A new methodology, Inherent Risk Design Index, used to evaluate the inherently safeness of the design options by observing the likelihood of hazard migration with explicit use of IS guidewords is presented. The framework is applied to nitration of toluene to select the inherently safer reactor by reducing the volume of reactants to prevent runaway reaction. Semi-batch reactor, intensified continuous reactor, vapor phase reactor, and batch reactor were used as the base case. The continuous reactor had the lowest damage potential due to its smaller volume however, after considering the likelihood indicator, deviation of hazards were higher in the feed tanks, advance controls, handling and transportation area. The developed framework could be used to address any unintended consequences through estimation of risk migration or risk transfer during the consideration of inherently safer designs concept. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 19th International Congress of Chemical and Process Engineering and 7th European Congress of Chemical Engineering (Prague, Czech Republic 8/28/2010-9/1/2010).