Joint industry statements on EU Industrial Emissions Legislation

In the framework of the consultation led by the Commission and the consultant Ricardo, EHP joined other associations from the industrial sector to draft the following statements on the IED and the E-PRTR

The European Commission, DG Environment is working on the revision of the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) and the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR). Proposals are expected to be published in Q4 2021.

In the framework of the consultation led by the Commission and the consultant Ricardo, EHP joined other associations from the industrial sector to draft the following statements on the IED and the E-PRTR:

1. Joint statement with regard to the climate change related policy options considered in context of the Targeted Stakeholders Survey (TSS) on the revision of the Industrial Emissions Directive

Our associations represent industrial sectors regulated under the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) and support the Commission’s Green Deal objective to review EU measures to address pollution from large industrial installations, look at the sectoral scope of the legislation and how to make it fully consistent with climate policies.

The disruptive breakthrough technologies necessary to significantly contribute to achieving the climate-neutrality objective will require time to be developed, up scaled and commercialised. On one hand, various GHG abatement options are not available to the same extent across sectors and regions, on the other they are not directly under the control of the operators of IED installations, who to large extent remain dependent on other sectors, notably the energy one.

Mindful of the above considerations, the undersigned sectors have analysed the various policy options considered in context of the TSS and came to the following conclusions:

We support full coherency between policy measures addressing various environmental issues, in particular with regards to the IED, that is the backbone of the environmental legislation applicable to our industrial installations. In the spirit of better regulation principles, amongst others, we reject the option to regulate GHG emissions under an IED permitting regime where those GHG are already regulated under the ETS.

We support:

• the revision of IED (Art 15(5)) to facilitate development and testing of emerging techniques;
• the revision of IED Article 21(3) to provide more than 4 years for deep transformation of industrial sectors, where BAT conclusions have recognised innovative techniques being BAT and require dramatic changes across a sector;

We conditionally support:

• the upscale of the Industrial Emissions Innovation Observatory to monitor the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of emerging and breakthrough technologies and the fact that the recognition by the Observatory of an advanced TRL would trigger BREF reviews;

We do not support:

• the deletion of the provision that exempts plants from setting GHG ELVs and energy efficiency requirements in permit conditions if they are regulated by the EU ETS (IED Article 9);
• the identification of direct and indirect GHG as mandatory key environmental issues, so that GHG emissions are considered when identifying BAT alongside with pollutant emission;
• the setting of shorter BREF cycles focusing on recent innovations and their expected future environmental performance, i.e. Emerging Techniques Associated Emission Levels (ET-AELs);
• the revision of IED Article 21(3) to allow more time for operators to implement higher performing emerging techniques with a high TRL (this would be supported by inclusion in BREFs of stricter long-term ET-AELs reflecting the expected environmental performance of emerging techniques).

We have strong reservation regarding the option consisting in establishing a long-term permit review obligation (e.g. by 2035) focusing on the capacity of the concerned installations to operate in accordance with EU’s carbon neutrality objective.

A detailed analysis supporting those conclusions is provided in the paper.

1. Key messages on the Targeted Stakeholder Survey (TSS) on the E-PRTR Regulation revision

The E-PRTR Regulation aims to provide the public with accessible information on pollutant releases and transfers and increase public participation in environmental decision-making. The E-PRTR gathers and compiles information about the state of pollutant releases and transfers of large industrial sites across Europe and, as such, it is a very useful tool for the public to follow the environmental impact of these sites over time.

The natural scope of the E-PRTR Regulation should therefore remain the ‘facility’ level and the quality, clarity and comparability of the data should prevail over the quantity of the data.

With this in mind, our associations share the following key messages on the Targeted Stakeholder Survey (TSS) on the E-PRTR Regulation revision:

1. The E-PRTR Regulation shall not be the reference to identify well-performing installations for the BREF review process
2. The E-PRTR Regulation shall not be the reference to identify key environmental issues in the context of the BREF making process
3. The addition of contextual information to the E-PRTR would create unwelcome complexity to the E-PRTR
4. Whether the scope of the E-PRTR Regulation should be aligned with the scope of the IED and other EU legislation should be carefully assessed
5. The E-PRTR Regulation is not the appropriate instrument to tackle releases from products

• Download the IEA 2021_IED revision_final joint industry statement_final.pdf
• Download the IEA Key messages on the E-PRTR Targeted Stakeholder Survey.pdf