Legal provisions of COM(2022)157 - Reporting of environmental data from industrial installations and establishing an Industrial Emissions Portal

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dossier COM(2022)157 - Reporting of environmental data from industrial installations and establishing an Industrial Emissions Portal.
document COM(2022)157 EN
date April  5, 2022



Article 1

Subject matter


This Regulation implements the UNECE Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (‘the Protocol’) by laying down rules on the collection and reporting of environmental data on industrial installations and establishes an Industrial Emissions Portal (‘Portal’) at Union level in the form of an online database giving access to such data.


Article 2

Definitions


For the purposes of this Regulation, the following definitions shall apply:


(1)‘installation’ means a stationary technical unit where one or more activities listed in Annex I are carried out, and any other directly associated activities which have a technical connection with the activities carried out on that site and which could have an effect on emissions and pollution;

(2) ‘site’ means the geographical location of the installation;

(3)‘the public’ means the public as defined in Article 3, point (16), of Directive 2010/75/EU;

(4)‘release’ means any introduction of pollutants into the environment as a result of any human activity, whether deliberate or accidental, routine or non-routine, including spilling, emitting, discharging, injecting, disposing or dumping, or through sewer systems without final waste water treatment;

(5)‘pollutant’ means a substance or a group of substances that may be harmful to the environment or to human health on account of its properties and of its introduction into the environment;

(6)‘substance’ means a substance as defined in Article 3, point (1), of Directive 2010/75/EU;

(7)‘operator’ means an operator as defined in Article 3, point (15), of Directive 2010/75/EU;

(8)‘off-site transfer’ means the movement beyond the boundaries of an installation of waste destined for recovery or disposal and of pollutants in waste water destined for waste water treatment;

(9)‘waste’ means waste as defined in Article 3, point (1), of Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council 59 ;

(10)‘waste water’ means urban, domestic and industrial waste water, as defined in Articles 2, points (1), (2) and (3), of Directive 91/271/EEC, and any other used water which is subject, due to the substances or objects it contains, to regulation by Union law;

(11)‘diffuse sources’ means the many smaller or scattered sources from which pollutants may be released to land, air or water, whose combined impact on those media may be significant and for which it is impractical to collect reports from each individual source;

(12)‘competent authority’ means the national authority or authorities, or any other competent body or bodies, designated by Member States;

(13)‘hazardous waste’ means hazardous waste as defined in Article 3(2) of Directive 2008/98/EC;

(14)‘recovery’ means any of the operations referred to in Annex II to Directive 2008/98/EC;

(15)‘disposal’ means any of the operations referred to in Annex I to Directive 2008/98/EC;

(16)‘reporting year’ means the calendar year for which data must be gathered.


Article 3

Content of the Portal


1. The Portal shall include data on:


(a)releases of pollutants as referred to in Article 5(1), point (a);

(b)off-site transfers of waste as referred to in Article 5(1), point (b), and of pollutants in waste water as referred to in Article 5(1), point (c);

(c)use of water resources, energy and raw materials as referred to in Article 5(1), point (d);

(d)contextual information as referred to in Article 5(1), point (e);

(e)where available, data on releases of pollutants from diffuse sources as referred to in Article 7(1).


2. The Portal shall include links to the following:


(a)national pollutant release and transfer registers established by Member States in accordance with the Protocol;

(b)other existing publicly accessible registers, databases or websites, established at Member State or Union level, that provide access to the reporting requirements set out in Union legislation on climate change, air, water and land protection, and on waste management.


Article 4

Design and structure of the Portal


1. The Commission shall make the Portal publicly accessible, presenting the data in both aggregated and non-aggregated forms with a view to enabling searches by:


(a)installation, including the installation's parent company where applicable, and its geographical location, including the river basin;

(b)activity;

(c)occurrence at Member State or Union level;

(d)pollutant, waste or resource, as appropriate;

(e)the environmental medium (air, water, land) into which the pollutant is released;

(f)off-site transfers of waste and, as appropriate, their destination;

(g)off-site transfers of pollutants in waste water;

(h)diffuse sources;

(i)installation owner or operator.


