SOCIAL MOBILISATION

Social mobilisation appears to be initiated by (i) the potential hazardous properties of a substance, regardless of exposure or (ii) the exposure of vulnerable groups (e.g., children or elderly) to a chemical, regardless of hazard. Reporting commonly used household products as containing potentially carcinogenic or potentially reprotoxic ... 

Public perception of a risk often becomes heightened when there is a perceived lack of voluntary control on exposure scenarios and exposure levels. It follows that human exposure to chemicals via the environment as a result of pollution or contamination tends to be a particular concern and a useful lobbying focus for many environmental NGO. Social mobilisation can result in risk level attenuation rather than amplification [505]. For instance, when a chemical is perceived as being of particular value to society, the level of risk may be more acceptable to many members of the public [506]. 

Figure 5.14 Hazard, exposure and social mobilisation - two possible sequences of events...

For the purpose of prioritising regulatory action under REACH, this thesis proposes to reduce the nine risk criteria identified by Klinke and Renn to four categories that can be used to characterise risk levels hazard, exposure, social mobilisation and probability. The grouping of the nine specific risk criteria into the four fundamental prioritisation criteria relevant for regulatory chemical risk management is shown in Table 5.6. 

Violation of equity Describes the discrepancy between those who enjoy the benefits and those who bear the risks Social mobilisation... 

Potential for mobilisation Violation of individual, social or cultural interests and values generating social conflicts and psychological reactions by individuals or groups who feel themselves impacted by the risk consequences this could result from perceived inequities in the distribution of risks and benefits Social mobilisation... 

Exposure and social mobilisation are stochastic, as are the corresponding risk level criteria used by Klinke and Renn shown in Table 5.6. Several probabilities are also associated with any hazard assessment. This thesis therefore proposes to distinguish between probabilities associated with hazard, exposure and social mobilisation. 

For evaluating the extent of regulatory action based on exposure and social mobilisation, this thesis has devised a set of most-probable events that can be evaluated in terms of their potential for being of general regulatory concern, which form indicators for extent of regulatory action based on exposure or extent of regulatory action based on social mobilisation . As a separate step, it is proposed that those events be evaluated in terms of the probability of exposure... 

When there are no monitoring data available on environmental contamination, a combination of high production or import volumes (i.e., above 1000 tonnes per year in the EU) and the intrinsic physicochemical properties of persistency and bioaccumulation provide the basis for rating for that part of the indicator for social mobilisation. In this scheme, these two physico-chemical characteristics of... 

This is considered to indicate that manufacture and use of a substance has a fairly high probability of triggering regulatory and public attention to potential chronic effects on human health, in particular CMR and endocrine properties. Exposure to pregnant women and children in the general public is considered in the regulatory control indicator for social mobilisation. 

Answering these six questions depends on an evaluation of a risk according to the nine criteria identified by Klinke and Renn and shown in Table 5.5. In this respect, the method developed in this thesis is simpler because it only depends on an evaluation of the three fundamental criteria of hazard, exposure, social mobilisation, as well as the probabilities asscociated with each criterion. 

A hypothetical example of the application of the methodology follows in Table 5.9. The relevant data from chemical risk assessments and socio-economic analyses are entered into three columns corresponding to hazard, exposure and social mobilisation. For each of the two substances, the first row characterises the relevant scenarios according to the regulatory action indicators from Table 5.7. The second row, which is shaded in grey, then describes the key parameters that influence the probabilities associated with each action indicator. The corresponding ratings for the action indicators and the probability of occurrence indicators are presented in bold italics. 

Substance B would be prioritised over substance A for regulatory action, even though both substances are likely to be hazardous and current exposures to substance B are more likely to be of regulatory concern than exposures to substance A. When comparing the two substances, it is the potentially highly hazardous properties of substance B and the potential for social mobilisation that make it a higher regulatory priority than A. 

All frameworks are based on the idea that professional analysts estimate risks independently from how assessors, decision-makers or other stakeholders value the risks. This distinction between (scientific, value-free) assessments and value judgments is well articulated by ISO (2002) Risk analysis describes risk whereas risk evaluation broadens the picture to include aspects such as cost-benefit balances, pohtical priorities, potential for conflict resolution and social mobilisation potential. The difficulties in separating facts from values have been discussed extensively in literature, in particular by social scientists, see... 

---