Transcript “PRTRs in Action: The Kiev Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers and its relevance to SAICM” Michael Stanley-Jones Environmental Information Management Officer Environment,

“PRTRs in Action: The Kiev Protocol on Pollutant Release
and Transfer Registers and its relevance to SAICM”
Michael Stanley-Jones
Environmental Information Management Officer
Environment, Housing and Land Management Division
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
PRTRs in Action, Side event to the Central and Eastern Europe Regional Meeting on the
Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management
4-6 December 2006, Riga, Latvia
OUTLINE
• I. The role of PRTRs in SAICM Global Plan of Action
and Overarching Policy Strategy
• II. Introduction to the Kiev Protocol on PRTRs
• III. Tools for promoting international coordination of
PRTR capacity building
• IV. Some applications to Multilateral Environmental
Agreements
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PRTRs in SAICM Global Plan of Action and
Overarching Policy Strategy
• Cooperative action on global priorities
– Encouraging implementation of existing internationally
recognized standards, tools and approaches, such as GHS
and PRTRs (Executive summary, para. 8 (c))
• Activities
– Knowledge and information
 124. Develop a national PRTR/emission inventory design
process involving affected and interested parties
 125. Use PRTRs tailored to variable national conditions as
a source of valuable environmental information for
industry, Governments and the public and as
mechanisms to stimulate reductions in emissions
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PRTRs in SAICM 2
– Governance
 177. Establish the required framework for creating
national PRTRs
 178. Promote a political consensus in in favour of
public access to national environmental information
 178. Manage information dissemination from PRTRs
so that risks are communicated in a timely and
accurate fashion without unduly alarming the public
 192. Promote within the industrial sector the
adoption of PRTRs and cleaner production methods
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PRTRs in SAICM 3
– Capacity-building and technical cooperation
 222. Strengthen mechanisms for reporting and
consolidating information necessary to produce
baseline overviews that will help determine
domestic management priorities and gaps (e.g.,
PRTRs and inventories)…
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From the Aarhus Convention
to the Protocol on PRTRs
UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public
Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in
Environmental Matters
25 June 1998 - Adoption of the Convention at the 4th Ministerial
“Environment for Europe” Conference, Aarhus, Denmark.
Signed by 39 countries and the European Community
30 Oct 2001- Entry into force of the Convention
21 May 2003 - Adoption of the Protocol on PRTRs at extra-ordinary
meeting of the Parties, within the framework of the 5th Ministerial
“Environment for Europe” Conference (Kiev, Ukraine)
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Status of Convention Ratifications
Albania
Armenia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Belarus
Belgium
Bulgaria
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
Former Yugoslav
Rep. of Macedonia
France
Georgia
Greece
Hungary
Italy
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxembourg *
Malta
Moldova, Rep. of
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Tajikistan
Turkmenistan
Ukraine
United Kingdom
European Community
*
Convention total = 39 Parties (PRTR Protocol: 37 Signatories, including Germany,
Iceland, Ireland, Serbia & Montenegro. Protocol Parties as 1 Sep 2006 indicated by * )
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Access to information provisions
Selected features of Convention article 5 “Active Dissemination”
• Transparency and accessibility of information systems
• Immediate dissemination of information in cases of imminent
threat to health or environment
• Sufficient product information to ensure informed
environmental choices
• Pollutant release and transfer registers
• Increased access to information through Internet
• Article 5, paragraph 3
… each Party to ensure that environmental Information progressively
becomes available In electronic databases which are easily accessible to
the public through public telecommunication networks
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Legal basis of PRTR Protocol in Aarhus
Convention
• Legal basis: article 5, para. 9 and article 10, para. 2 (e) and
(i) of the Aarhus Convention, requiring each Party
“to take steps to establish progressively ... a coherent,
nationwide system of pollution inventories or registers on a
structured, computerized and publicly accessible database
compiled through standardized reporting.” (art. 5, para. 9)
… taking into account international processes and
developments, including the elaboration of an appropriate
instrument concerning pollution release and transfer
registers or inventories ….” (art. 10, para. 2(i) )
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Requirements of Protocol on PRTRs
• Facilities and pollutants covered
• General obligations placed on Parties
• Obligations placed on owners / operators
• Elements of reporting
• Quality assessment and validation
• Future steps
and
• Possible applications (not required)
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Facilities covered
Facilities covered (annex I) include:
• Thermal power stations and refineries
• Mining and metallurgical industries
• Chemical plants
• Waste and waste-water management plants
• Paper and timber industries
• Intensive livestock production and aquaculture
• Food and beverage production
• Textiles, Tanneries, Shipbuilding
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Pollutants covered
Pollutants covered (annex II) include:
• Greenhouse gases
• Acid rain pollutants
• Ozone-depleting substances
• Heavy metals
• Certain carcinogens, such as dioxins
TOTAL: 86 pollutants
N.B. National registers may include additional facilities and
substances, e.g. European Union includes 91 individual substances
or groups of substances
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Government
• Chooses among various technical options for
the design of a central, publicly accessibly
register to determine the institutional framework
required for ensuring a coordinated system of
information flow to it
• Sets forth the rights and responsibilities of
various key players, e.g.
– the obligation of pollutant-emitting facilities to
report, and
– the right of the general public to participate in
decisions concerning PRTRs
Elements explicitly set forth in the Protocol
or implicit in its requirements
1. Institution to manage the national PRTR system (art. 2, para. 5)
2. Structure for inter-agency coordination
3. Appropriate systems for enforcement (art. 3, para. 1)
Collection, validation and management of data
4. Collection of data submitted by owners or operators of reporting
facilities (art. 7, paras. 2 and 5)
5. Assessment of the quality of the data collected in terms
of completeness, consistency and credibility (art. 10, para. 2)
6. Collection of information on releases from diffuse sources
(art. 7, para. 4)
8. Development and management of a register comprising
a structured, computerized database able to maintain data
for 10 reporting years (art. 4, para. (j) and art. 5, para. 3)
9. Dissemination of information and training (arts. 8, 11 and 15).
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Basic obligation of operators
To submit the information specified with respect
to those pollutants and waste for which thresholds
were exceeded
Each Party decides with respect to a particular pollutant
to apply either a release threshold or a manufacture,
process or use (MPU) threshold will be used
Facility operators do not choose under which requirement
(pollutant threshold or MPU) to report
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Reporting requirements of operators
(Article 7 - continued)
Each Party shall require owners or operators of facilities specified
in annex I who
• Release any pollutant specified in annex II in quantities exceeding
applicable thresholds,
• Transfer off-site any pollutant in annex II in quantities exceeding
applicable thresholds,
• Transfer off-site hazardous waste exceeding 2 tons per year
or other waste exceeding 2,000 tons per year, where the Party has
opted for waste-specific reporting (as in the European Union)
• Transfer off-site any pollutant specified in annex II in waste water
destined for waste-water treatment in quantities exceeding the applicable
threshold
or
• Undertake one or more activities specified in annex I at or above
the employee threshold specified in annex I, and
• Manufacture, process or uses any pollutant specified in annex II
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Specific reporting elements
• Name, street address, geographical location and activities
of the reporting facility
• Name of the owner or operator and, as appropriate, company
• Name and numerical identifier of each specified pollutant
• Amount of each specified pollutant released to the environment,
both in aggregate and according to whether release is to air, to
water, or to land, including underground injection
either
• amount of each pollutant transferred off-site in the reporting
year, distinguishing between amounts for disposal and for recovery,
and
• name and address of facility receiving the transfer,
or
• amount of waste transferred off-site, distinguishing between
hazardous waste and other waste, for any operations, indicating
whether waste is destined for recovery or disposal
and for transboundary movements of hazardous waste,
• name and address of the recoverer or disposer and
• actual site receiving the transfer
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Reporting elements
(continued)
• Amount of each specified pollutant in waste water transferred off-site
• Type of methodology used to derive information on amounts,
indicating whether based on measurement, calculation or estimation
(M, C, E)
• Information to include releases and transfers from routine and from
extraordinary events
• Owners or operators to be required to collect releases and transfers
data needed “with appropriate frequency”, and to
• Records of the data from which the reported information was derived
must be kept available for the competent authorities for 5 years,
including description of M, C or E.
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Quality assessment
(Article 10)
• Owners or operators are to assure the quality of the information
they report
• Quality assessment of data duty of the Parties, in particular as to
completeness – consistency – credibility
taking into account guidelines developed by the MOP
• Draft Guidance to implementation of the Protocol on PRTRs
Penultimate version released 31 July 2006 available on
web sites of UNECE Working Group on PRTRs and WGEMA
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‘Best Available Information’ (BAI) standard
(article 9, para. 2)
Owners or operators of facilities required to ensure the quality
of information they report and to use “best available information”
‘Best available information’ may include
• monitoring data
• emission factors
• mass balance
• equations
• indirect monitoring or other calculations
• engineering judgments, and
• other methods
Nb. EU adopting more stringent guidance on BAI
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Quality assurance and control
• Calibration and maintenance of the monitoring system
• Use of recognized quality management systems
• Periodic checks by an external accredited laboratory
• Certification of instruments and personnel under
recognized certification schemes
Elements for guidelines on strengthening environmental
monitoring and reporting by enterprises, para 36 (i)
(ECE/CEP/AC.10/2006/4)
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Validation
• Where appropriate, validation should be done in accord
with internationally approved methodologies
e.g. ISO, European Committee for Standardization (CEN)
However, in some cases, national or sector methodologies
may be superior to Internationally-approved ones,
or such approval may be pending (“HOT ISSUE”)
• Validation of data may be more easily achievable if
responsibility is delegated to local or regional authorities
or to the regional or local offices of national authorities,
since they will be closer to the operators and are more likely
to have an overview of their activities
Guidance on validation is evolving
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Next steps for Protocol’s
future implementation
• Setting up the Protocol’s institutional architecture:
– rules of procedure and compliance review mechanism
– financial arrangements
– technical assistance mechanism,
– international cooperation and reporting

