Octfolio Named Finalist for Best WHS Commercial Product or Service Innovation

We're proud to announce that Octfolio has been named a finalist in the Best WHS Commercial Product or Service Innovation category at the 33rd Annual National Safety Awards of Excellence.

Run by the NSCA Foundation, with HSI Donesafe as major sponsor, the National Safety Awards of Excellence are Australia's longest-running independent awards for work health and safety. This category recognises commercial solutions that are innovative, proven in real organisations, and that meaningfully reduce a workplace risk. Winners will be announced at the Awards Gala Dinner on Thursday 5 November 2026 in Sydney.

“After years of focus, iteration and working closely with customers to solve very real problems, it's fantastic to have that work recognised at a national level. At the heart of what we do is a simple goal: help more people get home safe at the end of the day.”— Sebastian Tiller, General Manager, Octfolio

The problem we set out to solve

Australia banned asbestos in 2003, but in 2021 it was estimated that 6.2 million tonnes of Australia's asbestos legacy remains in the built environment, and an estimated 4,000 Australians still die from asbestos-related diseases each year.¹ For most organisations the problem isn't that the information doesn't exist. It's that it sits in disconnected systems: filing cabinets, spreadsheets, PDFs, internal software with version control problems. There's no single version anyone can rely on. Nothing updates in real time, and critical safety information doesn't reach the person standing on site. Workers start jobs without current data, and no one can confirm afterwards whether the register was ever checked. That's the gap Octfolio exists to close, and the work behind this year's nomination.

What Octfolio does

Octfolio is asbestos management rethought as a live system. Where most organisations rely on disconnected surveys, static registers and paper-based audits, Octfolio joins every stage of the lifecycle, from survey to register, audit to site access, in one platform, purpose-built around the WHS regulatory framework. That's delivered through three connected products:

• The Octfolio platform: a single source of truth across the entire portfolio, giving complete visibility of where the risk sits and what to act on first.
• The Inspector App: structured audits captured on site, signal or no signal, syncing straight into the platform, so surveys stay consistent and audit programs can be tracked as they run.
• SafetyPages: a QR code on site puts critical safety information in a worker's hands in seconds, any hour, no login, so no one starts work uninformed.

The platform now manages more than 145,000 assets and 1.7 million compliance records across Australia and New Zealand.

Recognition that belongs to our customers

Behind this nomination is the work our customers do every day. Across local government, state government, utilities and mining, in Australia and New Zealand, here are a few of the things they've been able to achieve:

• Budget moved from admin to removal. Removal is the highest-order control for asbestos risk, and it competes for the same budget that compliance admin consumes. One council managing 352 assets saved 210 to 260 hours of reporting time in year one, freeing $5,000 to $15,000 for safety and removal work. A mining customer saved more than 210 hours, redirecting over $33,600 into further surveys and removal. Less time spent on reporting means more asbestos actually coming out of buildings.
• Fewer incidents of potential exposure. Better data and easier access to it have led to a measurable reduction in incidents of potential exposure to ACMs, fewer moments where someone disturbs material they didn't know was there.

”The vast improvement in data and greater accessibility to information as a result of the Octfolio register has translated to a reduction in incidents of potential exposure to ACMs.”— Senior Asset Analyst, State Government Department, Tasmania

• Proof the register was consulted. Where organisations previously couldn't confirm during a regulatory review whether the right information had been accessed on site, access logs now provide that proof.
• Recognition from regulators. Customer processes built on Octfolio have received positive feedback from regulators and been used as examples in training and education materials.

Congratulations and thanks

Congratulations to our fellow finalists in this category: ProTx, Global Safety Index, Branach Manufacturing Pty Ltd, and Opal | Noble Agency. It's an honour to be recognised alongside them.

Thank you to the NSCA Foundation, HSI Donesafe, and category sponsor ProVisual Publishing for supporting safety innovation in Australia, and thank you to our customers, who have challenged us, trusted us and shaped what Octfolio has become.

We look forward to seeing everyone in Sydney on 5 November.