Environmental reporting has a key role in the environmental policy cycle. Although the costs of reporting are well recognised and studied, the benefits are challenging to account for, and there exists little consideration of reporting specific benefits. Hence, it is essential to better inform the European public about these upsides while simplifying the reporting burden for national administrations and businesses.  

Trinomics, in cooperation with WSP and Ricardo, are currently conducting a study on behalf of DG Environment to review options for simplification of reporting requirements, notably from a business perspective. The study scope covers all environmental legislation under the control of DG Environment, including the legislation related to air, industrial emissions, nature, noise, products, waste, water and governance, and with a specific emphasis on accounting for business reporting obligations.  

For this purpose, the study team is undertaking a comprehensive review of all legislative instruments under the control of DG Environment (task 1), identifying related business reporting obligations (task 2) and assessing their costs and benefits (task 3). The study team will then review progress under the existing reporting action plan resulting from the previous Fitness Check on Reporting and Monitoring (task 4) and review concrete options for simplification for a select number of legislative acts (task 5). The study will furthermore, and for a limited number of cases, identify other legal obligations of an administrative nature where these exist, for a review of their scope and dimensions, and any administrative burden associated with them (task 6).  

In order to be able to take account of stakeholder views and experience of these reporting and administrative obligations (task 7), we foresee several steps during the study when the views and inputs of stakeholders will be sought. The first consultation successfully took place in the form of an online webinar on 13 February 2025. We have now circulated a targeted follow-up survey with participants and those registrants of the above-mentioned webinar that have granted us consent to be contacted for further consultation activities in order to obtain further data on reporting costs, and to develop ideas for simplification and streamlining of reporting.

If you have any questions, please contact us on env-reporting@trinomics.eu.  

The study will run from July 2024 to September 2025. 

Categories: Environment, Environment Policy, Environmental Economics and Policies