Development of an easy and flexible risk assessment tool as a part of the planning of environmental inspections linked to European environmental law and the RMCEI (easyTools)

This is a report of “easyTools”. The main objective of this project, executed in 2010 and 2011, was to develop an easy and flexible risk assessment tool as part of the planning of environmental inspections linked to European environmental law (IED and SEVESO) and the RMCEI. The annexes offer supplementary materials like the project's terms of reference for both years, progress reports, and a workshop report. Importantly, Annex 3 provides a detailed report on the questionnaire responses from various IMPEL member countries regarding their current risk assessment practices. This report highlights the diverse criteria and methods employed across Europe, illustrating the need for a more standardized approach.

Flayer

Under the name ‘easyTools’ a project team, led by Germany, collected information on the risk assessments that are used across Europe. Based on this information a new rule based methodology was developed and tested, called Integrated Risk Assessment Method (IRAM). The easyTools "Risk Assessment Guidance Book" introduces the Integrated Risk Assessment Method (IRAM), a rule-based methodology for environmental risk assessment and inspection planning. IRAM helps prioritize inspection activities based on risk, balancing impact and operator performance2. It uses both impact criteria (environmental effect) and operator performance criteria (probability of the effect), combined with weighting factors, to determine risk categories and inspection frequencies. The IRAM tool, accessible on the IMPEL website, supports this methodology, offering flexibility for various inspections, including those related to the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) and Seveso III Directive. 

For several years IMPEL worked on the subject of inspection planning in the project Doing the right thing (DTRT). DTRT introduced the environmental inspection cycle. Important steps in that cycle are setting priorities and defining inspection targets and related performance indicators.This guidance document has been written primarily to assist inspection authorities to set and monitor targets for inspecting regulated facilities, but it can also be used more widely. For example, inspection authorities that also have powers to take enforcement action against illegal dumping of waste can use the methodology set-out in this guidance to set and monitor targets for dealing with these sites in a systematic way.