A specific term defined in the CIMAH Regulations referring to listed substances and others meeting given criteria. In assessing the threat posed by a hazard, the principal factors are the likelihood that it may be realised, and the likelihood and extent of the consequences, i.e. damage to people, property or the environment, in the event of its realisation. The term which expresses likelihood in the present context is risk. Little controversy surrounds this point; the controversy around the use of “risk” is whether it may also be used to mean other quite different things. For example, whether it should also have the meaning attributed to “hazard” as defined above or a combination of the meaning of “hazard” with the meaning of likelihood. This practice of giving a number of meanings to “risk” is common where meanings are commercial rather than scientific and where their meaning has to be deduced from the context. The Working Party recommends that the word “risk” should only be used to mean the likelihood of some specified undesired event. This would avoid the public confusion, which arises when an installation is described using one meaning, as “high risk”, and using another as “low risk”; it will encourage people to consider the “risk of something happening