Occupational Safety Liability Costs for Total Life Cycle Assessment

A comprehensive total cost life cycle assessment should include estimates of liability costs to provide the best picture of the financial viability of investments, such as product or process changes and pollution prevention projects. Potential liability costs are by nature difficult to estimate and include a prediction (or probability estimate) of risk. Occupational safety liabilities resulting from injuries to workers have been evaluated for specific automotive industrial processes by worker occupations using an incidence and severity-of-incidence type approach. Potential safety risks to workers at varying levels of risk from low to high were determined, and the estimated economic costs resulting from those risks have been developed. These occupational safety liability cost estimates can be used for total cost accounting in life cycle management.