RISK GOVERNANCE: Towards an Integrative Approach

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RISK GOVERNANCETowards an Integrative Approach
International Risk Governance Council Chemin de
Balexert 9 Châtelaine CH-1219 Geneva Switzerland 0
0 41 22 795 1730 www.irgc.org

• Christopher Bunting
• General Secretary
• International Risk Governance Council
• Stakeholders in Risk Communication
• Brussels, 9-10 November 2006

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STRUCTURE OF TALK

• About the International Risk Governance Council
• The IRGC Risk Governance framework
• Application to the IRGC framework to listeria in
  raw milk cheese

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IRGCS VISION

• A world that sees change coming, and responds to
  the inherent risks
• coherently and effectively.

IRGCS MISSION

• IRGC is an independent organisation whose purpose
  is to help the
• understanding and management of global risks that
  impact on human
• health and safety, the environment, the economy
  and society at large by
• developing concepts of risk governance that have
  relevance across different fields, organisations
  and countries
• undertaking anticipation of major risk issues and
  improving the understanding and assessment of
  them and the ambiguities involved
• providing policy recommendations to key decision
  makers in government
• In achieving its mission IRGC will seek to work
  with governments,
• industry, NGOs and other organisations.

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WORKING PRINCIPLE

Policy makers
recommendations
Business
Academia
IRGC
dialogue
NGOs
Media
General public
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IRGCS SET UP

• Sets strategy
• Approves business plan budget
• Appoints members of IRGC bodies
• Raises funds

• Prioritises work agenda
• Defines and leads project work
• Controls quality of deliverables

Board
Scientific and Technical Council
Advisory Committee

• Provides high-level advice
• Extends IRGC network

Secretariat

• IRGCs full-time staff resource
• Supports and contributes to projects
• Finance and administration

Projects
Conferences
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CHAIRMEN OF IRGCS BOARD, SCIENTIFIC AND
TECHNICAL COUNCIL AND ADVISORY COMMITTEE
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A DEFINITION OF RISK

• An uncertain consequence of an event or an
  activity with respect to something that humans
  value (definition originally in Kates et al.
  1985 21). Such consequences can be positive or
  negative, depending on the values that people
  associate with them

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NORMATIVE VALUES OF GOOD GOVERNANCE
? Ever increasing importance of Equity
? Participation vs. Responsiveness ?
Shaded in grey seemingly common principles
? Principles are open to culture and context
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A DEFINITION OF RISK GOVERNANCE

• ...includes the totality of actors, rules,
  conventions, processes, and mechanisms concerned
  with how relevant risk information is collected,
  analysed and communicated and management
  decisions are taken
• Risk governance therefore
• ...is multi-dimensional
• ...involves multiple actors
• ...calls for the consideration of contextual
  factors

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PURPOSE OF THE IRGC FRAMEWORK

• Facilitate terminological and conceptual clarity,
  consistency and transparency in the daily
  operations of the IRGC and beyond
• Assure the feasibility of comparative approaches
  in the governance of risks across a broad range
  of hazardous events and activities
• Foster IRGCs provision of scientifically sound,
  economically feasible, legally and ethically
  justifiable and politically acceptable advice to
  its targeted audience

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LIST OF HAZARDS COVERED BY IRGC FRAMEWORK
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IRGC RISK GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK CORE PROCESS
Assessment SphereGeneration of Knowledge
Management SphereDecisions on, and
implementation of, actions
Communication
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IRGC RISK GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK OVERVIEW

• Core Risk Governance Process
• pre-assessment
• risk appraisal-- risk assessment-- concern
  assessment
• tolerability/acceptability judgement
• risk management
• communication

• Organisational Capacity
• assets
• skills
• capabilities

• Actor Network
• politicians
• regulators
• industry/business
• NGOs
• media
• public at large

• Social Climate
• trust in regulatory institutions
• perceived authority of science
• degree of civil society involvement

• Political Regulatory Culture
• different regulatory styles

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IRGC RISK GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK CORE PROCESS
(I/VI)