2. The Portal shall be designed for maximum ease of public access to allow the data, under normal operating conditions, to be continuously and readily accessible on the internet. Its design shall take into account the possibility of its future expansion and shall include all data reported for previous reporting years, up to at least the previous ten reporting years.


Article 5

Reporting by operators to competent authorities


1. The operator of each installation that undertakes one or more of the activities specified in Annex I, which meet the applicable capacity thresholds specified in that Annex, shall report annually, to its competent authority, the following data, unless that data is already available to the competent authority:


(a)releases to air, water and land of any pollutant specified in Annex II for which the applicable threshold value specified in Annex II is exceeded;

(b)off-site transfers of hazardous waste exceeding 2 tonnes per year or of non-hazardous waste exceeding 2 000  tonnes per year, for any operations of recovery or disposal with the exception of the disposal operations of land treatment and deep injection disposal operations, as specified in Annex I to Directive 2008/98/EC, indicating with ‘R’ or ‘D’ respectively whether the waste is destined for recovery or disposal and, for transboundary movements of hazardous waste, the name and address of the recoverer or the disposer of the waste and the actual recovery or disposal site. Waste which is subject to land treatment or deep injection disposal operations shall be reported as a release to land only by the operator of the installation from which the waste originates;

(c)off-site transfers of any pollutant specified in Annex II in waste water destined for waste water treatment for which the threshold value specified in Annex II, column 1b, is exceeded;

(d)use of  water, energy and raw materials;

(e)information allowing contextualisation of the data reported under points (a) to (d), including production volume, number of employees, number of operating hours, and information on accidents that have led to releases;

(f)information on whether the installation is also covered by Directive 2003/87/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council 60 , Directive 91/271/EEC, Directive 2010/75/EU, Directive 2012/18/EU, Directive (EU) 2015/2193 or any other Union environmental legislation identified in the reporting format referred to in Article 6.


2. Where the releases referred to in paragraph 1, point (a), or off-site transfers of pollutants referred to in paragraph 1, point (c), do not exceed the applicable threshold values specified in Annex II, or where off-site transfers of waste do not exceed the thresholds set out in paragraph 1, point (b), the operator of the installation concerned shall declare, in its report, that releases or off-site transfers are below those values or thresholds.


3. Operators shall obtain the data referred to in paragraph 1 by means of measurement. Where measurement is not practicable, operators shall use calculation. Where neither measurement nor calculation is practicable, operators may obtain the data by estimation.


4. Operators shall specify in the report the methods used for obtaining the data. Where the data were obtained by measurement, the analytical method shall be indicated. Where the data were obtained by calculation, the method of calculation shall be indicated.


5. When preparing the report referred to in paragraph 1, operators shall make use of the best available information, which may include monitoring data, emission factors, mass balance equations, indirect monitoring or other calculations, engineering judgements and other methods in line with Article 8(1) and in accordance with internationally approved methodologies, where these are available.


6. The releases referred to in Annex II reported under paragraph 1, point (a), shall include all releases from all sources included in Annex I at the site of the installation.


7. The data referred to in paragraph 1 shall include releases and transfers reported as totals of all deliberate, accidental, routine and non-routine activities. In providing this data, operators shall specify, where available, any data that relate to accidental releases.


8. The operator of each installation shall collect with appropriate frequency the data needed to determine which of the installation's releases and off-site transfers are subject to reporting requirements under paragraph 1.


9. The operator of each installation concerned shall keep available for its competent authority the records from which the reported data were derived for a period of 5 years, starting from the end of the reporting year concerned. These records shall also describe the methodology used for data gathering.


10. Member States may decide to quantify themselves deliberate releases referred to in paragraph 1, point (a), on behalf of operators of installations covered by Activity 2 listed in Annex I and by Activity 7 listed in Annex I. In these cases, paragraphs 1 to 9 shall not apply to those operators in respect of such releases.


11. Having regard to the requirements set out in Article 6, Member States shall determine a date by when operators shall provide the data referred to in this Article to its competent authority.


