About the Industrial Emissions Portal

The Industrial Emissions Portal covers over 60 000 industrial sites from 65 economic activities across Europe [1]. These activities are within the following sectors:

  • energy
  • production and processing of metals
  • mineral industry
  • chemical industry
  • waste and waste water management
  • paper and wood production and processing
  • intensive livestock production and aquaculture
  • animal and vegetable products from the food and beverage sector, and
  • other activities

The portal shows the sites’ location and administrative data, along their releases and transfers of regulated substances to air, water and land, and transfers of waste. For large combustion plants (LCPs), there is more detailed data on energy input and emissions.

Data can be browsed here on our industrial sites map. Full datasets and guidance documents can be downloaded here. Various data analysis tools and visualisations can be found here. The portal also includes a glossary, which can be found here.

The information contained in the portal is reported annually and requested under the industrial emissions directive (IED), via the EU Registry on Industrial Sites (EU Registry) and the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR). This portal replaced the E-PRTR website in 2021.

IED

The IED (Directive 2010/75/EU) aims to achieve a high level of protection of human health and the environment taken as a whole by reducing harmful industrial emissions across the EU, in particular through better application of best available techniques.

Over 50 000 installations undertaking the industrial activities, listed in Annex I of the IED, are required to operate in accordance with a permit (granted by the authorities in the EU Member States).

This permit should contain conditions set in accordance with the principles and provisions of the IED. Visit the Commission’s dedicated website for more details on the legislation, and information and data on the IED implementation, transposition and evaluation.

EU Registry

The EU Registry represents an annual reporting stream that facilitates the annual reporting to the European Environment Agency of administrative and identification data pertaining to sites and facilities defined under the E-PRTR and installations, LCPs or waste incinerators covered under the IED. The data are collected as per the Commission’s Implementing Decision 2018/1135.

E-PRTR

E-PRTR is implemented by Regulation (EC) No 166/2006 and Commission Implementing Decision 2019/1741. Facilities that meet certain criteria need to report under E-PRTR. First, they need to fall under at least one of the 65 economic activities in Annex I to the regulation and exceed at least one of the E-PRTR capacity thresholds. Second, they need to release pollutants that exceed specific thresholds specified for air, water and land in Annex II to the regulation. Finally, they transfer waste off-site that exceed specific thresholds set out in Article 5 of the regulation.

91 pollutants are included in E-PRTR. They fall under the following seven groups:

  • greenhouse gases
  • other gases
  • heavy metals
  • pesticides
  • chlorinated organic substances
  • other organic substances
  • inorganic substances

Visit our pollutants page for a list of pollutants, along with their description, characteristics and reporting thresholds.

The register contributes to transparency and public participation in environmental decision-making. It implements the European Community and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe PRTR Protocol to the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters.

For additional details on the evolution of the regulation, its implementation and its evaluation and revision processes, please visit the Commission’s dedicated website.

Data gaps

A number of reporting countries have not submitted some of the most recent data.

  • Norway did not report data under the EU Registry (2017 onwards). Historical data have been included through an internal EEA mapping exercise.
  • Historical data for Slovakia has only been included only for the period 2007 - 2016 due to new Inspire Id in their 2017 EU Registry. An update will follow shortly.
  • Data for reporting year 2018 and 2019 for Liechtenstein and Slovakia is incomplete.
  • Data for reporting year 2020 for Liechtenstein, Malta and Slovakia is incomplete
  • Data for reporting year 2021 for Czechia, Liechtenstein, Malta and Slovakia is incomplete
  • Data for reporting year 2022 for Bulgaria, Czechia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Malta and Slovakia is incomplete.

The portal will be updated and a new version will be made available as soon as missing data have been submitted.

Emissions to land have generally been very scarcely reported and the data are incomplete.

Finally, the European Environment Agency, supported by its European Topic Centre on Air Pollution, Transport, Noise and Industrial Pollution, mapped data historically reported to the E-PRTR (2007–2016) and the IED (LCP inventory 2016 and 2017) to the new data model used for this portal. This was made possible by using administrative data reported under the EU Registry, the E-PRTR and LCPs for reporting year 2017 as a starting point. This means that a full version of the database covering 2007-2022 is available for download in the download section of the portal. These data have also been available as a feature of the map viewer of this portal since December 2022.

[1] Geographical coverage: EU Member States, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. As a result of the Brexit withdrawal agreement, as of reporting year 2020, only Northern Ireland shall report information on industrial sites, facilities, installations, LCPs and waste incinerators.