Types of Authorisation

Terminology differs between jurisdictions, but the categories are consistent.

• Installation or activity permit — for industrial processes above defined thresholds, regulating emissions to all media together.
• Waste permit or exemption — for storing, treating or disposing of waste.
• Discharge consent or trade effluent consent — for discharges to water or sewer.
• Abstraction licence — for taking water from surface or groundwater.
• Air emissions authorisation — for specified processes and pollutants.
• Registrations and notifications — carrier registration, producer responsibility, refrigerant handling, radioactive substances.
• Planning conditions — frequently containing environmental obligations on hours, noise, lighting, landscaping and traffic, which are enforced by a different authority and are easily forgotten.

The inventory problem

Many sites cannot produce a complete list of their authorisations, because they were obtained over decades by people who have left. Building and maintaining a single register — authorisation, issuing body, scope, expiry, key conditions, and a named owner — is the first practical step in permit compliance, and it frequently reveals both lapsed authorisations and activities operating without one.