Employee Advice - Environmental Permitting Regulations 2010

Regulating pollution

The place where you work is regulated under the Environmental Permitting Regulations. This is to reduce any pollution the factory or other sort of premises may cause and, in particular, to help improve air quality.

By complying with the regulations, your factory/premises will be reducing its environmental impact.

How it is done

The place where you work - we'll call it a factory - needs a permit to operate. The permit will include conditions. They will say how the factory must be run to minimise pollution.

The Government has published guidance for each type of factory. This says what are likely to be the right pollution standards. Under the law, the standards must strike a balance between protecting the environment and the cost of doing so.

Elmbridge Borough Council is responsible for regulating the factory. This means that from time to time an officer from the Council's Environmental Health & Licensing Division will visit to check the regulations are being complied with.

The Council must, by law, have regard to the Government's guidance, which can be found on the |DEFRA website under Pollution Prevention and Control.

The Council must also consider local circumstances.

If all goes well

The Council rates the factory as high, medium or low risk. This is based on two things. First, what the environmental impact would be if something went wrong. Second, how reliably and effectively the permit conditions are complied with.

If a factory is rated low risk, the Council charges less for it to be regulated. Also it means that the environment is being more reliably protected (although sometimes factories can't reduce their risk level because of the type of work that is done, however well it is managed).

If things go wrong

The Council has powers if a business doesn't comply with its permit or operates without one.

It can serve various sorts of legal notice or take the business to Court. But the preference is to work with businesses to solve problems, only using tough measures as a last resort. Council officers often try to advise on money-saving ways to lower pollution.

What can employees do?

Everyone in a factory can have a role in helping to make sure the permit is reliably complied with, and to minimise the environmental impact of the factory.

This may just be by following instructions on how to comply with permit conditions. Or it may be keeping an eye open for possible problems. Or it could be suggesting ways of improving the factory's environmental performance. And don't forget that ideas for improvements could also save the business some money, such as by reducing waste.

Being sustainable

Saving energy, using less water, reducing waste and other similar actions are referred to as "sustainable consumption and production". Another term is "resource efficiency": doing the same thing but using fewer raw materials.

According to Government figures:

• £6.4 billion a year could be saved by UK businesses just by firms taking resource efficiency measures that cost little or nothing (2007 data)
• 2% of annual profit is lost through inefficient management of energy, water and waste
• 4% of turnover is spent on waste.

Want to know more?

• For the legal side, the law is in the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010. The Regulations also implement some European Community Directives.
• If you want more information about the procedures you will need to read at least some of the |General Guidance Manual available from DEFRA
• There is lots of information and contacts about resource efficiency from |Wrap (The Waste Recycling Action Programme).
• Contact: |The Environmental Health & Licensing Division of Elmbridge Borough Council.
• Contact: |DEFRA - the Government Department responsible for the system in England.