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Standard and deliver.

Article Excerpt
The imminent publication of ISO 31000:2009 Risk Management--Principles and guidelines on implementation has prompted Chris Peace to trace the history, content and use of the Standards Australia/Standards New Zealand version on which it is based, and suggest what safety and health practitioners can expect from the new international standard.

ALTHOUGH THE ORIGINAL 1995 EDITION OF the AS/NZS 4360 standard was developed from earlier risk-management ideas and processes it was nonetheless ground-breaking as the first standard published on risk management.

The subsequent 1999 edition added the "communicate and consult" stage, and a number of handbooks on aspects of risk management was also developed, the majority jointly by Australia and New Zealand.

The 2004 edition of the joint standard (1) incorporated experience from the previous 10 years, and many of the appendices in the 1999 edition were either consolidated into the body of the standard, or removed into the associated handbook. SAA/SNZ HB 436:2004. (2) Importantly, this included the 5x5 qualitative risk matrix in appendix E. Many users had simply copied this for their own use without thinking about its relevance, or the need for adaptation to their context. Few thought about alternative risk-analysis techniques--the matrix was the method!

Risk and related terms

Risk is defined in AS/NZS 4360 as "the chance of something happening that could have an impact on objectives". A series of notes to the definition adds that risk is often specified in terms of an event, or circumstances, and the consequences that may flow from it/them; that risk is measured in terms of a combination of the consequences of an event and their likelihood; and that risk may have a positive or negative effect.

Notice the definition refers to "objectives" but is not health and safety-focused. Indeed, the definition does not limit risk to a...

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