Descrizione 1
Geneve Farabegoli, Paola Giorgioli, Chiara Giuliani
The information concerns the inspection and control activities carried out by ISPRA, in its capacity as the Control Authority, with the support of the territorially competent Regional Environmental Agencies (ARPA/APPA), at industrial installations subject to compliance with the state-level Integrated Environmental Authorisation (IEA). In 2023, the number of state-level installations under surveillance and subject to IEA was consistent with the data from 2022.
The positive trend observed between 2009 and 2014 experienced a slight reversal in 2015 due to factors unrelated to inspection activities, before stabilising between 2016 and 2017. It then increased again in 2018, recording the highest number of monitored installations, before declining between 2020 and 2023.
The indicator provides information on the inspections carried out by ISPRA at operating installations subject to compliance with the state-level Integrated Environmental Authorisation (IEA). The IEA is the "authorisation that allows the operation of an installation falling within those referred to in Article 4, paragraph 4, letter c) of Legislative Decree 152/2006, as amended, or part of it, under specific conditions that ensure the installation's compliance with the requirements of Title III-bis, aimed at identifying the most appropriate solutions for achieving the objectives of Article 4, paragraph 4, letter c)." An integrated environmental authorisation may apply to one or more installations or parts thereof located on the same site and managed by the same operator (see: Article 5, paragraph 1, letter o-bis of Legislative Decree 152/2006, as amended).
Thus, the IEA, as an authorisation for the operation of installations, includes provisions on monitoring various environmental matrices, as well as requirements for adopting best available techniques for managing industrial processes to prevent and minimise environmental impacts. These include emission limit values, monitoring and control plans, and communication obligations from the operator.
The operator of these installations, in line with the principles of IPPC (Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control), is therefore required to conduct self-monitoring of emissions from all units within the installation and periodically submit the results to the control authorities. For installations under state competence, as listed in Annex XII – Part II of Legislative Decree 152/2006, the control authority is ISPRA, which can rely on ARPA/APPA according to Article 29-decies, paragraph 11, and the competent authority is the Ministry of Environment and Energy Security (MASE).
Thus, the indicator provides information on both the number of "authorised monitored installations," i.e., installations subject to surveillance of the documentation submitted by the operator, regardless of the annual inspection scheduling, and the number of "inspected installations," i.e., installations that were subject to an on-site inspection during the reference year by the control authorities. Additionally, it provides data on the number of installations where control activities detected non-compliance with the IEA, i.e., installations that were found to be non-compliant with IEA provisions and received a formal warning issued by the competent authority (MASE) upon ISPRA's proposal.
Provide information on the inspection and control activities carried out by ISPRA at state-level installations.
The reference legislation is Legislative Decree 152/06, as amended, which, with the third corrective (Legislative Decree 128/2010), replaced the provisions of Legislative Decree 59/2005, "Full implementation of Directive 96/61/EC on integrated pollution prevention and control," along with a series of further updates, the latest of which is Legislative Decree 46/2014, "Implementation of Directive 2010/75/EU on industrial emissions (integrated pollution prevention and control)." The latter amended many aspects governed by Legislative Decree 152/06, particularly concerning the application of the penalty system under the IEA regime (Article 29-quaterdecies).
The legislation does not set specific objectives for the inspection of installations, nor does it provide detailed operational procedures for their execution, but it sets criteria for defining the annual inspection plan. Furthermore, with the entry into force of Legislative Decree 46/2014, Article 29-decies, paragraph 11-ter, defines the programming criteria, particularly indicating that "... the interval between two on-site visits should not exceed one year for installations with the highest risks, three years for installations with lower risks, and six months for installations where the previous inspection highlighted a serious non-compliance with the authorisation conditions."
Descrizione 2
To understand the indicator, reference can be made to the publication on the MASE website of the Annual Control Programme for the reference year, as well as to the information reported in the "Control, Monitoring, and Environmental Inspections Report SNPA IEA/RIR for 2023 data," approved by the SNPA Board during the meeting of 11/10/2023, Doc. no. 35/2023 – ISBN 978-88-448-1165-5.
