(1)

The 8th Environment Action Programme of the European Union adopted by Decision (EU) 2022/591 of the European Parliament and of the Council (4) requires the Commission, Member States, regional and local authorities and stakeholders, to apply high standards of transparency, public participation and access to justice effectively, in accordance with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (the ‘Aarhus Convention’), both at Union and Member State levels.

(2)

The Aarhus Convention, ratified by the European Community on 17 February 2005 by Council Decision 2005/370/EC (5), recognises that increased public access to environmental information and the dissemination of such information contribute to a greater awareness of environmental matters, a free exchange of views, more effective participation by the public in environmental decision-making and, ultimately, to a better environment. Moreover, the Aarhus Convention recognises the right to protect the confidentiality of personal data and/or files relating to a natural person, where that person has not consented to the disclosure of the information to the public, where such confidentiality is provided for in national law. Where Union law requires that commercial or industrial information be kept confidential to protect a legitimate economic interest, that confidentiality should be safeguarded.

(3)

Regulations (EU) 2016/679 (6) and (EU) 2018/1725 (7) of the European Parliament and of the Council apply to the processing of personal data by Member States and by the Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies, respectively, within the framework of this Regulation. Accordingly, data subjects have the right to be informed about the processing of their data within the framework of this Regulation and about the exercise of their rights under those Regulations.

(4)

On 2 December 2005, the European Community ratified the UNECE Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (the ‘Protocol’) by Council Decision 2006/61/EC (8).

(5)

Regulation (EC) No 166/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council (9), established a European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register in order to implement the Protocol.

(6)

The Commission’s report on progress in implementing Regulation (EC) No 166/2006, published on 13 December 2017, concluded that reporting obligations should be streamlined by further exploring synergies with other related Union environmental law on pollution from industrial installations, including in particular Directive 2010/75/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council (10) and Council Directive 91/271/EEC (11). The report also highlighted the need to explore options for additional contextual information to make reported data more effective.

(7)

The Commission’s communication of 12 May 2021, entitled ‘Pathway to a Healthy Planet for All EU Action Plan: “Towards Zero Pollution for Air, Water and Soil”’, establishes a Union action plan on zero pollution, energy, decarbonisation and circular economy, and promotes the effective use of reported information in the wider zero pollution monitoring and outlook framework and under the monitoring framework provided for in the 8th Environmental Action Programme.

(8)

In line with the Commission’s conclusions in its report on progress in implementing Regulation (EC) No 166/2006, published on 13 December 2017, in June 2021, the Commission, supported by the European Environment Agency (the ‘Agency’), developed an Industrial Emissions Portal (the ‘Portal’) to replace the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register, with the aim of improving synergies with reporting carried out under Directive 2010/75/EU.

(9)

The Portal should provide the public with free-of-charge online access to a more integrated and coherent dataset on key environmental pressures generated by industrial installations, since such data constitute a cost-effective tool for drawing comparisons and taking decisions in relation to environmental matters, encouraging better environmental performance, tracking trends, demonstrating progress in pollution reduction, benchmarking installations, monitoring compliance with relevant international agreements, setting priorities and evaluating progress achieved through Union and national environmental policies and programmes.

(10)

The Portal should present the data included in it in aggregated and non-aggregated forms to enable users to carry out targeted searches as well as to provide an electronic means of extracting data in an easy manner, including in the form of query-based datasets.

(11)

The reporting requirements should apply at installation level in order to implement synergies between the Portal and databases on environmental pressures from industrial installations, including those covered by Directive 2010/75/EU, and to ensure coherence with, and support, the implementation of that Directive.

(12)

To comply with the requirements of the Protocol, the reporting requirements provided for in this Regulation should apply to all activities listed in Annex I to the Protocol and, in fulfilling those reporting requirements, the facility to which the installation, or part thereof, belongs should be indicated. In addition, and with a view to achieving synergies with related Union environmental law affecting industrial installations, the scope of this Regulation should also be aligned with the industrial activities under Annexes I and Ia to Directive 2010/75/EU and with certain activities covered by Directive (EU) 2015/2193 of the European Parliament and of the Council (12).

