By Automated Environmental · Last reviewed July 2026. General information for Victorian businesses — not legal advice.
Under Victoria's Environment Protection Act 2017, the central environmental duties do not demand zero risk — they require risks of harm to be eliminated or otherwise reduced 'so far as reasonably practicable'. It is a weighing test: the likelihood of harm occurring, the degree of harm that could result, what you know — or ought reasonably to know — about the risk and the ways of controlling it, and the availability, suitability and cost of those controls. It asks for proportionate, genuinely effective risk control — not perfection, not box-ticking. EPA's guidance on how it interprets the test is Publication 1856.
The phrase does a lot of work: it is the standard the General Environmental Duty (GED) holds every Victorian business to, the standard the duty to manage contaminated land applies, and the language EPA officers write into enforcement notices.
The factors come from the Act; EPA's guidance unpacks each. In plain English:
How likely is your activity — or your land's contamination — to actually cause harm? EPA expects you to answer from evidence you already have: how often the risk-creating activity happens, whether harm has occurred before on your site or commonly occurs at sites like yours, and what suppliers and manufacturers tell you. A workshop that hoses down equipment over a stormwater drain every afternoon runs a very different likelihood than one that contains its wash water — and the greater the likelihood, the more it weighs.
Consequence asks how bad it could get, and context matters: EPA is explicit that consequence weighs more heavily in sensitive settings — a yard backing onto a creek, or close neighbours. 'Harm' means any adverse impact on the environment, of any degree or duration, including cumulative impacts that add up over time, so a minor but chronic discharge can matter as much as a one-off spill. All levels of possible harm count, not just the worst case.
The factor businesses most often underestimate. You are measured against both what you actually know and what someone in your circumstances should reasonably know about the risks and ways of controlling them. Ignorance is not an answer — if your industry body has published guidance on a risk, or a supplier's safety data sheet flags it, a business in your position ought to know. EPA expects you to regularly seek current knowledge — from your own operations, from industry guidance, manuals and safety data, from regulators, and from independent sources such as Standards Australia and environmental consultants.
What controls exist, and do they suit your circumstances? EPA looks for proportionate controls: effective in preventing or mitigating the risk, implementable in your circumstances, and not a source of new and higher risks — sometimes one control, often a combination. Its examples for lower-risk contaminated soil are deliberately ordinary: cover it with clean topsoil, fence it off, pave it. Suitability is site-specific; what works next door may not work for you.
Cost is legitimate, but weighed against the risk reduction a control would achieve — never considered alone. The most effective control is not always the most expensive; a cheap one may not be effective enough; and a costly engineering control can be justified where it significantly cuts the risk and administrative controls like training will not work well. Over time, rolling training and audits can cost more than a well-engineered fix — while genuinely low risks may not need costly solutions at all.
Two habits fall straight out of the test. First: keep your knowledge current, deliberately. The 'ought reasonably to know' limb turns industry guidance, regulator publications and your own operating history into the input the test measures you against — a near miss at your own site joins your state of knowledge the day it happens.
Second: write the reasoning down. Reasonably practicable is a weighing exercise, and a weighing exercise you cannot show is hard to distinguish from one that never happened. In practice, a documented Environmental Management Plan (EMP) is where the reasoning lives — the risks identified, the controls chosen, and why they are proportionate. It is both a working management system and the record you produce when EPA asks formally — after a site visit, an information gathering notice or an improvement notice. If a notice has already demanded one, see The EPA told you to get an EMP; if you are ahead of that, Environmental Management Plans in Victoria explains what a well-built EMP contains.
One more implication: knowledge belongs to the organisation, not the site. What your business learns at one site — an incident, an audit finding, a better control — becomes part of what it ought reasonably to know at every comparable site, which is why a notice at one site is really a question about all of them. If you run several sites, Automated Environmental's multi-site EMP programs apply one framework consistently across a portfolio — and a short scoping conversation is a no-pressure way to work out what your sites actually need.
'So far as reasonably practicable' is the yardstick across the Act's duties. The General Environmental Duty (section 25) applies it to anyone whose activities create risks of harm to human health or the environment from pollution or waste — every business, at all times. The duty to manage contaminated land uses the same words, and the Act applies the same standard elsewhere — including the duty to respond to harm caused by pollution incidents.
It is also the language of enforcement. Improvement notices commonly direct a business to bring its controls up to this standard — frequently by requiring a documented, site-specific EMP prepared by a suitably qualified person, against a hard deadline; see EPA improvement notice: how to respond. It is also why an ISO 14001 certificate does not by itself answer the Victorian question — certification demonstrates a management system, not that site risks are minimised so far as reasonably practicable; more in Does ISO 14001 satisfy the General Environmental Duty?
One note on status: Publication 1856 is EPA guidance, and this article is a plain-English reading of it — not a statement of the law, and not legal advice. How the test lands on a specific site depends on the facts of that site.
It is a weighing test: eliminate risks of harm where possible, otherwise reduce them — weighing likelihood of harm, degree of potential harm, what you know or ought reasonably to know about the risk and its controls, and the availability, suitability and cost of controls. It demands neither perfection nor box-ticking.
What you actually know, plus what someone in your circumstances ought reasonably to know, about your risks and the ways of controlling them. You are expected to keep that knowledge current using your own operating experience, industry guidance, regulator publications and independent sources.
Yes. Industry knowledge, guidance and technology change over time, which can make more effective controls available, and the standard moves with them. A control that was reasonable when installed may no longer be enough — EPA expects risks and controls to be reviewed regularly.
EPA Victoria's guidance, Publication 1856, sets out the factors and how EPA interprets them, including its preference for eliminating risk and its expectation of proportionate controls. The test itself is set by the Environment Protection Act 2017; the guidance explains how EPA applies it.
Related reading: The 'state of knowledge' under the EP Act · An EPA notice at one site: a question about all your sites · EPA improvement notice: how to respond · Does ISO 14001 satisfy the GED?
This article is general information, not legal advice. Notices carry hard deadlines — if you've received one, get advice specific to your situation promptly.