Safety of the Environment

Systems Approach to Safety of the Environment (SASEWG)

Welcome to the SASEWG Home Pages

These pages outline the approach of the SCSC Systems Approach to Safety of the Environment Working Group. Prefer a graphical representation? Why not take a look at the poster from SSS'24!

What is our mission?

To produce clear guidance on how engineered systems should be developed and managed throughout their entire lifecycle so as to preserve, protect and enhance the environment

Why are we doing this?

Critical systems can have a significant effect on the natural and human environment, beyond their direct impact on the health and safety of people. Some of these effects can be obvious and have been brought to public attention through major environmental accidents. Others are more subtle and can involve cumulative effects that build up over time.

While established system safety practices can sometimes be used to manage environmental impacts, this is often problematic and doesn't result in appropriate prioritisation of the issues. We believe that there is a need for guidance aimed at the designers, manufacturers and operators of critical systems, to help them understand the need to manage their environmental impact, and how best to do this.

Some Differences to 'Traditional' Systems Safety Approach

There is likely a longer time frame for harm to materialise
Harm may be long-lasting and difficult to assess
Systems have potentially wide scope and with more affected parties (for instance pollution in the ocean due to shipping)
There can be more interactions and relationships between elements (and stakeholders)
Systems may have less well-defined and 'leaky' boundaries
There may be many competing demands with commercial, governmental, national, NGO and individual interests
There may be an implicit trade-off between benefits (e.g. economic) and losses
There are more unknowns and ‘Dark Consequences’, i.e. we don’t know what the effect will be in the future, particularly on human health
Cumulative effects can be significant and risk assessment doesn’t tend to cover. There can be ‘Ecological Ceilings’.
Environmental risk equation is sometimes less based on consequences of harm and more based on business and legal issues
Existing methods for environment tend to be more regulation and compliance-based

Statement of the Problem

It is acknowledged that systems have been a contributing factor in major environmental accidents to date (Deep Water Horizon, Bhopal, etc).
It is thought that the impact of systems is not currently sufficiently addressed in current environmental safety management practices and standards, which tend to be prescriptive and regulation-based
Knock-on effects and emergent behaviours of systems and eco-systems are not currently assessed and managed properly
There could be benefit in introducing systems thinking, tools and techniques to specifically manage environmental risks due to systems
There are clear business and societal benefits, and wider environmental benefits, in terms of reduced harm, reduced liabilities and improved business efficiencies, in improved management of systems risk related to safety of the environment

Meetings

Working Group meetings will be held roughly monthly on MS Teams. Please contact james.inge@scsc.uk if you would like further information.