Segmented pinch analysis for environmental risk management

Implementing environmental risk mitigation countermeasures in the context of a business environment requires balancing costs and benefits of projects to be implemented. Systematic environmental risk analysis methods are thus needed to aid decision-making. This paper proposes a segmented pinch analysis methodology that considers the relationship between environmental risk prevention and control countermeasure costs, while also considering the criticality of environmental risk prevention. In this methodology, the countermeasure costs are divided into low-, medium-, and high-cost intervals. This methodology is illustrated using a chemical industry case study to demonstrate how risk countermeasures can be identified under different levels of a firm's “willingness to pay.” The final optimal mix of countermeasures can then be determined from candidate solutions. And it makes a firm to best allocate resources to the enterprises' risk points to ensure the normal operation of a chemical enterprise.