ones who do not.

A few things from his 13 years in the field that anyone thinking about consulting should hear:

🔹 You will show up on site, on the day you agreed to, and find that nobody is expecting you. It happens constantly. You find someone, explain the work to a person with no safety background, and get moving anyway.

🔹 Early mornings and 12 hour shifts are part of it. Being willing to take the uncomfortable jobs is how you differentiate yourself.

🔹 The asbestos oversight years were not cushy. Fiery conversations with general contractors under schedule pressure, and a job that comes down to staying true to your data.

🔹 The thing he is proudest of is not a project. It is the peers who keep him sharp and keep the work enjoyable.

Worth an hour if you have ever wondered whether consulting is for you, or how industrial hygiene careers get built.

Joint Health and Safety Committees exist in every regulated Canadian workplace, yet most haven't changed since 1984.

Anna Matheson (https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-matheson/) and Heather Kahle (https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-kahle-71b2b613/) argue the most important function of a JHSC isn't reviewing incidents or checking compliance boxes, it's helping the organization learn.

They break down how committees can bridge the gap between work-as-imagined and work-as-done, ask better questions that unlock candor, and turn everyday workarounds into continuous improvement.

JHAC Course: https://jnprs1-1f.myshopify.com

Anna Matheson: [email protected]

Heather Kahle: [email protected]

Jen Ruggerio spent 25 years as a public educator before an unexpected career change brought her into the high-stakes world of live entertainment safety. What she found was a culture that mirrors the classroom more than people realize where psychological safety determines whether workers speak up about hazards or stay quiet to protect their paycheck.

Jen talks candidly about day laborers afraid to flag unsafe conditions, the "show must go on" mentality that drives shortcuts, and a close call she witnessed firsthand involving an unsecured structure at a festival. She also unpacks her book, Uncorporate Leadership, and makes the case backed by research that leadership development, not just compliance training, is what actually moves the needle on the roughly 5,000 preventable workplace deaths in the U.S. each year.

What does a history degree have to do with predicting safety failures? More than you'd think. In this episode, Corey Silverman, Safety Specialist at Highwire, breaks down the emerging discipline of "Safenomics" the intersection of financial health, cybersecurity, and physical risk in contractor management. If you're a VP or Director of Safety trying to earn budget, influence project teams, or get ahead of SIF-potential events before they become tragedies, this conversation is built for you.

What if preventing hearing loss wasn’t just about PPE… but about truly understanding how people experience it?

In this episode, we sit down with Jenn Holliday, CIH, to unpack a powerful real-world case study on occupational noise exposure, and how a shift in thinking led to measurable results.

Jenn walks us through a scenario many safety professionals know all too well: high noise environments, reliance on hearing protection, and the challenge of ensuring it actually works in practice, not just on paper.

In this conversation, we explore:

• Why traditional hearing protection approaches often fall short
• The difference between NRR and real-world protection
• How HPFT can proactively prevent hearing loss (even though it’s not required)
• Practical ways to integrate fit testing into your program
• And how small changes can unlock big cultural shifts

This is a must-listen for safety professionals who want to move beyond compliance and create real, measurable impact.

Jenn Holliday: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennholliday/

What if the safety data you’ve been collecting for years suddenly mattered to your CFO, investors, and customers?

In this episode of Safeonomics, we’re joined by Mary Foley, Expert Services Strategy Director at Enhesa | Forbes Contributor to unpack a major shift many safety professionals haven’t fully clocked yet: safety is becoming a financial reporting issue, not just a compliance one.

As new global reporting standards expand the definition of material risk, financial auditors are starting to scrutinize workforce health, safety, mental wellbeing, and climate-related impacts—across more than 40 sectors, not just traditional high-hazard industries.

Mary explains what this means for safety professionals in mid-sized organizations who may not be directly affected yet—but who can use this moment as an opportunity to elevate their work, speak the CFO’s language, and make a stronger business case for safety.

We cover emerging risks like remote work duty of care, heat stress, and climate impacts, how ISO 45001 provides a head start, and why a simple gap analysis can help you get ahead of what’s coming.

You may not be required to report today—but this episode shows how to turn what’s coming next into visibility, influence, and competitive advantage.

🎧 A must-listen for safety leaders ready to move from compliance to strategic value.

In this episode of Safeonomics, I sit down with Shawn Galloway to explore what safety excellence really looks like in today’s complex, unpredictable world. Drawing from his “Think Octopus, Not Tin Man” framework, Shawn challenges traditional, rigid approaches to safety and makes the case for adaptive systems, distributed leadership, and learning that happens where the work actually gets done. We discuss why many well-intentioned safety programs struggle to deliver results, how curiosity and experimentation drive real improvement, and what leaders must stop doing if they want safety to truly scale. This conversation is a must-listen for safety professionals who feel the old playbook no longer fits the realities they face every day. The article from LinkedIn: Think Octopus, Not Tin Man