Latest International ESH Legislative Review

On an on-going basis our firm tracks most new and emerging environmental and safety and health legislation and trends for some 60+ countries (and their provinces and states), reporting the results every quarter in our International Legislative Review.  As with any issue of this Review, there are a number of important and/or interesting developments to point out.  In this post we have attempted to summarize some of the more important trends we saw in the First Quarter of 2012 (as reported in our April 2012 Legislative Review) that could potentially effect commercial and industrial operations across the globe.  These trends are:

• Several countries have expanded or added waste electronic or electrical equipment (WEEE/WEEE-like) legislation:
  • Germany has amended its waste legislation to strengthen recyclying requirements.
  • Hungary has proposed the collection and recycling of WEEE.
  • Latvia implemented changes to its waste legislation as well, requiring registration of WEEE waste collection efforts.
  • Peru is developing a WEEE-like law.
  • Israel adopted a WEEE-like law.
• Adoption of PM2.5 standards of requirements:
  • China adopted the standard in a phased roll-out approach, applying some regions initially and then increasing its application through 2016.
  • Taiwan has proposed a standard for PM2.5.

• EU Member States not transposing EU laws (Directives) into national legislation have been cited by the EU:
  • Belgium has been criticized for not transposing the EU's Water Directive and the Directive on the protection of the environment through criminal law.
  • Cyprus has been cited as well regarding not transposing the EU's Directive on the protection of the environment through criminal law.
  • Sweden was cited for not aligning its national legislation with EU EIA requirements.

• Several countries have begun or have continued initiatives to simplify or reduce the burden of EHS legislation:
  • Italy initiated its Simplification Decree, intended to reduce legislative burdens on permitting and inspections.
  • The UK is perhaps implementing the largest overhaul of EHS legislation through a number of massive reviews or initiatives:
    • The Red Tape Challenge on environmental legislation;
    • The Lofstedt Review on safety and health laws;
    • The government's budget intended to hep reduce costs on business; and
    • Delays in the implementation of some new regulations to help reduce burdens.

This last trend is important since it represents a common philosophy or desire to improve or reduce legislative burdens on industry while retaining the important aspects of what the legislation was originally intended to do, namely to protect the environment and human health and welfare.  This highly visible trend (as opposed to political bantering which may be more common) is quite new since we started intensive tracking of legislation and trends over the last 10 years.  What comes of it will certainly be included in our Quarterly Reviews, but we will also try to provide regular updates in this blog on some of the more noteworthy changes that occur as they happen.

If you are interested in our Quarterly Review, it is available for purchase (sample copies are free to review).  Email us for information at [email protected].

Richard G. DiNitto is one of the Principals and founders of The Isosceles Group and has been an environmental and occupational safety consultant for over 30 years. Richard has been researching and reporting on international ESH legislative developments for the past 15 years and directs the firm's team that develops the Quarterly Reviews and its growing library of ESH Audit Protocols for more than 55 countries and provinces.