Article 6

Reporting by Member States to the Commission


1. Member States shall provide, each year, to the Commission, by electronic means, a report containing all the data referred to in Article 5 in a format and by a date to be established by the Commission by means of implementing acts. Those implementing acts shall be adopted in accordance with the examination procedure referred to in Article 17(2). The reporting date shall be, in any case, no later than 11 months after the end of the reporting year.


2. The Commission services, assisted by the European Environment Agency (‘the Agency’) shall incorporate the data reported by Member States into the Portal within 1 month of completion of reporting by Member States in accordance with paragraph 1.


Article 7

Data on releases of pollutants from diffuse sources


1. The Commission, assisted by the Agency, shall include in the Portal data on releases of pollutants from diffuse sources where such data exists and has already been reported by Member States.


2. The data available on the Portal shall allow users to search for and identify releases of pollutants from diffuse sources according to an adequate geographical disaggregation and shall include information on the type of methodology used to derive the data.


3. Where it determines that no data on the releases from diffuse sources exist, the Commission is empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 15 in order to supplement this Regulation by initiating reporting on releases of relevant pollutants from one or more diffuse sources using, where appropriate, internationally approved methodologies.


Article 8

Quality assurance and assessment


1. The operators of the installation subject to the reporting requirements set out in Article 5 shall ensure the quality of the data that they report.


2. The competent authorities shall assess the quality of the data provided by the operators of the installations referred to in paragraph 1, in particular as to their accuracy, completeness, consistency and credibility.


Article 9

Access to information


1. The Commission, assisted by the Agency, shall make the data contained in the Portal publicly accessible and free of charge on the internet within 1 month of completion of reporting by Member States in accordance with Article 6(1).


2. Where the data contained in the Portal is not easily accessible to the public on the internet, the Member State concerned and the Commission shall facilitate electronic access to the Portal in publicly accessible locations.


3. Each Member State shall make available to the public its data, reported in accordance with Article 5 and, where available, Article 7(1), in a continuous manner, free of charge and without restricting access to registered users.


Article 10

Confidentiality


When data is considered confidential by a Member State in accordance with Article 4(2) of Directive 2003/4/EC, the report referred to in Article 6(2) of this Regulation for the reporting year concerned shall indicate separately for each installation which data cannot be made public and provide the reasons for this.


Article 11

Public participation


1. The Commission shall provide the public with early and effective opportunities to participate in the further development of the Portal, including capacity-building and the preparation of amendments to this Regulation.


2. The public shall have the opportunity to submit comments, information, analyses and opinions within a reasonable timeframe.


3. The Commission shall take due account of such input and shall inform the public about the outcome of the public participation.


Article 12

Guidance


The Commission, assisted by the Agency, shall draw up and periodically update guidance supporting the implementation of this Regulation, addressing at least the following:


(a)reporting procedures;

(b)the data to be reported;

(c)quality assurance and assessment;

(d)indication of type of withheld data and reasons why they were withheld in the case of confidential data;

(e)reference to internationally approved methods for release determination, analysis and sampling;

(f)indication of parent companies.


Article 13

Awareness raising


Member States and the Commission shall promote public awareness of the Portal and understanding and use of the data contained in it.

Article 14 - Amendments to the Annexes

1. The Commission is empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 15 in order to amend Annex I for one or more of the following purposes:


(a)to add an industrial or agricultural activity which has, or is expected to have, an impact on health or the environment as a consequence of its pollutant releases, waste or waste water transfers or resource use; releases or transfers above the respective reporting thresholds, as set out in Article 5(1), point (b) and in Annex II, will be a primary factor in determining impact on health or the environment;

(b)to align it with the Protocol following the adoption of amendment to its annexes.


