A recent survey found that few Slovenians were familiar with the Environmental Liability Directive (ELD) even those affected by it, such as those working for companies and organisations whose activities have an environmental impact, those responsible for preparing an environmental risk assessments and legal experts dealing with environmental issues. The survey also revealed a certain amount of confusion regarding environmental liability, as well as a lack of tools to help companies and organisations subject to the ELD understand environmental liability and act appropriately. As a result of these shortcomings, the ELD is currently poorly implemented in Slovenia. It is often unclear who is liable for potential environmental impacts, who is responsible for damage control and prevention, and to what extent measures are compulsory.

The ECOLEX LIFE project's primary purpose is to inform about and engage key audiences and stakeholders in Slovenia in the ELD, including the presentation of practical implications, so as to improve its implementation. It also aims to encourage prevention and remediation of any potential environmental impact or eventual damage. In quantitative terms, the project will raise awareness of the target audiences on the ELD by 20% compared to baseline data and build administrative capacity, boosting support for environmental liability implementation instruments.

More specifically, the project aims to:

• Improve expertise and knowledge of stakeholders to enable them to bring about change in behaviour and awareness;
• Promote the development of databases for the collection of data on the actual status of ELD implementation by individual environmental sectors (water/wastewater, solid waste management, air quality, energy generation, transport etc.);
• Provide resources for carrying out assessments and developing tools to support the notification of environmental damage;
• Provide technical guidance to help local authorities determine significant environmental damage; and
• Serve as an example of how to develop an insurance policy for operators.

Expected results:

• Increased awareness of environmental liability, leading to behavioural changes that both prevent environmental incidents and restore the environment to its baseline conditions when they do occur;
• Provision of tools necessary for increasing the transparency of environmental legislation in Slovenia and the best practices identified in the ELD Final Implementation Report (2013), thus improving implementation;
• An online system, ECOLEX, which contains consolidated versions of environmental legislation (EU and national), as well as tools for improving the implementation of the ELD;
• An environmental risk assessment tool including proposals for preventive measures and online register of ELD cases. This will help operators and other stakeholders identify risks for causing environmental damage and guide them in taking preventive actions. ;
• Comprehensive risk profile of key operators in 5 main regions with the highest risk of potential environmental damage (150 risk assessment profiles). Development and testing of a ELD specific insurance tool.