EPER is the European Pollutant Emission Register, which was established by a
Commission Decision of 17 July 2000. The EPER Decision is based on
Article 15(3) of Council Directive 96/61/EC concerning integrated pollution prevention and control.
According to the EPER Decision, Member States have to produce a triennial report on the emissions of industrial facilities into the air and waters. The report covers 50 pollutants which must be included if the threshold values indicated in Annex A1 of the EPER Decision are exceeded.
The first reporting year was 2001 (although Member States also had the option of providing data for 2000 and 2002); this information had to be reported June 2003 at the latest. The second reporting year will be 2004.
Not all industrial plants existing are considered for EPER reporting – only those activities which are listed in Annex A3 of the EPER Decision are included.
The threshold values have been chosen in order to include about 90% of the emissions of the industrial facilities looked at, so as to prevent an unnecessarily high burden on all industrial facilities.
The EPER Decision obliges the European Commission to make this data publicly accessible on the internet. This website, which is hosted by the
European Environment Agency (EEA) in Copenhagen, was created to fulfil this obligation.