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Let's start with a definition...
A classified facility is any installation or activity that may present hazards or inconveniences for neighborhood comfort, public health, safety and hygiene, agriculture, the protection of nature, the environment and landscapes, the economical use of natural, agricultural or forestry land, the rational use of energy, or the conservation of sites, monuments and archaeological heritage.
The origins of ICPE
On August 31, 1794, an explosion occurred at the Grenelle gunpowder factory. It killed over a thousand people (workers and local residents) and caused extensive material damage, including outside the site.
This disaster helped lay the foundations for the regulation of classified facilities for environmental protection.
In 1810, an imperial decree was issued concerning factories and workshops that emit unhealthy and unpleasant odors. The decree stipulated that such establishments could not be set up without permission from the administrative authorities and divided them into three classes:
1st class: establishments that must be located away from private dwellings
2nd class: factories and workshops whose distance from dwellings is not strictly necessary, but for which it is nevertheless important not to allow their formation until we are certain that the operations carried out there will not inconvenience or cause damage to neighboring homeowners.
3rd class: establishments that can remain without inconvenience near dwellings, but must remain under police surveillance.
This imperial decree lays the foundations for a nomenclature of classified installations.
It was not until the law of December 19, 1917, that this system was improved by making the least harmful establishments subject to a simple declaration system.
The 1st nomenclature for Classified Installations was introduced by Decree no. 53-578 of May 20, 1953, with the following regimes: declaration and authorization.
Subsequently, the law of July 19, 1976 became the legal basis for the industrial environment in France, allowing a single authorization to be issued and regulating all the aspects concerned: accidental risk, waste, discharges into water, air and soil...
The inspectorate of classified installations then becomes the competent authority for the application of this legislation.
Following the accident at the AZF plant in Toulouse in 2001, the law of July 30, 2003 strengthened industrial risk prevention.
In 2010, the registration system was introduced, also known as "simplified authorization". The nomenclature now comprises three regimes (declaration, registration and authorization).
At the same time, in Europe, the SEVESO directive came into being in 1982, following the SEVESO industrial accident of 1976. It was subsequently revised twice to reinforce the prevention of major accidents following industrial accidents such as the Rhine pollution in 1986, the Danube pollution in 2000, the fireworks explosion in Enschede in 2000, and the AZF explosion in 2001.
In France, some 1,300 plants are classified as "SEVESO".
In 2010, the "IED" directive on industrial emissions imposes a global approach and concerns the most polluting industrial facilities. Heading 3xxx of the ICPE nomenclature was introduced.
In 2015, with the implementation of the CLP regulation, the nomenclature was again modified with the creation of 4xxx headings - hazardous substances and mixtures.
The ICPE nomenclature groups activities and substances and is divided into four categories:
1xxx : substances ;
2xxx : activities ;
3xxx: IED activities (Industrial Emissions Directive),
4xxx: hazardous substances and mixtures.
Depending on the level of risk, the ICPE is subject to declaration, registration or authorization. The 4xxx headings may also classify authorized facilities as Seveso low- or high-threshold.
ICPE plant classification
To determine the ICPE classification of your facility, we recommend the following steps:
- Draw up an inventory of the substances and activities present on your site;
- Identify the corresponding headings;
- Determine the ICPE classification regime for each heading (Unclassified, Declaration, Registration, Authorization, ... SEVESO)