International PRTR Coordinating Group

SAICM / ICCM etc
• Completion of technical guidance on implementation
• Further guidance on dissemination of PRTR information
or data users’ guide suggested
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Possible future applications
• Pan-European Environment and Health Information
System (Environment-for-Europe Ministerial
Conference / WHO Europe)
• Commercial property management information
systems (“due diligence” research, e.g. Environment
Agency of England and Wales)
• Integration into Global Reporting Initiative, Socially
Responsible Investment (SRI), and evolving ISO
standards and OECD guidelines
• SAICM national performance tracking under ICCM
• Convergence of regional PRTR systems (North
American Taking Stock, European PRTR, East Asia?)
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PRTR success story
“For the 10-year period from 1988 to 1997, atmospheric
emissions of some 260 known carcinogens and
reproductive toxins from the United States Toxics Release
Inventory reporting facilities have been reduced by
approximately 85% in the State of California, and by some
42% in the rest of the country (i.e., for all chemicals listed in
California as known to cause either cancer or reproductive
toxicity and reported as air emissions under TRI ).”
From P. Sand (2002)
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MORE INFORMATION AVAILABLE ON
THE AARHUS CONVENTION WEBSITE:
http://www.unece.org/env/pp/prtr
Aarhus Clearinghouse
http://aarhusclearinghouse.unece.org
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