A life-cycle framework to analyse business risk in process industry projects

The chemical and related process industries are particularly exposed to high environmentally related costs arising from normal operation and accidents, not only of their own processes but also other processes in their supply chains. A methodology (Process environmental risk assessment—PERA) is presented for the assessment of all such risks during the design of new processes. This can be seen as a project-centred risk assessment that seeks potential problems along the whole supply chain. Each activity, resource use or waste source along the supply chain represents a potential interaction between the supply chain and the environment. These potential interactions are identified systematically using a life-cycle based assessment. To assess the risk to the project or process supply chain arising from those interactions the relevant stakeholders must be identified. Their likely response can then be considered and ranked according to the risk it poses. The methodology facilitates the management and communication of risk, and is illustrated by application to some aspects of the manufacture of PVC. The method could equally be applied to the assessment of existing processes.