This report concerns environmental permits and supervision of particularly polluting enterprises.
The purpose of the study is to assess whether the Ministry of the Environment and Gender Equality’s administration of environmental permits and supervision of particularly polluting enterprises is satisfactory. Rigsrevisionen answer the following questions in the report:
- Does the Danish Environmental Protection Agency administer environmental permits and reviews in accordance with the rules?
- Does the Danish Environmental Protection Agency carry out the mandatory supervision to ensure that environmental permits are complied with?
- Does the Danish Environmental Protection Agency process cases concerning environmental permits at a pace that prevents a backlog of cases?
Rigsrevisionen assesses that the Ministry of the Environment and Gender Equality’s administration of environmental permits and supervision of particularly polluting enterprises warrants criticism. The Danish Environmental Protection Agency is slow at approving cases and has, in a large number of cases, neither complied with the rules for reviewing environmental permits nor carried out the mandatory supervision of enterprises’ pollution. The consequence is that the Danish Environmental Protection Agency has allowed enterprises to pollute according to outdated requirements for years, and that discharges of environmentally hazardous substances risk remaining undetected.
Rigsrevisionen initiated the study in February 2025.
Read the introduction and conclusion (PDF)