Caniatadau amgylcheddol

Factory covered by an environmental permit

Environmental permitting applies to England and Wales only.

If you operate your business in Northern Ireland or Scotland, see our guidance on pollution prevention and control and waste management licensing.

Pollution prevention and control permits
Waste management licensing

What is environmental permitting?

Environmental permitting is a risk-based regime for regulating business activities that could have an impact on the environment or human health.

It is a streamlined system for managing environmental permits with common procedures for appeals, changes and transfers.

 Environmental permitting has:

  • simplified and combined different permitting regimes
  • put into effect the permitting requirements of some European directives.

Old permits now covered by environmental permitting When they became covered by environmental permitting
Pollution prevention and control (PPC) permits 6 April 2008
Waste management licences (WML) 6 April 2008
Water discharge consents 6 April 2010
Groundwater permits 6 April 2010
Radioactive substances registrations and authorisations 6 April 2010

To find out more, see our guidance on what happened to your old permit, licence or exemption.

Recent European directives implemented by environmental permitting Date commenced
Batteries Directive 5 May 2009
Mining Waste Directive 7 July 2009

In this guideline:

What is an environmental permit?
What happened to your old permit, licence or exemption?
Who needs an environmental permit?
Who needs to register an exemption from environmental permitting?
Who is your regulator for environmental permitting?
How do you apply for an environmental permit?
What happens after you have submitted your application?
How do you comply with an environmental permit?
How do you change, transfer or cancel an environmental permit?
What happens if you don’t comply with environmental permitting?
Environmental permitting further information
Environmental permitting legislation