Hazard versus risk: clarifying concepts and management implications – insights from the bovaer controversy

In the risk and safety literature and practice, it is common to distinguish between hazard and risk. An important risk/safety management and governance issue is whether one should regulate products and substances on the basis of hazard assessments (classifications) or risk assessments. The discussion about this issue has been shown to be difficult – it relates to fundamental topics of risk/safety science, including terminology, the scope and quality of hazard and risk assessments, and management/governance issues such as the understanding and use of the precautionary principle. The present paper seeks to obtain new insights on this issue by discussing these topics in view of contemporary risk science knowledge. A framework is presented, aiming at clarifying the meaning and use of fundamental concepts. The analysis is illustrated by the ‘Bovaer case’, which refers to the current controversy surrounding the methane-reducing feed additive, Bovaer.