The Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2013 were made on 20 February and came into force on 27 February. These Regulations transpose the requirements of the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED).

What’s changed?

Any new installation seeking a permit will need to comply with IED.

All existing Installations will be the subject of IED from 7 January 2014. We are currently considering how we bring our existing permitted sites under IED. However, as we are confident that our existing permitting arrangements implement the vast majority of the IED requirements, any changes to current permits are likely to be very minor and probably capable of being delayed until a suitable variation, or delivered through a simple administrative change.

Applications to operate will continue to be assessed against BAT for their sector, but IED will put greater emphasis and presumption on compliance with new plant BAT, and derogation from BAT will be more tightly controlled across the EU. Derogation against BAT will be recorded in an annex to the permit template and made available to the public through an electronic public register.

Our approach to baseline site reports has not significantly changed. The condition of the site prior to operation still needs to be described in a manner that provides a benchmark for remediation of any contamination prior to permit surrender. However, under IED, where there is the risk of contamination of surface or groundwater with hazardous substances, the site report will need to be supplemented with a baseline report. This report may require the provision of intrusive quantified monitoring data, although other forms of quantification may be acceptable. This will be addressed in revised guidance shortly.  We are also expecting, in the coming months, further guidance from the commission on baseline site reports, and will review and change our approach as necessary.

A number of activities, not subject to the Directive but currently included in domestic legislation, will be taken out of Schedule 1 to the EPR. This does not mean that they will not be regulated, as they may – for example – be waste operations, but the way in which they are regulated may change. Other activities will move from Part A1 to Part B and regulated by the local authority.

The scheduled activities that some permits refer to have changed. This makes little difference to the environmental risk or regulatory control of the activity other than a few references within the permit and the charges related to that permit. We will be making administrative variations to these permits to implement these changes and provide transparency with the legislation and charging scheme. These will be completed at no cost to the operator.

A number of activities are newly brought into installation permitting. For all existing waste operations that will be newly subject to IED this permitting will need to be done by 7 July 2015. More detailed descriptions of the newly covered activities are:

• An amended list of hazardous waste recovery activities so that solvent reclamation/regeneration, biological treatment and physico-chemical treatment are now specifically included.
• A requirement to regulate the disposal of non-hazardous waste with a capacity exceeding 50 tonnes per day.
• Activities involving recovery, or a mix of recovery and disposal, of non-hazardous waste with a capacity exceeding 75 tonnes per day. Where the only waste treatment activity is anaerobic digestion, the capacity threshold for this activity shall be 100 tonnes per day.
• Temporary storage of hazardous waste with a total capacity exceeding 50 tonnes; excluding temporary storage, pending collection, on the site where the waste is generated.

What hasn’t changed

• Regulators are Local Authorities (for Part B and A2 activities) and the Environment Agency (for Part A1 activities).
• No fundamental overhaul of the existing permitting system, permits, compliance or controls.
• Permits will still be issued under EPR and be called permits, and the associated charges are very unlikely to increase as a result of
• IED unless the activity in question is newly prescribed meaning an installation permit is needed instead of a waste operation or waste exemption.
• Existing operators of installations will not see any change initially unless applying for a permit variation which introduces new IED activities.
• Developments in BAT may lead to adoption of new technologies or improve abatement; need for industry to invest to ensure compliance.

More information on IED

• Our approach to Environmental Permitting, March 2013 
• pre-application-briefing-industrial-emissions-directive-september-2012
• General cross-sector briefing on the impact of IED on the sectors
• Food and Drink Sector specific briefing on the impact of IED (PDF, 102KB)

Timescales

• 7 January 2013 – IED will apply to all new installations from this date.

• 7 January 2014 – IED will apply to existing installations previously subject to the seven Directives that IED replaces. For example the Integrated Pollution Prevention & Control (IPPC) Directive, Waste Incineration Directive (WID), Solvent Emissions Directive (SED) and Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) directives (but not Large Combustion Plants (LCPs).

• 7 July 2015 – IED will apply to existing installations operating newly prescribed activities. For example, specified waste recovery activities and wood preservation).

• 1 January 2016 – LCPs must meet the specific requirements set out in Chapter III and Annex V of the IED.

Why IED has been implemented

IED has been implemented because of European Commission concerns that certain existing directives are failing to deliver the expected environmental benefits. IED is important as it:

• Replaces seven existing Directives that we currently implement through the Environmental Permitting Regulations (EPR).
• Extends the range of regulated activities, requiring some facilities currently regulated as exempt or as waste activities to apply as installations, demonstrating BAT as they do, ultimately creating more EPR installations.
• Imposes new requirements on the installations we regulate and strengthens existing IPPC principles.
• Triggers other shifts in regulatory activity, resulting in regulatory responsibility for some installations being transferred to Local Authorities, some requiring single media permits, for example for discharges to controlled waters, and others ceasing to be regulated completely.