Europe's first industrial pollution register has been issued, representing a "landmark event" in public provision of environmental information, in the words of European Environment Agency chief Jacqueline McGlade.
Speaking at the register's launch in Copenhagen on Monday, European Commission official Paul McAleavey said the data would be translated into all 11 official EU languages following initial feedback. Satellite images showing the location of industrial facilities would be upgraded, he added.
Danish Environment Minister Hans Christian Schmidt and Bjrn Stigson of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development also gave the European Pollutant Emission Register (EPER) a strong welcome. They both emphasized how enhanced information serves as a spur to action by companies to reduce emissions.
EPER should combine well with product ecolabeling and corporate environmental management certification schemes, Schmidt stressed. Alain Perroy, chief of EU chemicals industry association CEFIC, sounded a cautionary note. Limitations on the use of EPER data should be recognized, he said. The register presents possible threats to both confidentiality and competitiveness, he insisted, and industry should have a right to comment on published figures.
Based on reports from the 15 EU governments plus Norway, which is not an EU member state, the first edition reports releases of 50 pollutants to air, to water and to offsite wastewater treatment by 9,159 industrial plants in 36 industry sectors.
Hungary is also participating voluntarily, but its data have not yet been included in the database.
The register is supposed to report about 90 percent of point source pollution by Europe's largest and most polluting industrial facilities. These range from power stations and oil refineries to waste disposal plants to intensive livestock rearing facilities to manufacturing of chemicals or metals, cement and leather.
With subsequent reports – the next is due in 2006 based on reporting year 2004 – it should begin to be possible to track emission trends. For now, though, it is not easy to navigate the mass of detailed information in EPER.
First, it is likely that many countries' inputs to EPER will need to be revised. For example the register lists over 1,000 intensive pig and poultry units in the UK, but only three for France and none for the Netherlands, both of which have large numbers of such firms.
Second, the European Environment Agency has not provided aggregate figures for tons of all pollutants released, whether by company, industry sector or country.
An obvious objection is that the substances reported vary so widely in type and intensity of environmental impacts. For example, a kilogram of carbon dioxide can hardly be compared like for like with a kilogram of the highly toxic substances dioxins and furans.
The real news in EPER lies buried in the detail. It will emerge bit by bit as academics, environmental groups, companies, governments and members of the public start to find nuggets of politically valuable information. The London office of environmental group Friends of the Earth got off to an early start on Monday, reporting that EPER revealed UK firms to be among "Europe's biggest polluters" and naming 10 of them.
Friends of the Earth's safer chemicals campaigner Mary Taylor said at the launch, "Simply providing pollution data to the public puts pressure on companies to clean up. This right-to-know information is a huge step forward for most countries, and for the first time we can begin to build a detailed picture of industrial pollution across the EU."
But, she said, each country should also take efforts to develop its system, increase the information available and involve the public in planning improvements for the future."
In the meantime, and braving the difficulties of aggregated figures and the integrity of EPER data, here is a thumbnail sketch of the register's main features:
In tonnage terms, total emissions are dominated by releases to air, which in turn are dominated by emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2). Total reported releases to all environmental media are about 1.54bn metric tons, of which CO2 accounts for 1.43bn, or 93 percent.
Emissions to sewer account for about five percent of all reported releases, virtually all accounted for by emissions of chlorides. Emissions directly to water account for just one percent of all releases, again dominated by emissions of chlorides.
After CO2 and chlorides, the substances with the greatest reported releases are sulphur oxides (4.1m metric tons), carbon monoxide (4m metric tons), nitrogen oxides (2.4m metric tons) and methane (2.3m metric tons), all released only to air.
Britain accounts for the largest number of reporting installations – 2,490, or 27 percent of all those currently in the database. Germany comes second with 1,839 for 20 percent, then Spain with 1,399 for 15 percent, and France with 1,280 for 14 percent. These four countries account for just over three-quarters of all reporting facilities.
Among industry sectors, intensive pig and poultry units are the most numerous, with 2,766 reporting installations, or 30 percent of the total. Second come combustion plants, with 867 reporting facilities, third the metals industry with 777, fourth cement, lime and minerals plants with 661 and fifth organic chemicals with 653.
Combustion installations account for the largest share of all reported emissions, some 60 percent, largely due to their release of 920 million metric tons of CO2. Refineries, the metals industry and the cement, lime, glass, mineral and ceramic sectors are also revealed as being big polluters in terms of mass.
Releases reported by German firms account for 28 percent of the total, followed by 19 percent for Italy, 17 percent for the UK and eight percent for Spain. No other country accounts for more than four percent of total emissions by mass.
Italian firms emit more pollutants to water, both directly and to sewer, than any other country.
{Published in cooperation with ENDS Environment Daily, Europe's choice for environmental news. Environmental Data Services Ltd, London. Email: envdaily@ends.co.uk}
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