First steps in risk management

Risk management would appear to be an emerging topic, a recent preoccupation for our organizations. Proof of this is the recent publication, in January 2010, of the EN NF ISO 31000 standard devoted to risk management. We'll come back to this later (see 4 ).

Yet man has always been exposed to risks, and human activity has always generated risks for the environment.

In prehistoric times, risks were few in number but formidable: predators, disease... Prevention and protection were based on an instinct for self-preservation. Ancient civilizations (Egypt, Greece...) gave a real political dimension to risk, organizing prevention and protection around goals and objectives. Then, to unify and rationalize an immense, multicultural area of influence, the Romans instituted codification and developed regulations, giving rise to the notions of "norm" and "conformity". Later, in the 18th century, the advent of the industrial era marked a clear break in the evolution of risks: these multiplied and changed in nature as well as in dimension, linked to the use of new substances or new sources of energy, mechanization or new modes of travel. And yet, up until the 1970s, we took it for granted that these new risks were worth running, because technology and industrialization seemed necessary for the prosperity of our societies. But the succession of crises since then, and the socio-economic changes underway, have changed this perception of progress and the risks that go with it.

Over the last forty years, the context has become considerably more complex, and it would seem illusory to envisage an exhaustive identification of risks, to hope to prevent all their causes and to assess all their consequences. The only certainty is that these consequences can now reach terrifying proportions: Bhopal, Mexico City, Chernobyl, Toulouse... We have also begun to understand the need to preserve natural resources, the scarcity of which now seems very real. As for the development of scientific knowledge, by pushing back our limits of investigation, it seems paradoxically to be widening our field of uncertainty! But the most important development is the recent realization that it is our own actions, our human behaviour, that generate most of the threats we face. Judiciarization and media coverage are doing the rest:...