Introducing Unified Environmental Permits in Ukraine

On 27 May, the Round­table on Pre­ven­tion and Con­trol of Indus­tri­al Pol­lu­tion Reform: Intro­duc­tion of Uni­fied Envi­ron­men­tal Per­mits took place in Kyiv, joint­ly organ­ised with the Min­istry of Econ­o­my, Envi­ron­ment and Agri­cul­ture of Ukraine.

The event focused on fur­ther devel­op­ing Ukraine’s envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work to align it with Euro­pean Union stan­dards. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of gov­ern­ment insti­tu­tions, inter­na­tion­al part­ners, and the expert com­mu­ni­ty gath­ered to dis­cuss the future uni­fied envi­ron­men­tal per­mit­ting sys­tem for small and medi­um-sized enter­pris­es (SMEs). 

As part of its path towards EU mem­ber­ship, Ukraine is under­tak­ing one of its most impor­tant envi­ron­men­tal reforms: the imple­men­ta­tion of the EU Indus­tri­al Emis­sions Direc­tive (2010/75/EU). Inter­na­tion­al expert sup­port plays a cru­cial role in this process. Since 2019, Ger­many has been sup­port­ing the approx­i­ma­tion of Ukrain­ian leg­is­la­tion to EU require­ments and the imple­men­ta­tion of the Indus­tri­al Emis­sions Direc­tive through the “Best Avail­able Tech­niques (BAT) for Ukraine” project, imple­ment­ed by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale  Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ) GmbH.

One of the key out­comes of this coop­er­a­tion was the entry into force of the Law of Ukraine “On Inte­grat­ed Pre­ven­tion and Con­trol of Indus­tri­al Pol­lu­tion”, which trans­pos­es the pro­vi­sions of the Direc­tive into nation­al leg­is­la­tion and intro­duces an inte­grat­ed envi­ron­men­tal per­mit­ting sys­tem for the country’s largest indus­tri­al instal­la­tions.  

At the same time, a sig­nif­i­cant share of Ukrain­ian enter­pris­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly SMEs, falls out­side the scope of the Direc­tive. For this rea­son, Ukraine is explor­ing the intro­duc­tion of a uni­fied envi­ron­men­tal per­mit­ting sys­tem.

The objec­tive of this sys­tem is to replace frag­ment­ed and com­plex per­mit­ting pro­ce­dures with a sin­gle, clear dig­i­tal process. This approach will help reduce admin­is­tra­tive bur­den for enter­pris­es while mak­ing envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tion more trans­par­ent, effi­cient, and user-friend­ly for both busi­ness­es and pub­lic author­i­ties.

For the per­mit­ting reform to be suc­cess­ful, it is impor­tant that the envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­to­ry sys­tem cov­ers not only large indus­tri­al instal­la­tions but also small and medi­um-sized enter­pris­es. There­fore, we are work­ing to estab­lish a mod­ern, trans­par­ent, and dig­i­tal frame­work that is aligned with EU stan­dards and adapt­ed to the needs of all cat­e­gories of enter­pris­es, said Olek­sii Sobolev, Min­is­ter of Econ­o­my, Envi­ron­ment and Agri­cul­ture of Ukraine.  

High­light­ing the impor­tance of inter­na­tion­al part­ner­ship and knowl­edge exchange, Max­i­m­il­ian Rasch, Chargé d’Af­faires of the Ger­man Embassy in Ukraine, not­ed:

Ger­many has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in imple­ment­ing effec­tive envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works for small and medi­um-sized enter­pris­es. We believe that devel­op­ing a uni­fied per­mit­ting sys­tem as a com­ple­ment to the Indus­tri­al Emis­sions Direc­tive frame­work is the right direc­tion for Ukraine. We remain com­mit­ted to shar­ing our expe­ri­ence and sup­port­ing the devel­op­ment of a mod­ern, trans­par­ent, and dig­i­tal per­mit­ting sys­tem. 

Gabriel Sauer, Direc­tor of the BAT project, also high­light­ed the project’s con­tri­bu­tion to the imple­men­ta­tion of Euro­pean stan­dards in the field of indus­tri­al pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion and con­trol.

For the past six years, the “Best Avail­able Tech­niques (BAT) for Ukraine” project has sup­port­ed the reform at every stage, from the devel­op­ment of the frame­work law, sec­ondary leg­is­la­tion and tech­ni­cal reg­u­la­tions required for the imple­men­ta­tion of the Direc­tive, to the dig­i­tal­iza­tion of the inte­grat­ed envi­ron­men­tal per­mit­ting sys­tem: 

The imple­men­ta­tion of the EU Indus­tri­al Emis­sions Direc­tive lays the foun­da­tion for a clean, high­ly com­pet­i­tive, and future proof Ukrain­ian indus­try in line with Euro­pean stan­dards.  

Daniela Goehler, Direc­tor of the project “Implementing the Paris Agree­ment in Ukraine (PAABS)” and Head of the Ukrainian Climate Office (UCO), high­lighted the role of dig­i­tal solutions in reform­ing Ukraine’s envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­to­ry sys­tem. 

The coop­er­a­tion on indus­tri­al pol­lu­tion con­trol start­ed in 2019 and will con­tin­ue through the PAABS project until 2029 based on the needs expressed by the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment. 

With the uni­fied per­mit sys­tem, Ukraine is devel­op­ing one of the most advanced IT solu­tions for envi­ron­men­tal gov­er­nance in Europe. It brings trans­paren­cy and eas­es bureau­crat­ic bur­den for com­pa­nies, said Daniela Goehler. 

The event was organ­ised joint­ly by the projects “Best Avail­able Tech­niques (BAT) for Ukraine” and “Sup­port­ing Ukraine in the imple­men­ta­tion of the Paris Agree­ment and adap­ta­tion to the impact of cli­mate change in the Black Sea region (PAABS),” imple­ment­ed by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry for the Envi­ron­ment, Cli­mate Action, Nature Con­ser­va­tion and Nuclear Safe­ty (BMUKN) under the frame­work of the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive (IKI).