The limitation of the indicator relates to information on detected non-compliances, for which the principle is known but the outcome is not, as they are mostly linked to criminal proceedings that follow the procedures of the specific Public Prosecutor’s Offices.
Qualificazione dati
National, Regional
2009-2023
Qualificazione indicatore
The indicator has been constructed based on the information gathered from the MASE website regarding the number of active (operating) and monitored installations, using administrative acts that document the monitoring and control activities as a reference, as well as data collected from ISPRA/ARPA/APPA on the number of inspected installations and the percentage of non-compliant installations under the Integrated Environmental Authorization (IEA). The number of monitored installations includes all state-level installations subject to IEA, meaning those that have obtained a state Integrated Environmental Authorization. It is important to note that, in some cases, the IEA is unique for the entire industrial installation (or complex), often encompassing directly connected plants (such as a power plant – CTE or integrated gasification combined cycle plant – IGCC, or similar).
In 2023, the total number of monitored installations (133) increased by just one installation compared to the previous year. The number of inspected installations also grew, from 72 to 75. Of these 75 installations, 29 were found to be non-compliant with the Integrated Environmental Authorization (IEA), representing 39%. Although there was a modest increase in the number of inspected installations, indicating greater attention to environmental protection in the inspections, there was a significant rise in the percentage of non-compliance with the IEA, increasing by as much as 14 percentage points (Table 1, Figure 2).
The number of monitored installations increased from 25 in 2009, the year when ISPRA first started monitoring and control activities, to 167 in 2014. It experienced a slight reversal in 2015 due to reasons independent of the control activities, and then stabilized in 2016 and 2017 (149 installations). It increased again in 2018, reaching the highest number (168), before decreasing in the subsequent years: 160 installations in 2019, 150 installations in 2020, 140 installations in 2021, 132 installations in 2022, and finally 133 installations in 2023. The trend analysis starts from 2012, considering that the initial years correspond to the early phase of setting up the control activities, and thus are not comparable with the later years. Between 2012 and 2023, while the number of monitored installations remained stable (from 140 to 133) and the number of inspected installations remained constant (from 76 to 75), there was an increase in the percentage of non-compliance, rising from 25% to 39% (Table 1, Figures 1 and 2).
Dati
Table 1: State Competent Authority Installation Inspections
ISPRA
*Installations controlled based on documentation;
** Installations controlled also with on-site visits.
Figure 1: Inspections of State Competent Authority Installations
ISPRA
*Installations controlled based on documentation;
** Installations controlled also with on-site visits.
Figure 2: Percentage of Inspected Installations with Non-Compliance to AIA
ISPRA
Figure 3: Number of Installations by Type (2023)
ISPRA
CTE: Thermal power plants or turbogas plants
SNAM: Gas compression plants
PIATT: Offshore platforms or regasification terminals
RA: Refineries
CHI: Chemical plants
ACC: Steel plants
Figure 4: Number of Active Installations with State AIA Authorization by Region (2023)
ISPRA
The number of non-compliances detected following an inspection visit, as indicated by the number of warnings issued by the Competent Authority (MASE) upon ISPRA's proposal (Figure 1), shows a significant increase compared to previous years (from 11 in 2020 to 18 in 2021 and 2022, and 29 in 2023). When analyzing the non-compliances expressed as a percentage of the number of inspection visits conducted, it can be stated that, following the increase between 2014 and 2016 (41%) and the halt observed in 2017 (13%), there has been a recovery in subsequent years, reaching 39% in 2023 (Figure 2).
Regarding the 133 installations authorized with state-level IEA, in operation across the country as of 2023, as shown in Figure 3, there is a predominance of gas turbine power plants (71) and chemical facilities (31) compared to other types of installations. The highest concentration of installations is found in the following regions: Sicily (18), Lombardy (16), Emilia-Romagna (14), Apulia (13), Tuscany (12), and Piedmont (11) (Figure 4).