The Ministry of Ecology and Environment issued the “Notice on the Issuance of Principles for the Approval of Environmental Impact Assessment Documents for Construction Projects in Four Industries: Steel/Coking, Modern Coal Chemicals, Petrochemicals and Thermal Power.” (hereinafter referred to as the “Approval Principles”).

Since 2015, the former Ministry of Environmental Protection has successively issued principles for the approval of EIA documents for construction projects in a number of industries as well as environmental access conditions, providing strong guidance to local ecological and environmental authorities at all levels to strengthen the management of EIA for construction projects, effectively prevent environmental pollution and ecological damage, promote the improvement of regional environmental quality and facilitate green development. In light of the new situation, new tasks and new requirements for ecological and environmental management, some parts of the original guiding documents are no longer fully adaptable and need to be adjusted and updated.

The newly released Principles of Approval is mainly a convergence of the implementation of existing policies, laws, standards and technical specifications, without stricter management requirements. Compared with the 2015 edition, the general framework of the Principles of Approval remains unchanged, mainly in terms of scope of application, general requirements, site selection and layout, clean production, pollution reduction and carbon reduction, environmental risk prevention, taking the old with the new, regional reduction, environmental management and monitoring, information disclosure and public participation, and quality of EIA documents, etc., to give guidance on the approval of EIA documents for construction projects in four industries. In terms of specific content, regional reduction and greenhouse gas emission impact assessment have been added, specific requirements for pollution prevention and control have been improved according to the characteristics of the industry, and relevant content has been adjusted according to the latest management requirements. On the whole, the newly released Principles of Approval not only set out the advanced technologies to be applied and the advanced levels to be achieved by construction projects in the relevant industries, but also clarify the pollutant emission standards to be applied after the projects are put into operation, and promote the seamless integration of EIA and emission permit management.