Complying with environmental legislation is an essential requirement for any business.  Identifying all relevant legislative requirements and other requirements as well as the regulatory bodies are important first steps in identifying how legal requirements apply to your organisation. This will enable you to ensure compliance, prevent prosecution, fines, and the associated bad publicity.

 

 

The STEM Team will assist your organisation in compiling a register of environmental legislation.  This register will be organisation specific.  Assistance will be provided to develop procedures  to ensure your organisation continues to meet current and new legislation.

 

 

Environmental legislation can be quite daunting for a small business, detailed below are useful links to government bodies that provide guidance on environemntal legislation.

 

NetRegs, for those businesses located within the UK, provides plain language guidance for businesses on environmental legislation and how to comply with it.  The NetRegs website is free to use and is regularly updated www.netregs.gov.uk

 

Its aim is to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK to understand the often complex environmental regulations that they must comply with.

The site provides guidance on how to comply with environmental law as well as advice on good environmental practice.

 

IBEC, The Irish Business & Employers Confederation, is the national voice of Irish business and employers and provides a wide range of services to over 7,000 member businesses.  IBEC is dedicated to meeting the environmental legislation needs by providing leadership and services through its team of professional and committed staff.

 

 

Increasing pressure and demands of environmental legislation throughout the European Union has resulted in companies being required to undertake significant steps to develop commercial solutions to environmental issues. 

 

Progressively more companies are recognising that the environment is a management issue as well as a matter of compliance. 

 

An Environmental Management System (EMS) provides a company with a practical proactive framework to manage it’s interaction with the environment. 

New Northern Ireland legislation such as the Northern Ireland Landfill (Scheme Year and Maximum Landfill Amount) Regulations SI 2004/1936 and Irelands Landfill Directive 1999 have been introduced to carry out the European Landfill Directive 93/31EC, requiring all EU countries to reduce the disposal of biodegradable materials to landfill.

Consequently the price of disposal to landfill sites has increased significantly and this trend is set to continue. An EMS will assist companies in developing waste awareness and reduction strategies to promote waste minimisation activities such as reduce, reuse and recycle.

 

Diverting waste from landfill has the potential to open up revenue opportunities as markets are developed for the reuse and reprocessing of what were previously considered to be waste materials.

 

 

The Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) aims to

Organisations, companies and businesses need to be well informed as to the requirements of legislation regarding water consumption and the need for consents to discharge waste water or effluent to sewers and waterways.

 

 

 

An improvement in the quality of the air we breathe is a priority of both the UK and Irish governments due to the introduction and the requirements of the Air Quality (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2003 and the Air Quality Standards Regulations 2002 respectively. 

These set out objectives to reach specific levels of air quality within a given time period.  Through the assessment and management of the quality of air, District Councils and Local Authorities must review their existing and future air quality strategies and devise action plans to improve and monitor local air quality to implement EC obligations.