London has long played a defining role in workplace health and safety. From early industrial reforms to modern regulation, the UK helped set a global benchmark for how economies can protect workers while growing at scale. That heritage still carries weight.
It is also one of the reasons we chose London as the global headquarters for EcoOnline, a software company that focuses on keeping people safe. For me, the other value is access: to deep talent, to customer proximity with headquarters in the capital, to other UK centres of excellence, and to international connectivity. London is not only a local market. It is a launch point into national and international impact.
But history and location alone are not enough. The growth challenge is real.. The UK’s GDP grew by just 0.1% in the fourth quarter last year, while business investment fell by 2.7%. In this context, every leadership team is asking the same question: where do we find sustainable performance gains?
My view is that health and safety should be part of that answer. For too long, many organisations have treated safety primarily as a cost to manage. The stronger model is to treat it as a value driver. Better safety performance means fewer disruptions, less lost time, stronger workforce confidence, and more consistent operations. The human impact and the business value are linked. According to recent research from EY 65% of organisations surveyed said health and safety investment increased commercial value.
In 2026, high-risk sectors like construction will feel the impact of tougher safety rules. That can be a positive catalyst. Regulation can raise standards, accelerate investment, and push programmes forward. But regulation alone will not deliver the next chapter of growth.
The first priority is to move beyond tick-box thinking. Compliance gets you in the door, and it often kicks off digitisation, but is not the end goal.
Most organisations now collect large volumes of safety, operational, and environmental data, but too much of it still sits in separate systems. When those signals are connected, you move from compliance to visibility. You start to see patterns across people, process, place, and risk, from near-miss trends to repeat contractor issues and persistent control failures.
From there, organisations can move to predictability, intervening earlier and preventing repeat events before they escalate. That is when safety becomes proactive, not reactive. It is also when leaders can make faster, better decisions because they are looking at the whole picture.