Improvement of the Environmental Permit and License Application Process in Turkey

Abstract

Improvement on the environmental permit application that has been put into force since 2014 by the By Law on Environmental Permit and License (BLEPL) in Turkey has been achieved through a project realized by the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization to meet the developing and changing technology, and industry needs. The main outputs derived from this project will be briefly outlined and discussed in this study. Initially, the facility inventory lists were created on provincial basis across the country. The related institutions were then contacted, and the provincial and sectoral information of the enterprises that could be within the scope of BLEPL was obtained. On the country basis, 548.323 facilities were evaluated in which 142.477 facilities were classified as permitted, out of scope, in scope and not permitted. According to the data obtained by compiling the facility inventories within the scope of BLEPL constituted only 15% of the existing facilities that were included in the scope of the permit. Annex-1 and Annex-2 of BLEPL were also revised. Moreover, each of the items in the annex lists were evaluated separately and the necessary scope/limit/threshold value/terminology revisions were made. By the amendments made in the annex lists; the number of items decreased to 245 from 272, 24 new items were added and 21 items were removed. Within the study, sectoral guidelines were prepared for each additional item to ensure integrity in permit-license applications throughout the country, and to conduct a scoping study based on accurate, practical and specific standards. Other work packages completed can be addressed as the support, credit and incentive processes carried out by institutions and organizations to increase the efficiency of the documents organized in the implementation of the regulation, studies for searching the documents in question in public tenders, and making suggestions to improve the processes and procedures that the facilities are subject to.