Assessment Sphere Generation of Knowledge
Management Sphere Decisions on, and
implementation of, actions
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IRGC RISK GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK CORE PROCESS
(II/VI)
Assessment SphereGeneration of Knowledge
Management SphereDecisions on, and
implementation of, actions
Communication
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IRGC RISK GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK CORE PROCESS
(III/VI)
Assessment SphereGeneration of Knowledge
Management SphereDecisions on, and
implementation of, actions
Communication
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IRGC RISK GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK CORE PROCESS
(IV/VI)
Assessment SphereGeneration of Knowledge
Management SphereDecisions on, and
implementation of, actions
Communication
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IRGC RISK GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK CORE PROCESS
(V/VI)
Assessment SphereGeneration of Knowledge
Management SphereDecisions on, and
implementation of, actions
Communication
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ACCEPTABLE, TOLERABLE AND INTOLERABLE RISKS
(TRAFFIC LIGHT MODEL)
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IRGC RISK GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK CORE PROCESS
(VI/VI)
Assessment SphereGeneration of Knowledge
Management SphereDecisions on, and
implementation of, actions
Communication
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IRGC RISK GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK ESSENTIAL
DISTINCTIONS WITHIN THE CORE PROCESS
Assessment SphereGeneration of Knowledge
Management SphereDecisions on, and
implementation of, actions

• Risk Management Strategy
• routine-based
• risk-informed/robustness-focussed
• precaution-based/resilience-focussed
• discourse-based

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Communication

• Knowledge Challenge
• Complexity
• Uncertainty
• Ambiguity

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• Risk judged
• acceptable
• tolerable
• intolerable

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GENERIC RISK CHARACTERISTICS THREE CHALLENGES
OF RISK MANAGEMENT

• Complexity in assessing causal and temporal
  relationships
• Uncertainty
• variation among individual targets
• measurement and inferential errors
• genuine stochastic relationships
• system boundaries and ignorance
• Ambiguity in interpreting results
• Interpretative ambiguity (What does it mean?)
• Normative ambiguity (Is is tolerable?)

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NEED FOR DIFFERENT RISK MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES

• dealing with routine, mundane risks
• dealing with complex and sophisticated risks
  (high degree of modeling necessary)
• dealing with highly uncertain risks (high degree
  of second order uncertainty)
• dealing with highly controversial risks (high
  degree of ambiguity)
• dealing with imminent dangers or crisis(need for
  fast responses)

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RISK CHARACTERISTICS AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR
RISK MANAGEMENT (I/II)
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RISK CHARACTERISTICS AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR
RISK MANAGEMENT (II/II)
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THE RISK MANAGEMENT ESCALATOR AND STAKEHOLDER
INVOLVEMENT

• Risk Trade-off
• Analysis Delib-
• eration necessary
• Risk Balancing
• Probabilistic Risk Modelling

• Function Allocation of risks to one or several
  of the four routes
• Type of Discourse Design discourse
• Participants A team of risk and concern
  assessors, risk managers, stakeholders and
  representatives of related agencies

• Risk Balancing
• Necessary
• Probabilistic Risk Modelling

Remedy
Remedy

• Cognitive
• Evaluative
• Normative

Probabilistic Risk Modelling

• Cognitive
• Evaluative

Remedy
Type of Conflict
Type of Conflict
Cognitive

• Agency Staff
• External Experts
• Stakeholders
• Industry
• Directly affected groups

• Agency Staff
• External Experts
• Stakeholders
• Industry
• Directly affected groups
• General public

Statistical Risk Analysis
Type of Conflict
Remedy

• Agency Staff
• External Experts

Agency Staff
Actors
Actors
Actors
Actors
Epistemological
Reflective
Participative
Instrumental
Type of Discourse
Type of Discourse
Type of Discourse
Type of Discourse
Complexity induced
Uncertainty induced
Ambiguity induced
Simple
Risk Problem
Risk Problem
Risk Problem
Risk Problem
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LISTERIA IN RAW MILK SOFT CHEESE
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LISTERIA IN RAW MILK SOFT CHEESE

• Overview of the issue
• Between 1980 and 1996 there were 30 reported
  outbreaks of food-borne illness linked to cheese
  consumption in the US, Canada and Europe 16 were
  associated with cheese produced using
  unpasteurised milk
• In one of these outbreaks, there were 284
  reported illnesses and 86 deaths
• Illegal in the US to produce and sell soft and
  fresh cheeses (eg brie, camembert) using
  unpasteurised milk, but practice continues on a
  small scale (cultural heritage etc) some
  connoisseurs consider the use of unpasteurised
  milk as essential for making the best cheese
• Some US gourmet cheese producers use
  unpasteurised milk less flavour from
  pasteurised milk
• Two frames emerge
• Consumer sovereignty
• Illness prevention

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LISTERIA TWO IRRECONCILABLE FRAMES

