Report - Agence canadienne d'évaluation environnementale

Assessing the risks related to the project
In an analysis of risk criteria Elisabeth Paté-Cornell 1 stated that the Norwegian
Petroleum Directorate, among others, uses the maximum criterion of 10 -4 per annum
for the collapse of offshore rigs. It is a criterion that is generally used for the
assessment of risk to employees. She also stated that the Health and Safety
Executive (HSE) of the United Kingdom defines the risk for death of 10 -6 per annum
as the criterion at or below which a risk is deemed insignificant. According to the
example of the MIACC’s criteria, no mitigation measure or usage limit is required at or
below this risk level.
Moreover, for new industrial facilities, the HSE uses an upper limit that is greater than
10 -5 per annum, and a lower limit of 10 -6 per annum, with an even more restrictive limit
of 3 x 10 -7 per annum for areas with populations that deemed sensitive to risk 2 . As for
the Netherlands, Paté-Cornell also added that this country uses a maximum individual
risk criterion of 10 -6 per annum for new industrial facilities 3 . The Panel notes that the
same criteria are also used by the Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering in its
guide 4 of recommended practices for municipalities and industries.
This demonstrates a convergence in normative approaches destined to manage
industrial risks in countries with a comparable degree of socioeconomic and
technological development. According to these approaches, the results of the
quantitative risks analyses for new industrial projects help establishing the exact rank
of such projects in terms of their respective relative risks, and, by the same token,
their acceptability. The Panel also notes that, to its knowledge, nowhere is the societal
management of industrial and technological risks based on an approval or rejection
approach of projects proposed, on the basis of the worst consequences which can be
attributed to such projects.
Societal risk
Societal risk is defined as the relation between the occurrence frequency of a given
accident and the number of people that could be affected by the impact of such an
accident (generally death), within a given population. The calculation of such a risk is
a complex matter, as it requires specific knowledge of land occupancy and population
movement patterns when defining the profile of the exposed population. The societal
risk is expressed as an FN curve (Frequency-Number curve), which represents the
1. E. Paté-Cornell, “Quantitative safety goals for risk management of industrial facilities”, Structural Safety, 13,
1994, p. 145 to 157.
2. HSE, The tolerability of risk from nuclear power stations, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London, 1992.
3. It would be useful to recall that, according to this author, this level of risk corresponds to 1% of the lowest
mortality rate observed in industrial countries, the one of girls between 10 and 14 years of age.
4. Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering, Risk Assessment – Recommended Practices for Municipalities and
Industry, 2004.
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