A Study on Integrated Approaching Factors of Environmentally-Friendly Companies Certification Scheme and Environmental Impact Assessment of Korea

A worldwide trend of permitting system for industrial installation to achieve a high level of protection of the environment has been moved from single media to multimedia in approach. The Council of the European Community issued the Directive 96/61/EC, the IPPC Directive, concerning integrated pollution prevention and control in 1996. The IPPC Directive is one of the most ambitious legal measures that the European Union (EU) has initiated with a view to applying the prevention principle for industrial activities. The IPPC aims to achieve the integrated prevention and reduction of environmental pollution emitted by those industrial installations with a higher potential of emissions to the environment. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) recommended on Environmental Performance Reviews of Korea in 2006 that IPPC permitting concept should be considered for large stationary sources at the national and regional levels. Any Korean law doesn't provide for integrated pollution control with a single process covering all pollution from economic activities. However, one exception might be the "environmentally-friendly companies" certification scheme, introduced in 1995, in which participants agree to meet targets beyond the legal emission limit values in exchange for government technical and financial support to operate environmental management systems. The other exception might be Environmental impact assessment (EIA) of projects, in 1977, which has been strengthened and reinforced to be more preventive through development of the prior environmental review system (PERS) in 1999. The aim of this work is to introduce the contents of IPPC Directive at the viewpoint of Korea policy and to survey the integrated approaching concept of Environmentally-Friendly Companies (EFC) Certification Scheme and EIA policy of Korea. The study will be helpful in the future to prepare the infrastructure of integrated permitting system and to enforce the integrated permit which the authorities of local government issues on industrial activities. It can be said that the data calculated through both EFC Certification Scheme and EIA will be discussed as worthful information to determine Korean BAT reference notes for integrated permitting process.