PROJECT ENVIRONMENTAL RISK MANAGEMENT

Engineering projects both for green field or existing sites offer a great opportunity for the reduction of risk, and consequently improvement in environmental performance. Alcoa has developed an environmental risk management process to ensure the design engineer is aware of the environmental aspects that need to be addressed in their project’s design.

The risk assessment process developed is based in the AS/NZ 4360. The generic steps being:

• set the context for which the risk assessment will apply,
• identify the environmental aspects,
• determine the probability and consequences of these aspects and
• rank the risk.

There are several factors that are key to conducting a successful environmental risk assessment. Firstly it is important to have the right team members to ensure the relevant knowledge base is present. Conducting the assessment at the right point in the project development is also critical to success. If the assessment is too early, nothing is defined and hence there is nothing to assess. If it is too late and budgets and design have been finalised, strong resistance can be encountered in trying to reduce any identified unacceptable risks. Finally, we have found that a management program must be in place to follow these issues through the design process to ensure adequate solutions are found which do not shift the problem to another area.

Conducting Environmental Risk Assessments within Alcoa West Australian operations delivered a quantifiable improvement in the quality of projects delivered.