Following a risk management process will help you manage risks of harm from your activities. Your approach should include a focus on risk of harm from pollution and waste.
We recommend incorporating physical climate risks into your existing risk management framework. This can:
- help consider physical climate risks in the context of other risks
- support identification of common controls for minimising risk of harm
- help prioritise the implementation of controls
- ensure you check controls for physical climate risks as part of your routine risk management process.
The steps to control the hazards and risks in a changing climate are:
- identify current and future climate hazards and how they can cause or increase harms from your activities
- assess the physical climate risks that may arise from exposure to climate hazards
- put controls in place to eliminate or reduce the physical climate risk
- review controls regularly. This will ensure they are effective in a changing climate.
This risk management approach aligns with:
Assessment
The level of detail of your assessment of physical climate risks should be proportionate to the:
- nature, scale, location and complexity of your operations
- risk that climate change creates for your activities.
Be aware your approach may change over time as state of knowledge develops. This includes changes to your physical climate risk exposure.
Qualitative assessment
This guidance sets out a qualitative approach to assessing physical climate risks. It is consistent with Assessing and controlling risk: A guide for business.
The approach may be useful:
- for medium risk activities
- as an initial screen for larger businesses or those that pose a high level of risk of harm. The qualitative assessment may help determine the need for more detailed assessments.
Detailed assessment
More detailed assessments are more comprehensive and semi-quantitative or quantitative in nature. A more detailed assessment is likely to be needed for some situations, such as:
- high level of risk of harm. For example, the overall level of risk to human health or the environment is high
- critical systems. For example, if the consequences of system failure are severe
- assets that are at risk of causing pollution or waste and are rarely replaced. For example, a wastewater treatment plant, sewage pump station or landfill
- decisions where a higher degree of precision is needed. For example, engineering design
- sites located in climate-vulnerable areas like, floodplains, coastal zones or bushfire prone regions.
See the Additional resources section below for further information about more detailed assessments.
Other assessments and documentation
You may already be assessing how climate change may increase risks from your activities. It may be part of your:
- mandatory climate related financial disclosure (CRFD) obligations. This is if your business meets sustainability reporting thresholds.
- environmental management system, plans and supporting documentation
- corporate risk management process
- emergency risk management process including for critical infrastructure.
Including risks of harm in these assessments can help you meet your GED obligations. For example:
- your corporate risk management process may be more focused on service disruptions or property damage. Include risks of harm in your assessment.
- your existing management systems, plans and procedures may already include climate risk. These documents may be enough to show how you are meeting your GED obligations. This guidance can help you assess whether there are any gaps.
Consider physical climate risks when undertaking a detailed risk assessment of key environmental aspects/ environmental segments.
Risk management and monitoring program
Certain EPA permission holders need a site-specific risk management and monitoring program (RMMP). You should document how you have considered physical climate risks as part of your RMMP.
Additional resources
Other sources of information may help you consider physical climate risk:
- Industry associations or similar international operations facing different or more extreme weather
- National Climate Risk Assessment
- Climate Risk and Opportunity Management Program resources
- Guidelines for the Adaptive Management of Wastewater Systems Under Climate Change in Victoria. This contains information on detailed assessments for wastewater systems.
- Built Environment Climate Change Adaptation Action Plan
- Local government climate adaptation plans.
- Other government authorities such as the UK Government Environment Agency industry sector examples. Note: climate change projections for the UK are likely to be different to Australia. However, some impacts and example controls may still be relevant.
You can choose to assess the physical climate risks. You can also get help from a suitably qualified and experienced consultant.
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