## 1 Introduction  
The construction industry is widely recognized as one of the sectors with the highest rates of occupational accidents and fatalities worldwide [1, 2]. Despite advances in regulations, safety protocols, and training programs, many incidents continue to be caused by factors such as lack of situational awareness, inadequate planning, and poor communication on construction sites. In response to these challenges, the adoption of emerging technologies has become a priority to improve safety performance and reduce risk exposure across all project stages [3, 4, 5].  
In recent years, several emerging technologies have been explored to enhance construction safety management, including Building Information Modelling (BIM), Artificial Intelligence (AI), wearable devices, and Internet of Things (IoT) systems. These tools have contributed to proactive safety planning, real-time monitoring, and predictive risk assessment across various project phases. In this context, Extended Reality (XR)--which includes Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR)--has emerged as a promising technological paradigm to support safety management [6, 7]. XR technologies enable immersive environments where users can experience simulated tasks, visualize risks, and interact with digital models in real time. These tools offer unique advantages for training, planning, inspection, and coordination, contributing to the development of a proactive safety culture [8].  
However, these applications have generally been limited to isolated or short-term use cases, often disconnected from the broader project lifecycle or other digital tools commonly used in the Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operation (AECO) industry [5, 7]. Moreover, many studies focus on the novelty of the technology itself, without fully addressing its integration into standard workflows or aligning it with methodologies such as Building Information Modelling (BIM), Lean Construction, or Prevention through Design (PtD) [4, 6, 9, 10, 11].  
As a result, there is a lack of comprehensive frameworks that systematically incorporate XR technologies into construction safety management from a lifecycle and methodological perspective. Other technologies, such as Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), have partially addressed similar gaps by enabling proactive safety planning, predictive analytics, and real-time hazard detection. BIM-based frameworks facilitate lifecycle safety management through design-integrated hazard visualization and collaborative workflows, while AI enables automated risk assessment by analysing historical and sensor data. These approaches highlight the importance of structured integration for technological adoption in safety contexts. However, XR has not yet been fully incorporated into comparable frameworks, leaving its lifecycle application underdeveloped and its industry-wide potential untapped [12, 13]. This gap hinders the potential of XR to become a practical and scalable solution for industry-wide adoption [4, 14, 15, 16, 17].  
This article aimed to address this gap by proposing a structured framework for the integration of XR technologies into holistic construction safety management. The proposed approach is grounded in well-established methodologies (BIM, Lean, PtD) and aligned with the principles of Construction 4.0, providing a clear workflow and implementation strategy to deploy XR across different project stages. In addition, the study presents implementation examples that demonstrate the applicability and relevance of the framework in real or simulated construction contexts.