204 Int. J. Business Continuity and Risk Management, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2017 Copyright © 2017 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. A note on the layered approach for implementing ALARP and the grossly disproportionate criterion Eirik Bjorheim Abrahamsen*, Jon Tømmerås Selvik and Håkon Bjorheim Abrahamsen University of Stavanger, 4036 Stavanger, Norway Email: eirik.b.abrahamsen@uis.no Email: jon.t.selvik@uis.no Email: hakon.b.abrahamsen@uis.no *Corresponding author Abstract: In this note, we discuss the as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP) principle and the implications for safety management of using the ‘layered approach’ to implement this principle. It is an approach following a decision logic diagram consisting of three steps to guide the implementation, i.e., a crude analysis, a more detailed analysis and an assessment of other issues, including uncertainties. We show that the weight given to risk reduction and uncertainties largely depends on how this layered approach is interpreted. There are different ways to interpret it. For example, the approach may be interpreted in a way where the ALARP principle gives strong weight to the uncertainties for all decision-making contexts. A very different interpretation, which leads to a more dynamic approach is that the ALARP principle may range from one extreme, where decisions are made with reference to an expected value with limited or no weight on the cautionary principle for some decision contexts, to another, in which the cautionary principle is adopted without any reference to cost-benefit (cost-effectiveness) analyses for others. Keywords: as low as reasonably practicable; ALARP; cautionary principle; layered approach: uncertainty: cost-benefit analysis; cost-effectiveness analysis. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Abrahamsen, E.B., Selvik, J.T. and Abrahamsen, H.B. (2017) ‘A note on the layered approach for implementing ALARP and the grossly disproportionate criterion’, Int. J. Business Continuity and Risk Management, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp.204–210. Biographical notes: Eirik Bjorheim Abrahamsen is a Professor in Risk Management at the University of Stavanger and at the Centre for Risk Management and Societal Safety (SEROS). He received his PhD in Risk Management in 2006. In addition, he has a Master’s degree in Offshore Technology with specialisation in offshore safety, as well as a Master’s degree in Industrial Economics with specialisation in project management. His research focuses on economic analysis in risk management as well as foundational issues in risk analysis and risk management. Jon Tømmerås Selvik is an Associate Professor in Risk Management at the University of Stavanger and at the Centre for Risk Management and Societal Safety (SEROS). He is also a Senior Research Scientist at the International Research Institute of Stavanger (IRIS), where he worked for a period at the