Environmental permits for industrial activities listed

Industries with the greatest pollution potential must be granted an environmental permit by an authority if they are covered by either Annex 1 or Annex 2 of the Order of Environmental permitting.

Application

Applications for an environmental permit must be submitted to the authority upon establishment or when the activity’s operation is subject to significant changes or expansion. The requirements for applications can be found in Annexes 3 and 4 to the Order of Environmental permitting (in Danish).

As part of the simplification of the permit system, it is now possible to submit an electronic application for an environmental permit (in Danish).

Environmental conditions

Environmental permits establish limits for the discharge of substances that could pollute water, soil and air, as well as limits for odour, noise and vibrations. Requirements concerning self-regulation are imposed. The installation must be able to give an account of organisation, prevention and precautions in the event of an accident. If the operation ceases, requirements are also imposed, for example, with regard to the way in which the installation must dispose of environmentally harmful substances.

Finally, the installation must give an account of its use of the best available techniques.

Read more about best available techniques here .

Authority

The municipality in which the installation is situated will generally be the approval and supervisory authority.

However, the Danish Environmental Protection Agency is the approval and supervisory authority for 250 industrial sites that are considered to be particularly heavily polluting and complex (the ‘s-marked activities’ in Annex 1). In addition, there are certain power- and heat-generating plants and certain plants for the utilisation and disposal of hazardous waste, as well as other specific industrial sites where the Danish Environmental Protection Agency has decided to take over the responsibility for authority processing.

Guidelines

A guideline on environmental requirements for storing oil products (covered by list points C 103 and C 201) has been developed by the Environmental Protection Agency.