Air pollutant emissions impair air quality, can form acids in the environment or drive the excessive accumulation of nutrients (eutrophication) in ecosystems. This can also have a negative impact on human health.

As the operator of certain industrial facilities, you must therefore regularly declare the air pollutant emissions from your facilities to the competent authority.

You must submit the emissions declaration to the competent authority in electronic form every 4 years (by May 31st of the year following the year of declaration).

The emission declaration contains information on relevant air pollutants, i.e. the

• type,
• quantity and
• spatial and temporal distribution of emissions.

The Federal Immission Control Act (BImSchG) provides information on which companies must submit an emissions declaration.

As the operator of certain industrial and agricultural businesses that require a permit, you are obliged under the Federal Immission Control Act to submit an emissions declaration on a regular basis.

Please note the following requirements:

• Installations requiring approval are defined in the Fourth Ordinance on the Implementation of the Federal Immission Control Act and can be viewed in Annex 1 of the Ordinance (4th Ordinance on the Implementation of the Federal Immission Control Act).
• As the operator of an installation listed in the 11th Ordinance on the Implementation of the Federal Immission Control Act, you are not required to submit a declaration.
• Operators of installations subject to licensing are obliged to submit an emissions declaration if they have operated their installations during the declaration period.
  • If the installation is commissioned, shut down or temporarily not operated during the declaration period, the declaration period includes the parts of the calendar year in which the installation was operated.
• As the operator of an installation requiring a permit, you can apply to the competent authority to be exempted from the obligation to submit an emissions declaration if, in individual cases, your installation may only emit a small amount of air pollution.

Submit an emissions declaration online:

To simplify electronic reporting of environmental data, you as a company subject to reporting requirements can submit your data online via "Betriebliche Umweltdatenberichterstattung" (BUBE). BUBE is operated as a cooperation between the 16 federal states under the Administrative Agreement on the Development and Operation of Environmental Information Systems (VKoopUIS).