Glossary term
Hazard
Subject: Risk Management, Operational and Model Risk
A hazard is anything with the potential to cause harm, such as a chemical, a moving machine, a fire source or a fault in a system. It describes the source of harm, not the chance of it happening.
Explanation
Safety and risk practice separates the hazard from the risk. The hazard is the thing that could hurt people, property or the environment. The risk is the likelihood that it does, combined with how bad the result would be. A tank of flammable liquid is a hazard whether or not it ever ignites. Hazards are commonly grouped as physical, chemical, biological, ergonomic and psychosocial, and organisations list them during hazard identification before judging how likely each is to cause harm. The word is used mainly in safety, environmental and engineering settings. Insurance language has a related but different set of terms, where a peril is the event that causes a loss and a hazard is a condition that raises its chance. A risk register entry with no named hazard behind it tends to stay vague, and vague entries rarely lead to a specific control.
Example
During a walk-through of a warehouse, a safety officer notes a stack of pallets leaning against a wall, a forklift with a faulty horn, and a spill of oil near a loading bay. Each is a hazard. She then rates how likely and how serious injuries from each would be, which tells the manager that the oil spill needs attention first.
Not to be confused with
- Risk
- A hazard is the source of potential harm. Risk is the chance of that harm happening combined with its severity.