• Consumer sovereignty
• Based on autonomy and freedom of choice by
  sufficiently well-informed consumers (eg they are
  aware of the hazard)
• Allows consumers to take the more natural
  option, thus supporting products positioned on
  basis of quality
• Listeria Hysteria other foods (eg uncooked
  delicatessen meat) may be more dangerous
• Contamination may occur during production, not
  lie in the milk itself
• Illness prevention
• Based on standardisation of regulation and
  regulatory practice no flexibility to account
  for susceptibility of certain sub-populations
• A top-down ban, to protect the public a
  necessary function of the state
• Views raw milk soft cheese as unsafe per se

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THE LESSONS

• For risk decision makers
• Even a blanket ban will not lead to 100
  compliance when consumers perceive it as
  disproportionate to the risk people make their
  own Tolerability and Acceptance Judgement
• The role of culture is important for example,
  Hispanic traditions ensure that at least one US
  sub-population will ignore the FDAs ruling
• A ban in one country (US) when others (eg France)
  continue to use unpasteurised milk in soft cheese
  is known by informed consumers (most have never
  heard of listeria) to be inequitable
• Uncertainty within the risk assessment eg does
  the listeria emanate from the raw milk or the
  production process - will, if not made
  transparent, lead to what may appear a flawed
  risk management decision

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SOURCE MATERIAL USED IN THE REVIEW OF EXISTING
APPROACHES (I/II)

• AS/NZS (1999) Risk management. AS/NZS 43601999.
  (Joint Australian and New Zealand Risk Management
  Standard).
• ISO (2002) Risk management Vocabulary
  Guidelines for use in standards. ISO/IEC Guide
  732002 (E/F).
• National Research Council (1983) Risk Assessment
  in the Federal Government Managing the Process.
  Washington, DC National Academy Press. (Red
  Book).
• National Research Council Committee on Risk
  Characterization (Eds. Stern, P.C., Fineberg, H.
  V.) (1996) Understanding Risk Informing
  Decisions in a Democratic Society. Washington
  D.C. National Academy Press.
• OECD (2003) Report on Emerging (Systemic) Risks
  in the 21st Century. Paris OECD Publications.
• Strategy Unit of the UK Cabinet Office (2002)
  Risk Improving governments capability to handle
  risk and uncertainty. Report.
• The Federation of European Risk Management
  Associations (FERMA) (2002) Risk Management
  Standard
• International Programme for Chemical Safety
  proposals for Integrated Risk Assessment.
• FAO Emergency Prevention System for Transboundary
  Animal and Plant Pests and Diseases (EMPRES)
  (from 1994).
• WHO SARS Risk Assessment and Preparedness
  Framework (2004).
• WHO 2002 World Health Report (chapter 2),
  Defining and Assessing Risks to Health.

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SOURCE MATERIAL USED IN THE REVIEW OF EXISTING
APPROACHES (II/II)

• European Union Council Directive 96/82/EC on the
  Control of Major-Accident Hazards (Sveso II)
• The Presidential / Congressional Commission on
  Risk Assessment and Risk Management (1997)
  Framework for Environmental Health Risk
  Management. Final Report, Two Volumes.
• United Nations (2004) Living with Risk A
  global review of disaster reduction initiatives
  (2 Volumes). New York and Geneva United Nations
  ISDR.
• WBGU (German Advisory Council on Global Change)
  (1998) Strategies for Managing Global
  Environmental Risks. Annual Report. Also Klinke,
  A., Renn, O. (1999) Prometheus Unbound
  Challenges of Risk Evaluation, Risk
  Classification, and Risk Management. Working
  Paper Nr 153, Akademie für Technologiefolgenabschä
  tzung in Baden-Württemberg.
• WHO/FAO (1963-present) Codex Alimentarius.
• International Commission on Non-Ionising
  Radiation statement General Approach to
  Protection Against Non-Ionising Radiation.
• International Civil Aviation Authority
  environmental practices including approach to
  aircraft noise management (2001).
• International Atomic Energy Agency (and others),
  The Safety of Nuclear Installations.
• World Trade Organisation, Agreement on Sanitary
  and Phytosanitary Measures.
• Basel Committee on Banking Supervision Basel
  Accord, plus amendments (1988-2004)
• Financial Services Agency UK Combined Code on
  Corporate Governance
• (US) Committee of Sponsoring Organisations of the
  Treadway Commission Integrated Framework for
  Enterprise Risk Management