(13)

In order to monitor the environmental performance of industrial installations, the data to be included in the Portal should cover, above the applicable quantitative thresholds listed in Annex II, the release to the environment of certain pollutants, off-site transfers of waste water containing those pollutants and off-site transfers of waste.

(14)

The Portal should also include data on the use of water, energy and relevant raw materials by the installations concerned, to allow the monitoring of progress towards a circular and highly resource-efficient economy. The data to be included in the Portal should cover relevant raw materials that are used in the production process and have a significant effect or impact on the environment. The determination of what are to be considered as relevant raw materials should be based on the work done in the process leading to the drawing up of the best available techniques (BAT) reference documents pursuant to Directive 2010/75/EU.

(15)

In order to ensure uniform conditions for the implementation of this Regulation regarding the reporting by operators to competent authorities, implementing powers should be conferred on the Commission to establish the list of relevant raw materials to be reported by the operators after consultation of Member States, the industries concerned and non-governmental organisations promoting human health and environmental protection. Those powers should be exercised in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council (13).

(16)

Operators of installations should report information concerning the production volume and operating hours of the installation concerned in order to make it possible to contextualise data reported on pollutant releases, off-site transfers of waste water containing those pollutants and off-site transfers of waste. That information should, where applicable, be handled in accordance with the confidentiality provisions of this Regulation.

(17)

The overall benefit of the Portal for access to environmental information concerning industrial installations should be maximised by including information reported by the Member States to the Commission in accordance with Directive 2010/75/EU as well as other information flows that stem from Union environmental law on climate change, air, water and land protection, Union law on waste management, including reporting under Directive 2012/18/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council (14), Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (15) and Directive 2010/75/EU. Moreover, in order to maximise the Portal’s value to users, it should be designed to facilitate future integration with other relevant environmental data flows.

(18)

For the purpose of legal certainty, operators or Member States should indicate whether data on the release of pollutants, off-site transfers of waste water containing those pollutants and off-site transfers of waste are below reporting thresholds.

(19)

To improve the quality of reported data and to ensure their comparability, it is appropriate to harmonise quantification methods to be used by operators when reporting the release of pollutants, off-site transfers of waste water containing those pollutants, off-site transfers of waste and resource use. Since measurement is the most accurate quantification method, operators should use measurement for the purposes of quantification. If measurement is not practicable, operators should use calculation. Estimation should only be used as a last resort.

(20)

As the operators of livestock production and aquaculture installations might lack the necessary resources to accurately quantify the deliberate release of pollutants, Member States should be entitled to quantify such releases on their behalf.

(21)

In order to ensure uniform conditions for the implementation of this Regulation regarding reporting by Member States, implementing powers should be conferred on the Commission to establish the type and format of information to be provided and the reporting deadlines. Those powers should be exercised in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 182/2011.

(22)

Given the importance for Union citizens of quick access to environmental information, it is essential that Member States and the Commission make data publicly available as fast as technically feasible. To that end, whereas the precise reporting deadline is to be established in an implementing act, it should be no later than 11 months from the end of the reporting year concerned.

(23)

Where appropriate, the Portal should also facilitate access to information on the release of pollutants from diffuse sources in order to enable decision-makers to better put the release of pollutants into context and to choose the most effective solution for pollution reduction.

(24)

Data reported by the Member States and operators should be of high quality, in particular as regards their accuracy, completeness, consistency and credibility. Competent authorities should therefore assess the quality of the data provided by operators.

(25)

Public access to environmental information reported by Member States should be unrestricted and exceptions from that rule should only be possible in accordance with Directive 2003/4/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (16) or with Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council (17), as appropriate.

(26)

Public participation should be ensured in any further development of the Portal by providing early and effective opportunities to submit comments, information, analysis and opinions for the decision-making process in that regard.

(27)

In order to enhance the usefulness and impact of the Portal, the Commission, supported by the Agency, should develop guidance supporting the implementation of this Regulation paying particular attention to the implementation of provisions that were not part of Regulation (EC) No 166/2006, and potential effects on sectors not covered by that Regulation.

