Criteria for evaluating companies

Each audience has its own criteria for evaluating success. In addition, many other criteria and financial performance measures are reported and used to gauge company performance. Besides total return to shareholders, other common measures used to evaluate a company and its executive management team include ... 

As discussed in Chapter 4, some risk-based decision making can benefit by the development of tolerance criteria for the various types of risk to which building occupants may be exposed. When identified risks are higher than what can be deemed tolerable, they should be eliminated or reduced to control the company s risk exposure. The process of risk identification and evaluation, comparison to tolerance criteria, and elimination or reduction of intolerably high risk is known as risk management. Figure 6.1 illustrates this process. Application of these tolerance criteria helps protect building occupants and ensure that resources are appropriately applied. 

Analytical methodology—This section should refer to the specific analytical method(s) to be used for the specific products, cleaning agents, and equipment for the protocol being evaluated. Many companies choose to have the detailed analytical methodology described in a separate report and reference only the report number in the actual protocol. There are certain parameters that should be included in the actual protocol, however. For example, the sensitivity of the analytical method, expressed either as the LOD or LOQ, should be included in the protocol since it will be necessary that the sensitivity of the analytical method be below the acceptance criteria for the residues so that a result of none detected can be interpreted, ft must be remembered that none detected does not mean that there was no residue present, but only that the level of residue was below the limit of detection of the analytical method. 

Risk criteria have been established by some regulatory agencies and companies for fixed-facility risks however, there are very limited such target criteria for transportation risks, with a few companies beginning to use criteria for transportation risks. Where criteria are employed, initial risk estimates are compared against the criteria. If the risk target level is not met or is exceeded, the addition of risk reduction measures to reduce the risk estimate to (or below) the target risk level is evaluated. 

The EPA said that similar criteria for other species have not been developed and data should be evaluated on a case by case basis. However, companies are reporting data on other environmental species, and conservative assumptions are made in the checklists for reporting in Chapter 20, Practice Tools. 

---