Definition: Investment in equipment and plant linked to cleane...

Category:

Investment expenditure resulting from actions and activities which have as their prime objective the prevention, reduction and elimination of pollution and any other degradation of the environment.

Actions and activities which have a favourable impact on the environment but which do not come under environmental protection are excluded. Hence, excluded from this field are activities which, while beneficial to the environment, primarily satisfy technical needs or the internal requirements for health and safety of the enterprise. This restriction applies in most cases to recycling activities classified under NACE 37.00 (recycling). Data collected for this industry should not be added to other NACE headings (see classification of environmental protection activities UNECE/Eurostat DOC/CES/822).

A cleaner technology is an installation or a part of an installation that has been adapted in order to generate less pollution. As opposed to 'end-of-pipe' investment, the environmental equipment has been integrated into the production process. The investment in the environmental equipment consists of the extra capital costs due to the integration of the equipment. This type of environmental equipment is not identifiable as a separate part of the production process therefore the costs should be estimated, for example, by comparing with available alternative installations (or parts thereof) that would not satisfy environmental Regulations.

In case of forced replacement of existing equipment the remaining value of this equipment is to be added. Expenditure made with the purpose of health and safety at the workplace should be excluded.

The remaining value of forced replacement of existing equipment is defined as follows:

Replacement value of existing equipment * Expected remaining life time of replaced equipment / total life time of replaced equipment.

These investments can be broken down into four or more environmental domains such as:
- waste,
- air emissions,
- water protection and
- noise (and vibration).