Fading of Safety Awareness

Abstract

A lack of safety awareness in industrial companies can cause substantial harm to people and the environment. This study explores how fading of safety awareness influences safety-related decisions in (petro)chemical companies. Drawing on ethical fading theory, the research aims to better understand the mechanism that causes safety to decline and to identify ways to prevent this process and reduce safety incidents. Semi-structured interviews were conducted within the (petro)chemical industry to explore this phenomenon. The findings suggest that self-interest plays a more significant role in safety incidents than previously assumed and manifests in multiple forms that contribute to the fading of safety awareness. Moreover, self-interest was seldom identified as a formal root cause of incidents, likely because the fading process occurs largely at a subconscious level, as described in ethical fading theory. Finally, the study found that neutralization techniques were frequently used to justify unsafe behavior, both ex ante and ex post. These insights extend existing theory by linking ethical fading to safety management and highlight the need for interventions that address subconscious drivers of unsafe decision-making.