Pollutant release and transfer register

Pollutant release and transfer registers (PRTRs) are systems to collect and disseminate information on environmental releases and transfers of toxic chemicals from industrial and other facilities.

They were established in several countries after the 1984 Bhopal Disaster, and the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, which affirmed the "right-to-know" of communities and workers about toxics chemicals and other substances of concern.

PRTRs and Community Right to Know

In many countries industrial facilities need a permit to operate processes that are causing environmental pressures. Authorities have to balance the interests of different actors when issuing such permits and will reflect this balance in the conditions and requirements put down in the permit. Companies and civilians living near to the facilities generally have quite different levels of understanding and information on the processes and the environmental impact. In a democratic context however a level playing field for all actors involved in permitting decisions is paramount to acceptance of the decisions. Against this background, the Aarhus Convention requires the parties to this convention to set up PRTRs as a tool to provide the general public this type of information UNECE (2003) Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers.

PRTR data quality

PRTRs are a type of emission inventories, typically containing data on emissions to the environment from individual industrial facilities. Data collection methods for individual facility emission data in PRTRs typically consist of questionnaires, sent to individual facilities or industries. The answers are validated upon receipt by the competent authorities and published on a public web site. This procedure for the case of EPER includes the following steps^[1]

The competent authorities in each European Union Member State select all facilities that operate at least one of the activities listed in the European Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) directive with a capacity above a threshold as defined in the EPER decision and notifies these facilities;
The facilities determine emissions following the provisions of the EPER Guidance document and report these to the competent authorities using a prescribed format.
The authorities validate individual facility reports and combine the information from all facilities within the country into an electronic report to the European Commission.
The Commission publishes the data on the EPER website and initiates an evaluation of the reporting process that results in a review report (the latest of these is the.^[2]

In accordance with the ideas of Community right to Know, this procedure ensures that data are published as soon as they are available. Despite the validation by competent authorities, the data remain essentially the facilities' estimates and data quality control essentially depends on data users asking questions. Since facilities are by definitions only a part of all activities in a country, the sum of the emissions reported in a PRTR should for each pollutant be less or equal to the total emissions reported in national inventories. This nis not always the case (see the EPER Review Report).

Examples

PRTRs include those of

Australia National pollutant inventory (NPI),
Canada National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI),
EU European Pollutant Emissions Register (EPER).
Mexico Registro de Emisiones y Transferencia de Contaminantes (RETC),
US Toxics Release Inventory (TRI),

Footnotes

↑ European Union (2006)
↑ EPER Review Report 2004

References

European Union (2006). Regulation (EC) No 166/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 January 2006 concerning the establishment of a European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register and amending Council Directives 91/689/EEC and 96/61/EC, Official Journal of the European Union, L 33, 4.2.2006
European Commission (2007), EPER European Pollutant Emission Register; EPER Review Report 2004

External links

Further reading

National PRTR websites:

Regional PRTR websites

PRTR Resources

Non-Governmental Organizations

Social and environmental accountability

Ethics and principles	Aarhus Convention Corporate accountability / behaviour / social responsibility Ethical banking Ethical code Extended producer responsibility Organizational ethics Organizational justice Principles for Responsible Investment Social responsibility Stakeholder theory Sullivan principles Transparency (behavioral social) UN Global Compact

Social accounting	Double bottom line Ethical Positioning Index Higg Index Impact assessment (environmental equality social) ISO 26000 Genuine progress indicator OHSAS 18001 Performance indicator SA8000 Social return on investment Whole-life cost

Environmental accounting	Carbon accounting Eco-Management and Audit Scheme Emission inventory Environmental full-cost accounting / impact assessment / management system / profit-and-loss account ISO 14000 ISO 14031:1999 Life-cycle assessment Pollutant release and transfer register Sustainability accounting / measurement / metrics and indices / standards and certification / supply chain Toxics Release Inventory Triple bottom line

Reporting	Global Reporting Initiative GxP guidelines Sustainability reporting

Auditing	Community-based monitoring Environmental (certification) Fair trade (certification) ISO 19011

Related	Bangladesh Accord Benefit corporation Child labour Community interest company Conflict of interest Disasters Disinvestment Eco-labeling Environmental pricing reform Environmental, social and corporate governance Ethical consumerism Euthenics Health impact assessment Market governance mechanism Product certification Public participation Social enterprise Socially responsible investing Stakeholder (engagement) Supply chain management

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