2. The Commission is empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 15 in order to amend Annex II for one or more of the following purposes:


(a)to adapt it to scientific or technical progress;

(b)to add pollutants, the release of which to air, water and land has, or may have, an adverse impact on the environment or human health, including those that are released from activities referred to in Annex I to this Regulation, and that meet one of the following conditions:

(i)    are designated as substances of very high concern in Annex XIV to Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006;

(ii) are designated as priority substances under Directives 2000/60/EC or 2008/105/EC,

(iii) are included in the watch lists established in the framework of Directives 2006/118/EC or 2008/105/EC;

(iv) are subject to limit values or other restrictions under Directives 2008/50/EC, 2004/107/EC or 2006/118/EC;

(c)to set and update thresholds for releases so as to achieve the goal of capturing at least 90% of releases of each pollutant to air, water and land from activities referred to in Annex I; including thresholds of zero for substances displaying a particularly high hazard to the environment or human health;

(d)to align it with the Protocol following the adoption of amendment to its annexes. 

Article 15 - Exercise of the delegation

1. The power to adopt delegated acts is conferred on the Commission subject to the conditions laid down in this Article.


2. The power to adopt delegated acts referred to in Article 7(3) and Article 14 shall be conferred on the Commission for a period of five years from … [Office of Publication: please insert the date  = the date of entry into force of this Regulation]. The Commission shall draw up a report in respect of the delegation of power not later than nine months before the end of the five-year period. The delegation of power shall be tacitly extended for periods of an identical duration, unless the European Parliament or the Council opposes such extension not later than three months before the end of each period.


3. The delegation of power referred to in Article 7(3) and Article 14 may be revoked at any time by the European Parliament or by the Council. A decision to revoke shall put an end to the delegation of the power specified in that decision. It shall take effect the day following the publication of the decision in the Official Journal of the European Union or at a later date specified therein. It shall not affect the validity of any delegated acts already in force.


4. Before adopting a delegated act, the Commission shall consult experts designated by each Member State in accordance with the principles laid down in the Interinstitutional Agreement of 13 April 2016 on Better Law-Making.


5. As soon as it adopts a delegated act, the Commission shall notify it simultaneously to the European Parliament and to the Council.


6. A delegated act adopted pursuant to Article 7(3) and Article 14 shall enter into force only if no objection has been expressed either by the European Parliament or by the Council within a period of two months of notification of that act to the European Parliament and the Council or if, before the expiry of that period, the European Parliament and the Council have both informed the Commission that they will not object. That period shall be extended by two months at the initiative of the European Parliament or of the Council.


Article 16

Committee Procedure


1. The Commission shall be assisted by a committee.


2. Where reference is made to this paragraph, Article 5 of Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 shall apply.


Article 17

Penalties and compliance assurance measures


1. Member States shall lay down the rules on penalties applicable to infringements of national measures adopted pursuant to this Regulation and shall take all measures necessary to ensure that they are implemented. The penalties provided for shall be effective, proportionate and dissuasive. Member States shall without delay notify the Commission of those rules and of those measures and shall notify it without delay of any subsequent amendment affecting them.


2. The penalties referred to in paragraph 1 shall include fines proportionate to the turnover of the legal person or to the income of the natural person who has committed the infringement. The level of the fines shall be calculated in such a way as to make sure that they effectively deprive the person responsible for the infringement of the economic benefits derived from that infringement. The level of the fines shall be gradually increased for repeated infringements.


3. Member States shall ensure that the penalties referred to in paragraph 1 give due regard to the following, as applicable:


(a)the nature, gravity, and extent of the infringement;

(b)the intentional or negligent character of the infringement;

(c)the population or the environment affected by the infringement, bearing in mind the impact on the objective of achieving a high level of protection of human health and the environment.


4. Member States shall adopt compliance assurance measures to prevent and detect the infringements referred to in paragraph 1.


Article 18

Repeal


Regulation (EC) No 166/2006 is repealed with effect from 1 January 2026.


References to the repealed Regulation (EC) No 166/2006 shall be construed as references to this Regulation and shall be read in accordance with the correlation table in Annex III.

Article 19 - Transitional provisions

Notwithstanding Article 18, first paragraph, Regulation (EC) No 166/2006 shall continue to apply as regards reporting for the year 2024.


Article 20

Entry into force


This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.


It shall apply from 1 January 2026.


This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.