An environmental risk assessment allows you to assess the likelihood of your business causing harm to the environment. This includes describing potential hazards and impacts before taking precautions to reduce the risks.
It uses similar techniques to the health and safety risk assessment your business already has to perform.
How to carry out an environmental risk assessment
There are five key steps to carrying out an environmental risk assessment. You need to:
- Identify any hazards, ie possible sources of harm
- Describe the harm they might cause
- Evaluate the risk of occurance and identify precautions
- Record the results of the assessment and implement precautions
- Review the assessment at regular intervals
How to identify potential environmental hazards
When looking for environmental hazards in your business, you should consider:
- Waste storage and disposal, eg making sure that proper containers are used, and are located away from drains and watercourses
- Emissions, eg dust and other substances to the air
- Hazardous substance storage, use and disposal
- Liquid wastedrainage and disposal
- Environmental impact of raw materials, eg potentially toxic metals or other materials
- Environmental impact of packaging
There are statutory minimum standards to maintain in some of these areas.
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