Licensing reforms: information for environment protection licence holders

The current requirement to submit an Annual Return will cease for most licensees. It will be replaced by the requirement for near real-time reporting of non-compliances information.

However, load-based licence (LBL) holders will still need to submit a simplified Annual Return to report LBL data used to calculate the annual fee.

This change will support more timely communication with the EPA about reported non-compliances, potential changes in environmental risks, and any necessary follow-up actions.

The protocol will be amended to introduce a fairer, simpler system that’s easier to understand. This may result in a small increase or decrease to current EMC and administrative fees for licensees. The updates will coincide with the commencement of our new reporting requirements.

Changes to the Protocol

Compliance history and regulatory response

The following regulatory actions will no longer be counted in environmental management weightings:

• regulatory actions for late or non‑submission of an Annual Return
• formal warnings
• incident‑related site inspections.

All other regulatory actions continue to apply.

How the 3-year period of regulatory actions is considered

The previous “trend” approach is removed. A regulatory score is calculated for each of the past 3 years (number of regulatory actions X environmental weighting) and the 3 yearly scores are added together to obtain the environmental management score.

Score reductions

Although encouraged for licensees, environmental management systems and practices will no longer receive a reduction in the protocol. Reductions will still be available for environmental improvement programs (EIPs). These are programs agreed to between the EPA and the licensee and attached as a condition to the licence.

Environmental management categories

The upper and lower thresholds used to allocate categories will be adjusted to maintain a similar distribution of licensees across categories A–E compared with the current distribution. The total environmental management score will determine a licensee’s environmental management category as follows:

The requirement to submit near real-time monitoring data will not occur immediately. We are exploring options and working on a staged approach to introduce these reforms as we update our software systems. Interim steps will be in place to ensure data continuity while the best solution is finalised.

In the short term, licensees will need to submit an annual summary of monitoring data (reporting maximum, minimum, and mean values) via file upload in eConnect at the end of each licence reporting period.

Access to more timely data will enable the EPA to work collaboratively with licensees to identify emerging trends and take proactive steps to minimise potential environmental harm.

In the longer term, near real-time data submission may be required. The EPA is also exploring options to host and display monitoring data provided by licensees.

The 5-year Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA), which focused on predominantly static risk factors, is being removed.

In its place, we’re exploring more meaningful and dynamic risk indicators, such as:

• trend changes in monitoring data
• changes in site operations
• incidents and non-compliances
• inspection outcomes.

These indicators will help identify changes in risk more effectively, allowing for timely and proactive measures to minimise the potential for environmental harm. Inspection frequencies may also change, as they will no longer be tied to static risk factors.