An Act to protect, restore and enhance the environment in NSW and to promote public access to information and involvement in environment protection. Legislation, Standards and Codes may be linked to one or more of the University's compliance frameworks either as the driver of the requirements, or as a component of the framework. The relevant frameworks are listed below.Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997 (NSW) - Level 1
The Act:
- Designates the EPA (Environment Protection Authority) as the regulatory authority.
- Allocates the drafting and publishing of PEP's (Protection of the Environment Policies) and associated impact statements to the EPA.
- Establishes a system of Environment Protection Licences for the purposes of carrying out scheduled activites (e.g. chemical production, sterilisation activities, waste processing electricity generation, livestock intensive activities, etc) and scheduled development work (development designed to enable scheduled activities to take place on the premises).
- Provides for the issue of environment protection notices (clean-up notices, prevention notices, and prohibition notices) - It is an offence under the Act not to comply with such notices and penalties include sizeable fines.
- Defines a tiered mechanism to classify offences and provides for maximum penalties (eg: to wilfully dispose of waste in a manner that harms or is likely to harm the environment is a Tier 1 offence that may attract large fines and potential imprisonment).
- Provides for voluntary and mandatory environmental audits and procedural matters for the conduct of investigations (including scope, associated notice requirements, powers of entry, and duty to provide information).
Relevant Compliance Frameworks
Summary