APPENDIX E

Industry Risk Tolerance Criteria

Data

CAUTION: The risk tolerance criteria in this appendix are not exhaustive
and may be out-of-date. The data were extracted from several sources, each
published in different years, and hence individual quoted values may differ.
It is provided to show the similarity among risk tolerance criteria around the
world. The data shown here are to be used only to provide a benchmark per-
spective of a range of risk tolerance criteria. These data should not be used for
regulatory compliance; contact the appropriate regulatory authority for the
applicable current criteria.
The sources were BLS (1998), Greenwood (1997), Renshaw (1990), and
VROM (1995), and other industry literature sources.

243
244 Appendix E. Industry Risk Tolerance Criteria Data

TYPICAL DATA RELATED TO RISK TOLERANCE CRITERIA

(all values have units of probability of death per year for an individual)

Generalized USA Risk for workforce from all Risk for public from all
Industry Data scenarios scenarios

High risk (e.g., mining,

10–3 10–3 to 10–5
heavy construction)

Low risk (e.g., engineer-

10–5 10–5 to 10–5
ing, services)

General Industry (chemi-

cal, manufacturing, rail, 10–4 10–4 to 10–5
trucking)

Risk for workforce from all Risk for public from all
scenarios; derived by scenarios; derived by
dividing applicable fatalities dividing applicable fatalities
Statistical Data from USA by the affected population by the affected population

Driving accidents 10–4 10–4

Airline accidents 5 × 10–7 4 × 10–6

Work-related accidents in
1.9 × 10–5 NA
US industry

All accidents in US (work

and nonwork); sometimes 3.5 × 10–4 3.5 × 10–4
called “background” risk

Maximum Negligible Maximum

Some regulators and tolerable risk risk for tolerable risk Negligible
major companies that for workforce workforce for public risk for
have set risk tolerance from all from all from all public from
criteria scenarios scenarios scenarios all scenarios

Health & Safety Executive,

10–3 10–6 10–4 10–6
UK (existing industry)

VROM, The Netherlands

NA NA 10–5 NA
(existing industry)

VROM, The Netherlands

NA NA 10–6 NA
(new industry)

Hong Kong Government

NA NA 10–5 NA
(new industry)

Santa Barbara County,

NA NA 10–5 10–7
CA, USA (new industry)

Shell (onshore and off-

10–3 10–6 Note 1 Note 2
shore; approx.)

BP (onshore and offshore) 10–3 10–6 Note 1 Note 2

Appendix E. Industry Risk Tolerance Criteria Data 245

Maximum Negligible Maximum

Some regulators and tolerable risk risk for tolerable risk Negligible
major companies that for workforce workforce for public risk for
have set risk tolerance from all from all from all public from
criteria scenarios scenarios scenarios all scenarios

ICI (onshore) 3.3 × 10–5 NA 1 × 10–4 NA

Rohm and Haas Company 2.5 × 10–5

Personal risk
NA 1 × 10–5 1 × 10–7
to specific
employee

Typical criteria used with Maximum Negligible Maximum Negligible

LOPA tolerable risk risk for tolerable risk risk for
(Note 3) for workforce workforce for public public

For ALL scenarios

10–3 10–5 10–3 10–5
affecting an individual

For any ONE scenario

affecting an individual 10–4 10–6 10–4 10–6
(most useful for LOPA)

Note 1: Not available, but typically industry uses a value that is an order of magnitude lower than
workplace risk
Note 2: Not available, but typically industry uses the same value used for workplace risk, since the
value is already in the region where risk calculations become meaningless
Note 3: Many company criteria require that scenarios capable of causing multiple fatalities or causing
greater than US$10 million damage/harm must be evaluated using QRA
NA: Means either not available or not applicable.