(28)

In order to enable the Commission to update the list of industrial or agricultural activities in relation to which reporting requirements apply, the power to adopt acts in accordance with Article 290 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) should be delegated to the Commission to amend this Regulation for the purpose of aligning Annex I with amendments to the Protocol.

(29)

The Commission should also be empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 290 TFEU to amend Annex II to this Regulation to determine reporting thresholds, to add pollutants which are subject to specific regulatory measures under Union law on water and air quality and on chemicals, including Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council (18) and Directives 2000/60/EC (19), 2004/107/EC (20), 2006/118/EC (21), 2008/50/EC (22), 2008/105/EC (23) and (EU) 2020/2184 (24) of the European Parliament and of the Council, and to reflect changes made to the Protocol with regard to the pollutants to be reported or their reporting thresholds. To facilitate the full application of this Regulation, the Commission should, by 31 December 2025, adopt a delegated act reviewing the list of substances and thresholds set out in Annex II to this Regulation, including, inter alia, an assessment of the need to reduce the reporting thresholds for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and other relevant substances.

(30)

When adopting delegated acts, it is of particular importance that the Commission carry out appropriate consultations during its preparatory work, including at expert level, and that those consultations be conducted in accordance with the principles laid down in the Interinstitutional Agreement of 13 April 2016 on Better Law-Making (25). In particular, to ensure equal participation in the preparation of delegated acts, the European Parliament and the Council receive all documents at the same time as Member States’ experts, and their experts systematically have access to meetings of Commission expert groups dealing with the preparation of delegated acts.

(31)

In order to ensure effective implementation of this Regulation, Member States should lay down rules on penalties applicable to its infringements and should ensure that they are implemented.

(32)

Since Regulation (EC) No 166/2006 needs to be substantially modified, it should be repealed and replaced by this Regulation for reasons of legal certainty, clarity and transparency.

(33)

Since the objectives of this Regulation, namely to enhance public access to environmental information through the establishment of an integrated and coherent Union-wide electronic database and to enable industrial pollution to be monitored in order to contribute to its prevention and reduction, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States as the need for comparability of data in Member States argues for a high level of harmonisation, but can rather, by reason of the scale and effects of the action, be better achieved at Union level, the Union may adopt measures in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union. In accordance with the principle of proportionality as set out in that Article, this Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve those objectives.

(34)

The reporting requirements established by this Regulation should apply as from the reporting year 2027 in order to provide sufficient time for Member States and operators to take the necessary measures.

(35)

In order to ensure data continuity and legal certainty, Regulation (EC) No 166/2006 should continue to apply for the reporting year 2026,

(1)

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

(2)

‘facility’ means one or more installations, or parts thereof, that are on the same site and that are operated by the same natural or legal person;

(3)

‘site’ means the geographical location of the installation and the facility;

(4)

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

(5)

‘release’ means any introduction of a pollutant 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;

(6)

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

(7)

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

(8)

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

(9)

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

(10)

‘waste’ means waste as defined in Article 3, point (1), of Directive 2008/98/EC;

(11)

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

(12)

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

(13)

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

(14)

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

(15)

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

(16)

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

(17)

‘reporting year’ means the calendar year for which data must be gathered;

(18)

‘aquaculture’ means aquaculture as defined in Article 4, point (25), of Regulation (EU) No 1380/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council (26).

(a)

reporting procedures, with particular attention to be paid to provisions that were not part of Regulation (EC) No 166/2006 and sectors that were not covered by that Regulation, including technical guidelines regarding methods facilitating analysis for monitoring of PFAS, such as detection limits, parametric values and frequency of sampling;

(b)

the data to be reported;

(c)

quality assurance and assessment;

(d)

an indication of the type of data which can be withheld and, in the case of confidential data, the reasons for withholding them;

(e)

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

(f)

the names of any parent companies;

(g)

calculation methods, including emission factors per abatement technology, for livestock production and aquaculture;

(h)

how to apply in practice the definitions laid down in this Regulation for sites, facilities and installations, by means of, inter alia, a list of examples or specific explanations, pictures, drawings, diagrams or any other visual reference or support.