At the 2014 ProSafe conference, Lachlan Dreher (Director and Principal Risk Consultant) presented on the topic of “So far as is reasonably practicable” (SFAIRP), the threshold test for safety risk management that is included in safety legislation in many jurisdictions.

SFAIRP is a framework aiming to ensure that all “reasonably practicable” precautions are put in place to manage safety. One key aspect of SFAIRP is that there is no lower limit of risk that is automatically considered tolerable. Risk is considered tolerable if, and only if, no there are no further risk reduction measures available that are practicable to implement.

What is ‘reasonably practicable’? Lachlan describes two elements to this:

• What can be done, what could theoretically be possible
• Whether it is reasonable to do those things.

The implications of cost are also discussed and the types of criteria that may be used to rule things out on the basis of cost.

To read more, download the presentation slides here.