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THE WATER FRAMEWORK DIRECTIVE

A BUSINESS RISK?

The Directive is the largest ever change in European environmental law. A comprehensive package of requirements has been introduced, aimed at protecting and improving the totality of the aquatic environment. The Directive specifies objectives, a planning regime and requires a suite of new laws to be introduced by member states. Any significant discharge, abstraction, impoundment or engineering work in, or affecting any natural water will be subject to authorisation and regulation. The Directive is already transposed into law in Scotland; the first of the detailed regulations will begin to take effect in October 2005, with full application in April 2006.

The Directive sets demanding objectives, by 2015 all surface waters will achieve good ecological quality or at least good ecological potential. The first survey predicts that almost half of Scotland’s rivers, lochs and coastal waters may not meet the objectives. The cost to the country and affected businesses will be very considerable.

Any business which uses or affects natural waters will incur the overhead and cost of regulation and, perhaps the capital and revenue costs of remedial measures. It is vital to business that these costs are the minimum necessary to meet objectives and are timetabled to accord with business plans.

The implementation of the Directive has already generated a mass of detailed technical guidance and administrative detail. The increasing restrictions arising from other new regulations, in particular those applying the PPC and Landfill directives, constrain options for waste and emission management and must also be taken account of. Any business affected must deal with this to ensure minimal impact on expenditure and disruption to plans.

To successfully navigate the process of authorisation and remediation a business must have both an environmental strategy and a business plan in harmony with this. Only through these can regulatory and business risks be managed to achieve a satisfactory balance of costs and benefits.

ECOSS specialises in providing boards and senior management with the advice and guidance necessary to minimise business risk whilst ensuring that environmental needs are met. Detailed support can include:

The production of strategy and plans
Compliance risk assessment
Increasing process and resource efficiency
Working with the regulator
Management of consultants
Negotiation of authorisations
Monitoring of performance
Early warning of emerging risk

The implementation of the Directive is well under way , critical decisions are already being taken. The time to act is now while there is opportunity to influence decisions which will affect future business costs and viability.



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