GSFIC

The ministry of Environment announced 40 days of an amendment legislation ,from December,10, to the enforcement rules of the act on integrated management of environmental pollution facilities(hereafter integrated environment act), which provides administrative support to the businesses that have early switched to the integrated environment permit(hereafter integration permit).

This amendment is that the early conversion benefits, such as extension of the review cycle as long as remaining period until the expiration date(up to 3 years), shall be granted to the businesses that have received an early integration permit. Through this, the industrial world is expected to move quickly to the integration permit.

According to the integrated environment act, the businesses that got the integration permit shall review the permits every 5 years and reflect the environmental change and the latest pollution-reduction technology.

The system of integration permit is to integrate the environmental permits distributed by category such as air, water, waste and etc. and to set a custom-type permit criteria, which reflects the characteristics of the industry and the impact of environment by business. The integrated environment act has been in effect since 2017.

The integrated permit system shall be ,annually until 2021, applied, by industry, to the large-scale workplaces in 19 industries such as generation, steam, waste disposal and etc

〔Enforcement Year by industry〕

Industry	generation, steam, and waste disposal	steel, nonferrous metals, and organic chemistry	oil refining, fertilizer, precision, and biochemistry	paper, and electronic products	plastic, textile and semiconductor
Year	‘17～’20	‘18～’21	‘19～’22	‘20～’23	‘21～’24

※1.411 businesses that have been in operation before the implementation of the integration act.

The Ministry of Environment gives, now, a four-year grace period even when the application time arrives by industry.

The businesses with early permits shall receive the following benefits- a five-year review cycle as long as remaining period from the date of permit to the expiration date of grace period for the integration permit shall be extended to up to eight years.

Besides. the Ministry of Environment plans to promote the system improvements, such as making the management of system the same and giving flexibility in emission standard, considering the characteristics of the facilities, to solve the difficulties of the companies due to the implementation of integrated permit act. Moreover, the Ministry of Environment plans to settle the integrated permit system stably, gathering opinions through industry meetings at the same time.

※ More information on the integrated environment act can be found on the web site (www.me.co.kr) of the Ministry of Environment.