Revision of the Industrial Emission Directive proposed | 5 April 2022
date: 01/07/2022
The updated and modernised rules aim at steering large industries in long-term green transition. They will help guide industrial investments necessary for Europe's transformation towards a zero-pollution, competitive, climate-neutral economy by 2050. They aim to spur innovation, reward frontrunners, and help level the playing field on the EU market. The revision will help provide long-term investment certainty, with the first new obligations on industry expected in the second half of the decade.
The revision builds on the overall approach of the existing Industrial Emissions Directive (IED), which currently covers some 50 000 large industrial installations and intensive livestock farms in Europe. These installations need to comply with emissions conditions by applying activity-specific ‘Best Available Techniques'. These techniques are determined together by industry, national and Commission experts, and civil society. The new rules will cover more relevant sources of emissions, make permitting more effective, reduce administrative costs, increase transparency, and give more support to breakthrough technologies and other innovative approaches.
Despite successes of the IED in curbing emissions over the past 15 years, the more than 50 000 industrial installations covered still account for around 40 % of greenhouse gas emissions, over 50 % of total emissions to air of sulphur oxides, heavy metals and other harmful substances and around 30 % of nitrogen oxide and fine particulate matter air emissions, warranting further action.
With the proposed revision of the IED, the existing framework will be enhanced with new measures to boost its overall effectiveness. The main changes include:
More effective permits for installations: Instead of settling for the least demanding limits of the best available techniques, as some 80 % of installations do currently, permitting will have to assess the feasibility of reaching the best performance. It will also tighten the rules on granting derogations by harmonising the assessments required and securing a regular review of derogations granted.
More help for EU innovation frontrunners: As an alternative to permits based on well-established best techniques, frontrunners will be able to test emerging techniques, benefitting from more flexible permits. An Innovation Centre for Industrial Transformation and Emissions (INCITE) will help industries with identifying pollution control solutions. Finally, by 2030 or 2034, operators will need to develop Transformation Plans for their sites to achieve the EU's 2050 zero pollution ambition, circular economy and de-carbonisation aims.
Supporting industry's circular economy investments: New best available techniques could include binding resource use performance levels. The existing Environmental Management System will be upgraded to reduce the use of toxic chemicals.
Synergies between de-pollution and de-carbonisation: Energy efficiency will be an integral part of permits, and systematic consideration will be given to technological and investment synergies between de-carbonisation and de-pollution when determining best available techniques.
The new rules will also cover more installations, notably more large-scale intensive livestock farms and activities for the extraction of industrial minerals and metals and large-scale production of batteries.
Finally, the new rules will increase transparency and public participation in the permitting process. In addition, the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register will be transformed into the EU Industrial Emissions Portal where citizens will be able to access data on permits issued anywhere in Europe and gain insight into polluting activities in their immediate surroundings in a simple way.
Executive Vice-President for the European Green Deal Frans Timmermans said:
By 2050, economic activity in the European Union should no longer pollute our air, water and the wider environment. Today's proposals will enable important reductions of harmful emissions coming from industrial installations and Europe's largest livestock farms. By modernising Europe's industrial emissions framework now there is certainty about future rules to guide long-term investments, increase Europe's energy and resource independence, and encourage innovation.
Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevičius said:
These new rules will enable large industrial plants and intensive livestock farming to play their part in achieving the objective of the European Green Deal and its zero-pollution ambition. Solely from action on livestock farms, benefits to human health would amount to at least €5.5 billion per year. The changes will create more jobs, as the EU's eco-innovation sector has shown successfully in the past. Measures that proactively tackle the pollution, climate and biodiversity crises can make our economy more efficient and more resilient.
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