Scotland’s environmental authorisation changes – are you ready?

From 1^st November 2025, The Environmental Authorisations (Scotland) Regulations 2018 (EASR) provides the common framework for regulated activities involving:

• water;
• waste;
• radioactive substances; and
• pollution prevention and control (PPC)

We’ve previously covered the changes in legislation, which you can find out more about here. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) has now published guidance on how existing and new environmental authorisations will work under the new common framework.

Changes to authorisation rules

As expected, in most cases existing requirements will continue to apply and there will be little practical impact to an existing authorisation, other than it being authorised under EASR rather than previous legislation.

However, in the following situations there may be a change to authorisation conditions or the requirement to apply for a new authorisation.

• Water activities – changes and additional general binding rules have been introduced for some water activities. If you carry out water activities covered by general binding rules you should check whether the rules have changed.
• Authorised persons named on permits – the person or operator named on current licences or permits will become the ‘Authorised Person’ named on an EASR permit. The ‘Authorised Person’ named on an EASR permit must be the person in control of the regulated activity and responsible for compliance with permit conditions. If the current named person or operator is not correct under the new rules, then the authorisation must be transferred to the correct Authorised Person by 1^st March 2026.

If you carry out an activity that is authorised by SEPA under the regulations listed below, we recommend reviewing SEPA’s guidance here. This guidance explains whether there will be any changes to conditions and the circumstances under which you would need to apply for a new authorisation.