EPA: Environment and Enterprise
The founding legislation for the EPA (the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992) required that the Environmental Protection Agency ‘ensures, in so far as is practicable, that a proper balance is achieved between the need to protect the environment (and the cost of such protection) and the need for infrastructural, economic and social progress’ [Section 52(2) of the EPA Act 1992].
The EPA aims to
- Promote and support sustainable enterprise attitudes and behavior
- Provide technical and financial assistance to service and manufacturing enterprises through a range of programmes.
Enterprise & Environment related activities are covered under a number of EPA work areas:
- The EPA Resource Use programme offers assistance in relation to eco-efficiency (energy, and water use, cleaner technology & waste management).
- The EPA managed Environmental Research Centre (ERC) aims to ensure that development is environmentally sustainable.
- The EPA hosts a significant amount of environmental quality and performance data that is essential to enterprises in relation to understanding their relationship with the environment, benchmarking with international operations, and also in relation to prompting innovative activities.
- The EPA licensing and enforcement activities produce a significant body of guidance that is intended to assist regulated activities in the operation of socially, economically and environmentally sustainable enterprises.