{"id":42700,"date":"2015-02-20T14:57:42","date_gmt":"2015-02-20T14:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studiozunarelli.com\/2025\/10\/02\/the-new-chinese-environmental-protection-law\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T11:58:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T11:58:17","slug":"the-new-chinese-environmental-protection-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studiozunarelli.com\/en\/the-new-chinese-environmental-protection-law\/","title":{"rendered":"The new Chinese Environmental Protection Law"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">On 24<sup>th<\/sup> April 2014 the Standing Committee of the National People\u2019s Congress approved the second amendment to the Environmental Protection Law (EPL) of the People\u2019s Republic of China which entered into force in January 2015. This amendment considerably modifies the previous law (enacted in 1989) and adds more than 23 new articles to it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Among the main changes provided by the new law, the legal regime of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), which must be drafted by companies who are involved in development and utilization plans and construction projects affecting the environment (art. 19), should be mentioned first of all. According to the new EPL, those companies must now publish and explain the EIA to those who might be affected by it and must also request their opinion (art. 56). Plans and projects cannot be implemented or started unless an EIA is duly approved. Construction companies that begin construction without a valid EIA can be fined. They can also be ordered to suspend any activity and to restore the site to the previous situation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As provided by Chapter 5 of the EPL (\u201cInformation Disclosure and Public Participation\u201d), the public can give opinions on several issues related to environmental protection. The EPL provides a detailed list of information that must be published (for instance, the name and the quantity of the pollutants that are used) and specifies who is responsible for such publication (i.e. both companies and government institutions). Furthermore, government offices are now allowed to disclose the names of those companies that are not complying with the law. If we take into consideration the important role which reputation plays in doing business\u00a0 &#8211; especially in China, where the loss of\u00a0 \u201cface\u201d (\u201c<em>mianzi<\/em>\u201d) is considered an irreparable loss for a business \u2013 we easily understand how this measure acts as a strong deterrent.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The EPL also provides (art. 57) strong protection to \u201clegitimate rights and interests\u201d for those who find that an entity or an individual is polluting and report it to the competent authorities (so called \u201cwhistle-blowers\u201d). Moreover, art. 58 enables some \u201csocial organizations\u201d to bring cases against the polluters. Those social organizations must meet some requirements: they must be registered in certain specific registers and must be operating in the environmental protection field for at least 5 years.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The new law also provides stricter penalties for non-compliance. Indeed the competent authorities are allowed to order the restriction or suspension of the activities of polluting entities and to \u201cseal up and detain\u201d the facilities and equipment (art. 25). In certain very serious cases, the natural persons who are considered liable for pollution can be detained for up to 15 days. Companies must get a Pollution Discharge Licence through which they are allowed to discharge pollutants as per the requirements of the licence (art. 45) and they must also pay the Environmental Protection Tax for discharging pollutants (art. 43).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">On the other hand, under the new EPL the government must adopt \u201cfinance, tax, price and government procurement\u201d measures to encourage the development of the green sector and to support enterprises and institutions that reduce the discharge of pollutants (art. 21 \u2013 22).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In conclusion, through the amended version of the EPL, the Chinese government has sent out the message that solving environmental issues is a priority. Costs for non-compliance have dramatically increased so that companies must now definitely review their cost-benefit analysis\u00a0 concerning the non fulfilment of obligations provided by the new EPL.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">(\u00a0China Desk in Milan &#8211;\u00a0<a title=\"Avv. Giovanni Lovisetti\" href=\"https:\/\/studiozunarelli.com\/en\/avv-giovanni-lovisetti\/\">Giovanni Lovisetti<\/a> \u2013 tel.: 0039 2 39680538)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">[print_link]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 24th April 2014 the Standing Committee of the National People\u2019s Congress approved the second amendment to the Environmental Protection Law (EPL) of the People\u2019s Republic of China which entered into force in January 2015. This amendment considerably modifies the previous law (enacted in 1989) and adds more than 23 new articles to it. Among [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-senza-categoria"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The new Chinese Environmental Protection Law - Studio Zunarelli<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/studiozunarelli.com\/en\/the-new-chinese-environmental-protection-law\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The new Chinese Environmental Protection Law - Studio Zunarelli\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On 24th April 2014 the Standing Committee of the National People\u2019s Congress approved the second amendment to the Environmental Protection Law (EPL) of the People\u2019s Republic of China which entered into force in January 2015. This amendment considerably modifies the previous law (enacted in 1989) and adds more than 23 new articles to it. 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