“It was so valuable to me in terms of learning the business and learning the people,” Fish told Fortune. “Part of what I learned—I was always a finance guy—was that it’s not always just dollars and cents.”

Waste Management has named safety as a cornerstone of the company’s operations and has set a goal to reduce its total recordable injury rate (TRIR) by 3% annually with a TRIR target of 2.0 by 2030. If the company hits the target, that means workers would have suffered two recordable injuries per 100 employees per year or per 200,000 hours worked. Last year, the company reduced overall injuries by 5.8%, according to its sustainability report, and lost-time injuries by 2.4%.

“You make investments in safety or investments in people and they don’t necessarily show up on the bottom line—at least not immediately,” Fish said. “Safety tends to show up in longer terms, and if you do have a safe organization, that will eventually show up on your income statement—but it takes a while.”

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