Climate change requirements

You must get our permission to conduct activities that have risk of harm to human health and the environment.

We make permission decisions under the Environment Protection Act 2017 and Environment Protection Regulations 2021. Sometimes we must also consider other laws to make our decision.

This guidance helps you understand the climate change requirements you must meet if you're applying for a permission, exemption, authorisation or designation.

Applications that must include climate change information

You must provide climate change information when you apply for relevant permissions. These include:

• amendments (non-administrative) to a permission or exemption
• authorisations to discharge or dispose of waste (repair, commissioning or decommissioning)
• new development licences
• development licence exemptions
• new pilot project licences
• permit renewals – except for permits A10a, A11, A12, L05 or L06.

For some types of permissions, you should only submit climate change information when requested. These include:

• amendments (administrative) to a permission or exemption – for example, change of name or company details, transfer, suspension, surrender, revocation or renewal
• amendments to a waste code
• designations
• permits A10a, A11, A12, L05 or L06
• registrations
• permissions or amendments following a development licence or development licence exemption where:
  • we've notified the permission holder that the completion of their development activity has been accepted
  • the permission or amendment is consistent with the development licence or development licence exemption.

Climate change considerations

We only consider these climate change factors for activities that require relevant permissions.

We must consider factors 1 to 3 under Section 17 of the Climate Change Act 2017. We also consider the climate change information you provide against factors 4 to 8. We consider this within the context of risk management under the Environment Protection Act.

1. Potential impacts of climate change relevant to your activity

We must consider the potential impacts of climate change relevant to your activity. These potential impacts include:

• biophysical impacts
• economic, environmental, health and other social impacts
• long-term and short-term impacts
• beneficial and detrimental impacts
• direct and indirect impacts
• cumulative impacts.

2. Potential contribution to Victoria's greenhouse gas emissions

We must consider your activity's potential contribution to Victoria's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. We consider the potential for:

• short-term and long-term GHG emissions
• direct and indirect GHG emissions
• increases and decreases in GHG emissions
• cumulative impacts of GHG emissions.

3. Any guidelines issued by the minister

The Minister for Environment can issue guidelines for the scope and application of factors 1 and 2. We must consider these guidelines when making permission decisions.

4. General environmental duty

The general environmental duty outlines everyone's responsibility to eliminate or reduce harm to human health and the environment from their activities. This includes reducing GHG emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change, so far as reasonably practicable.

We must take into account any measures you take or propose to take to comply with this duty when conducting your proposed activity.

5. Impacts of the activity

When deciding whether to issue or amend a licence, we consider the impact of your activity on:

• human health and the environment
• environmental values identified in the Environment Reference Standard.

We also consider any other activities you or any other person conducts or proposes to conduct.

6. Principles of environment protection

The principles of environment protection guide us on how to administer the Environment Protection Act. We consider these principles when deciding whether to issue a licence, permit or exemption.

7. Best available techniques and technologies

We consider whether you've demonstrated that your proposed mitigation measures are the most effective and advanced for your activity's development and operation methods.

8. Consistency with the Act and Regulations

We consider whether the proposed activity is compatible with – or follows – any parts of the Environment Protection Act and Environment Protection Regulations that have not already been considered.

Application checklist

Download and complete the Climate change application checklist for all relevant applications. Include the completed checklist with your application.

In your checklist, you must:

• assess any potential impacts of climate change on your activity
• assess any potential impacts of climate change that may be increased as a result of your activity (not including your activity’s GHG emissions)
• estimate your activity’s annual GHG emissions (direct and indirect) over the life of the activity
• assess risks from GHG emissions and climate change impacts relevant to your activity*
• include strategies to mitigate those risks*
• plan how to monitor and adjust your mitigation strategies to make sure they're effective over the life of your activity.*

*These apply only if your application proposes:

• new GHG emissions (direct or indirect)
• a change to an existing activity’s GHG emissions (direct or indirect)
• a new activity that's likely to be impacted by climate change
• a new activity that's likely to increase the potential impacts of climate change
• any changes to an existing activity that are likely to:
  • result in increased potential impacts of climate change on that activity, or
  • increase the potential impacts of climate change.

These resources may help you to complete the checklist:

• Climate change legislation
• Our role in managing climate change risks
• Guideline for minimising greenhouse gas emissions