Reporting thresholds

Pollutant reporting thresholds are set to collect 95% of the total mass emission from UK regulated industrial sources of a specified pollutant. The thresholds are reviewed every three years by the three environment agencies in the UK (SEPA, the Environment Agency and the Northern Ireland Environment and Heritage Service). The thresholds provide the best balance between maximising information on the environmental burden of the pollutant releases and the burden on industry to monitor, calculate and report their emissions. Furthermore, collecting more than 95% of the total emissions would not provide more useful information than can already be obtained from the 95% target. It is neither economically viable for industry (often smaller operators) or practical for the agencies to try and collect information regarding the relatively small releases of pollutants that make up the remaining 5% of total emissions.

Below Reporting Threshold

Below Reporting Threshold (BRT) effectively means the emission value is between 0 and the reporting threshold. BRT is reported by an operator when the level of pollutant emitted from their site is below the required reporting threshold but is above zero. The operator does not report an emission value just that the pollutant is being emitted. Operators do this by reporting BRT instead of a value. For example, in the following illustration the release to air of CO₂ from the site is below the reporting threshold but is not zero so the operator must report BRT for CO₂. However, the release of Total P to water is above the reporting threshold and the operator is required to report the total amount released as a value for the reporting year.

The operator above would report the following*:

*Note: this report is for illustration only and does not represent actual releases.