Businesses that affect the environment by:

  • causing air pollution through the release of smoke, dust or solvent fumes
  • creating water or land contamination

need environmental permits, some of which we administer.

You can check whether you need an environmental permit online.

The Pollution Prevention and Control Act 1999 and the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 regulate the industrial activities that potentially release significant emissions.

UK and EU law defines the activities that are regulated, and who they are regulated by:

  1. Large scale, more polluting sites (known as Part A1 processes) are regulated by the Environment Agency
  2. Smaller scale, less polluting sites (known as Part A2 and Part B processes) are regulated by us

Our public register

We maintain a public register of permitted installations:

Access our environmental permit public register