The Major Hazards Committee has considered how the UK Engineering Council’s six guiding principles on how professional engineers and technicians should identify, assess, manage and communicate about risk applies to chemical engineers.

Due to the nature of their work, chemical engineers have a particularly important role when it comes to managing risk. Great care is needed to ensure that, should an organisation decide to accept a high degree of risk in one area (eg financial), this does not result in acceptance of higher levels of safety or environmental risk.