Responding to reports of noise

EPA responds to reports of noise from commercial properties and industrial facilities. These include:

  • manufacturing plants
  • transfer stations and recycling facilities
  • concrete batch plants
  • facilities with large air conditioning and refrigeration equipment.

Advising councils about noise

EPA provides advice about noise for councils to use in planning decisions and when resolving noise complaints. This includes guidelines on controlling noise:

Providing noise advice for businesses

We provide advice for businesses to understand the noise laws. This advice includes:

  • Unreasonable noise guidelines - explains the concept of unreasonable noise. This includes pathways for determining if noise is unreasonable, and how they work with the general environmental duty. It also includes case study examples of compliance, enforcement and resolution of noise pollution events. 
  • Commerce, industry, and trade noise guidelines – a comprehensive explanation of how the Environment Protection Act 2017 and the Environment Protection Regulations 2021 apply to noise from commercial, industrial and trade premises.

We provide noise guidelines to help businesses comply with the law and minimise their risks from noise on people and the environment. These include:

We also provide information for farmers and agricultural businesses.

Find out more about how businesses can control noise. 

Read more about commercial, industrial and trade noise 

Commercial, industrial and trade noise

Commercial, industrial and trade noise and the law

Commercial, industrial and trade noise limits

Report commercial or industrial noise

Noise advice for businesses

Reviewed 5 May 2023