5. Assessing and preventing chemical and other risks in small enterprises

Organizers:
Ann-Beth Antonsson, IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute: ann-beth.antonsson@ivl.se  
David Walters, Cardiff University, United Kingdom: WaltersD@cf.ac.uk    

In EU as well as national legislation risk assessment and prevention is essential. Risk assessment has been developed by health and safety experts as a tool to identify and evaluate risks, in order to prioritize and decide what control measures are needed. Preventive strategies are also prioritised according to a hierarchy of control.

There are many tools for different fields. Several of these fields are complex, such as chemical or microbiological risks and difficult to assess, even for experts. There are indications that small enterprises are very poor at risk assessment and at implementing preventive strategies.

The questions to be discussed in this workshop are:
 

    - What methods are possible to use for small enterprises to undertake risk assessment and 
      operationalise prevention and

    - What the quality in the outcome is when small enterprises use these methods.

There are many tools that can be used by small enterprises:

    - Do we know if they are used?

    - Have they been evaluated?

    - What characterise good tools, apart from them being easy to use and not require too 
      much time?

    - Are there other methods arriving at the same result – for example, effective preventive 
      measures for the most severe risks and for medium risks?

Final order of presentations

Session WS5.1, Thursday 22 October, time: 15.15-16.45, location: B-10:
Chairs: David Walters and Ann-Beth Antonsson

Walters, David, Cardiff University, United Kingdom:
'Strategies and tools to support small firms assess and manage risks of hazardous substances in Europe'