Scotland’s Environmental Authorisations Are Changing: What You Need to Know

The Environmental Authorisations (Scotland) Amendment Regulations SSI 2025/165 will come into force, streamlining and consolidating the way environmentally regulated activities are authorised across the country.

This marks a significant shift for organisations operating in sectors such as water, waste, industrial emissions, and pollution control.

Why the Change?
Historically, Scotland’s environmental authorisation system has been fragmented, with different regimes for different activities, each governed by separate legislation and guidance. This complexity has made compliance more challenging and less efficient.

The new regulations aim to simplify this by expanding the scope of the Environmental Authorisations (Scotland) Regulations SI 2018/219, which previously applied only to radioactive substances. From November, this framework will cover:

• Water activities
• Waste activities
• Industrial activities
• Pollution prevention and control (PPC)

This integrated approach will bring consistency, clarity, and efficiency to environmental regulation in Scotland.

The regulations also expand the types of activities that require authorisation. These include:

 
• Sewage Sludge to Land – regulated from 1 June 2025, with new standards and a “Fit and Proper Person” test
• Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) – regulated from 1 April 2027
• Electricity Generators – sites with aggregated thermal input of 1MW or more will be regulated from 1 January 2029

 
Non-waste Anaerobic Digestion (AD) is also being introduced as a regulated activity under the expanded EASR framework. As per Schedule 26 Part 3 Paragraph 69 of the 2025 Amendment Regulations, this will take effect from 1 April 2028. While the implementation date is still some way off, operators with these processes on site should begin preparing now to understand the new obligations they’ll face as regulated installations.
 
SEPA plans to split the activity into two categories based on processing capacity:

• Less than 100 tonnes per day – likely to require a registration
• 100 tonnes per day or more – likely to require a permit

 
You can find more detail on SEPA’s pages for less than 100 tonnes/day and more than 100 tonnes/day. While specific guidance is still to be released, it’s expected that requirements will align closely with those currently applied to waste AD operations.