The typology of risk

In the field of public policy, risks are classified into categories based on several criteria, including technical, legal, and administrative considerations. There is therefore not one typology but several typologies of risk, depending on whether the focus is on their areas of application, their sources, the targets they affect, their degrees of intensity, or the effects they produce.
For example, a distinction is made between individual risks and collective risks, military risks and civil risks, economic/financial risks and social and political risks, occupational risks (world of work) and everyday risks (private sphere), technological risks and natural risks, etc. INERIS therefore deals with risks generated by a wide variety of economic activities resulting from the industrial revolutions of the modern era: these risks, which share the common feature of being capable of harming the environment, are grouped together under the term “technological risks” by public policy.

The origins of public risk policies

At the level of society as a whole, a number of risks are now managed by the community, through the state, which ensures the prevention and/or repair of damage that affects the living conditions of all or part of society. In this area, awareness of the need for collective risk management is closely linked to the turning point of the first industrial revolution, which took place in France in the first half of the 19th century.

Social protection is organized around issues such as family and housing, illness, old age, poverty, and employment. At the same time, initial measures were taken to ensure public order (a concept incorporated into the Civil Code in 1804), manage the risk of industrial accidents and pollution (imperial decree of October 15, 1810), and protect public health (creation of departmental public health and sanitation councils beginning in 1802). From the 1960s and 1970s onwards, with the emergence of nature protection policies, the risks associated with environmental damage took on a new importance.

Risks of environmental damage

The modern legal concept of risk of environmental damage, which is central to INERIS's mission, is based on a broad definition of the term “environment,” consistent with its use in public management policies. The environment refers to human populations, material assets (infrastructure, housing, etc.) and natural environments (flora and fauna) that may be exposed to a given risk.

In this context, the technical term “issue,” which is abstract in everyday language, is generally used to describe concrete realities in specific areas that are exposed to risk: a house, a river, a road, the inhabitants of a neighborhood, a school, a forest, a commercial area, etc.

Today, public policies manage various categories of collective risks, mainly:

• Traditional social risks: precariousness, exclusion, dependence of the elderly, unstable family structures, long-term unemployment, social decline, workplace accidents and occupational illnesses, etc.
• Risks related to environmental damage: natural (avalanches, floods, storms, earthquakes, etc.) or “anthropogenic,” i.e., caused by human activity (chemical plant explosions, toxic clouds, oil spills, nuclear accidents, soil pollution, etc.).
• Health risks: addiction, infectious diseases and epidemics, unsanitary conditions, food contamination, everyday accidents, diseases linked to environmental pollution, etc.
• Risks of public disorder: incivility, riots, terrorism, crime, cyberattacks, etc.