EPA - Ireland's Environment, An Integrated Assessment - 2020

Chapter 10: Environment and Industry Environment and Industry 1. Introduction Industrial activities play an important role in the economic wellbeing of Ireland. Industrial activities contribute to sustainable growth where there are effective environmental management systems in place to ensure that long-term growth does not lead to environmental pollution or the overuse of non-renewable resources. The Industrial Emissions Directive, 2010/75/EU (IED), is the primary instrument in place to control and mitigate the environmental and human health impacts arising from industrial emissions in Ireland and across the EU. It replaced seven previous directives including the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Directive (IPPC). Across 65 industrial activity types listed in the IED, an operator requires a licence to carry out the industrial activity. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the competent licensing authority in Ireland for the IED 1 (Topic Box 10.1). Figure 10.1  Sectoral composition of Net Selling Value (NSV) in Ireland and the EU-28 (Source: CSO, 2019) Ireland EU 28 Mining & Quarrying Food Beverage Textiles Paper and paper products Chemical products Pharmaceutical products Rubber & plastic producers Basic metals, machinery Computer, electronic Wood & wood products Transport equipment Other % of Total NSV 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 1 The EPA is also the competent authority for the industrial pollution control (IPC) licensing regime in Ireland. This covers specified industries such as mining, peat extraction, certain food and drink activities and other specified industrial activities listed in the First Schedule to the EPA Act. The profile of industries in Ireland is quite different from that across Europe. In terms of net selling value (NSV), 2 in Ireland the four largest sectors – pharmaceutical products (39%), food (19%), computers, electronic, optical and electrical equipment (11%) and chemicals (11%) (Figure 10.1) – accounted for 80.2 per cent or €97.4 billion of total NSV in 2018 (CSO, 2019). In contrast, across the EU-28 countries as a whole, the pharmaceutical sector accounted for only 3.5 per cent of total NSV in 2017. Another difference is that NSV for the EU-28 is more evenly spread over a larger number of industrial sectors. The most dominant sectors in the EU-28 in 2017 were basic metals (23%), food products (16%) and transport equipment (16%) (CSO, 2019). 2 Net selling value means, in relation to a commodity or service that is sold by a person or undertaking, the amount received by the person or undertaking in respect of such sale, less value added tax (VAT). The classification of industrial activities is the Eurostat Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community (NACE) Rev. 2 classification at two digits. 257