Aspects and impacts

[Guidance Note |Environment & Social]

1 Purpose
This document provides guidance that supports the business in developing an aspects and impacts
register, which is a requirement of the Network Rail Environment and Social Management Systems
(ESMS).

1.1 Definitions
Active Risk Manager (ARM): Network Rail’s corporate risk management tool, used to store
and manage; High level strategic risks, business risks and project risks.

Environmental aspect: An element of an organisation’s activities, products, or services that

can or does interact with the environment. These interactions and their effects may be
continuous in nature, periodic, or associated only with events, such as emergencies.

Environmental impact: Any change to the environment, whether adverse or beneficial, wholly or
partially resulting from an organisation’s activities, products, or services (environmental aspects).

Environmental risk: The actual or potential threat of any adverse changes to the environment, wholly or
partially resulting from an organisation’s activities, products, or services (environmental aspects).

Environmental opportunity: The actual or potential opportunity to make beneficial changes to the
environment, wholly or partially resulting from an organisation’s activities, products, or services
(environmental aspects).

Normal operating condition: The aspect occurs during day to day activities or as part of the process e.g.
waste production, raw materials use, normal weather, regular prices (for materials), trains running, etc.

Abnormal operating condition: The aspect may occur periodically or irregularly as part of activities
associated with the main process. Network Rail still has some control or influence over abnormal
operating conditions. This is not to be used to risk score aspects when operational controls fail.

Emergency operating condition: The aspect is not expected to occur except as a result of an accident or
random event over which Network Rail has no control or influence e.g. fire, flood, earthquake, bomb,
etc.

Social aspect: An element of an organisation’s activities, products, or services that can or does
interact with society or communities. These interactions and their effects may be continuous
in nature, periodic, or associated only with events, such as emergencies.

Social impact: The effect of an activity on the social fabric of the community and well-being of the
individuals and families which can be both positive and negative.

Social risk: The actual or potential threat of any adverse changes to the environment, wholly or partially
resulting from an organisation’s activities, products or services (social aspect).

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Social opportunity: The actual or potential opportunity to make beneficial changes to society, wholly or
partially resulting from an organisation’s activities, products, or services (social aspects).

1.2 Aspects and impacts identification and classification

In order to determine any significant risks and opportunities, the environmental and social aspects and
associated impacts must first be identified. Each Network Rail function should take into account their
full range of activities, including but not limited to:

Function Activity
Infrastructure Projects (IP)  Project works (Design and Construction),
 IP Offices
 Environmental Management and Leadership
Support (e.g Exec leadership direction,
resources, objectives and targets)
Route Businesses  Depots
 Managed Stations
 Works Delivery (Design and Construction)
 Maintenance
 Environmental Management and Leadership
Support
Route Services  Material Handling Depots (MHDs)
 Aggregate Handling Depots (AHDs)
 Road Fleet
 Rail Fleet
 Railway Materials and Supplies
 Environmental Management and Leadership
Support
Property  Workplaces
 Project works (Design and Construction)
 Tenant Activity
 Maintenance
 Acquisitions and Disposals of Property
Other Corporate Functions  Office Activity
(including: Human Resources;
Corporate Communications;
Safety, Technical and Engineering,
System Operator;
Finance;
Group Transformation and Efficiency;
Digital Railway).

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Environmental and Social aspects should be identified from all functional activities and they should be
categorised into one of the main Environment and Social themes as given below:

Environment Theme Social Theme

Contaminated land Being a caring neighbour
Biodiversity Connecting communities with the environment
Emissions to air Creating engaged employees
Operational carbon Creating positive industry partnerships
Sustainable procurement Inspiring tomorrow’s workforce
Waste Keeping communities safe
Pollution of land/water Making rail a great experience
Sustainable travel Making travel accessible
Water Respecting cultural history and rail heritage
Weather resilience & climate change adaptation Supporting Britain’s development
Capital carbon

For more information on each of the themes, refer to the Environment and Sustainable Development
pages on Safety Central.

An impact description should then be provided for each aspect, which considers Environment, Health
and Safety, Performance, Finance, Asset Management and Reputation. Finally before assessing the risk
or opportunity, it should be stated whether the impact is a normal, abnormal or emergency occurrence.

The below example shows what the first part of the register should look like:

Main Theme
Ref Applicability SD Topic Aspect Impact description Condition
(Most applicable)

Depletion of natural resources, contribution to

greenhouse emissions during asset life
Little consideration
for energy efficiency Energy Efficiency &
9 GRIP 1-5 Design Environment Financial impacts due to rising energy costs Normal
during operational Operational Carbon
and CCL (Climate change levy) changes
asset life cycle
Potential negative stakeholder perception

1.3 Assessment of risks and opportunities

Environmental and social risks should be using the Network Rail Corporate Risk Assessment Matrix
(Appendix A), which uses the “Impact Score + Likelihood” risk scoring approach, as adapted throughout
Network Rail. The highest scoring impact (when considering Environment, Health and Safety,
Performance, Finance, Asset Management and Reputation) should be used to calculate the Gross
(unmitigated) Risk score. Environmental and Social opportunities should be scored using the
Opportunities Matrix (Appendix B) which uses the same “Impact Score + Likelihood” scoring approach.

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The Gross Risk/Opportunity score is used for assessing the significance of a risk or opportunity when
there are no operational controls in place. Any operational controls are then captured in the next
column.

The Net Risk/Opportunity Score should then be calculated, which assesses the significance of a risk or
opportunity with the operational controls in place. For a negative risk, the net score must be less than or
equal to the gross risk score. For an opportunity, the net score must be more than or equal to the gross
opportunity score.

Where a net risk is scored higher than 7, a lower target risk should be defined and the risk added to
Active Risk Manager (ARM) where an action plan should be put in place and progress against this
tracked.

Below is an example of what the second part of the register should like:

Impact Net Risk

Gross Target
Asset Satisfaction Likelihood Current controls ARM ID Comments
Environment Health Safety Performance Finance Risk Impact Likelihood Total Risk
management & reputation

GRIP, GRIP4 Track, Contract To be moved to ARM register

3 1 n/a n/a 3 1 2 5 8 3 4 7 5 IP-SD-009
Requirements - environment where action plan will be detailed.

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2 Appendix A - Network Rail Corporate Risk Assessment Matrix

3 App
endix B -
Opportu
nities
Matrix

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IMPACT SCORE
Impact 1 Impact 2 Impact 3 Impact 4 Impact 5

Postive impacts to the environment or

Score Multiple positive impacts to the Long term positive impact to the
social agenda, benefitting an immediate Single positive impacts to the
(Likelihood + Impact) Temporary positive impacts to environment or social agenda, environment or social agenda,
area within NR e.g contributing to project environment or social agenda,
environment or social agenda. benefitting locally within and external to benefitting NR nationally and the
specific environmental or social benefitting locally and internally to NR.
NR. UK more widely.
objectives.

>75%
Very High likelihood the
6 7 8 9 10
opportunity will occur
LIKELHOOD SCORE

5 5 times a year or more

51 – 75%
High likelihood the opportunity 5 6 7 8 9
will occur
4 1 and 5 times a year

21 – 50%
Medium likelihood the
4 5 6 7 8
opportunity will occur
Once in 5 years to just less than
3 once a year

5 – 20%
Low likelihood the opportunity
will occur 3 4 5 6 7
Opportunity would occur
between once in 25 years or up
2 to once in 5 years
<5%
Very Low likelihood the
opportunity will occur 2 3 4 5 6
Opportunity would occur less
1 than once in 25 years

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