The compliance glossary

The authorisation to take water from a river, lake or groundwater above a threshold. Under reform, these licences are converting to revocable Environmental Permits.

See also: Water Framework Directive Regulations

When microbes stop responding to the medicines used to treat them. The UK National Action Plan puts infection prevention and control, including environmental and water risk, at the centre of tackling it.

See also: Infection prevention and control

The HSE Approved Code of Practice for controlling Legionella bacteria in water systems. It has special legal status: a court can treat a failure to follow it as evidence of breaching health and safety law.

See also: HSG274, Responsible Person, Legionella

The standard of technology and operation a permit can require: the most effective and practicable measures to prevent or reduce emissions and environmental impact.

See also: Environmental Permitting Regulations

The requirement for most developments in England to deliver a measurable 10% gain in biodiversity, secured and maintained for at least 30 years.

See also: Nutrient neutrality

The independent regulator of health and adult social care in England. It registers providers and can enforce against failures, including water and ventilation safety.

See also: Health Technical Memorandum 04-01

A designated area where the most polluting vehicles are charged to drive, used by local authorities to bring air quality back within national objectives.

See also: Local Air Quality Management

Infrastructure whose loss would have a serious national impact. Data centres were designated as CNI in 2024, raising resilience and incident-mitigation expectations.

See also: Power and Water Usage Effectiveness

The regulator of public drinking water quality in England and Wales, which also advises local authorities on private water supplies.

See also: Regulation 31

The person or organisation that controls premises or a system and therefore carries the legal duty to manage its risks, for example a Legionella risk or an environmental permit.

See also: Responsible Person

A rating of a building's energy efficiency from A to G. It underpins the minimum standards that govern whether a property can be let.

See also: Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards

A mandatory four-yearly energy audit for large UK undertakings, identifying cost-effective savings across buildings, processes and transport, with an action plan and progress reporting.

See also: Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting

The consolidated regime under which operators need a permit (or registered exemption) for regulated activities such as discharging to water, or operating waste or combustion plant. Pollution offences carry unlimited fines.

See also: Best Available Techniques, Trade effluent

Rules requiring nutrient applications to be planned to crop and soil need and managed to avoid runoff, protecting water quality from agricultural diffuse pollution.

See also: Nitrate Vulnerable Zone

Refrigerant and similar gases with high global-warming potential. The GB F-gas regime requires leak checks, certified technicians, records and phase-down of the highest-impact refrigerants.

See also: Power and Water Usage Effectiveness

The systematic food-safety management approach required in food processing: identify hazards, set critical control points, monitor them, and keep records.

See also: Potable water

Waste with properties that make it harmful, such as oils, solvents, clinical and certain electrical waste. It triggers extra duties including consignment notes.

See also: Waste duty of care

The NHS technical standard for specialised ventilation in healthcare premises, such as operating theatres and isolation rooms, including annual verification.

See also: Health Technical Memorandum 04-01

The NHS technical standard for safe water in healthcare premises, covering Legionella and Pseudomonas control, temperatures and record-keeping. It is enforced through CQC registration.

See also: Health Technical Memorandum 03-01, Care Quality Commission

HSE technical guidance on how to control Legionella in hot and cold water systems, cooling towers and other plant. It sits beneath ACoP L8 and sets out the practical detail of a control scheme.

See also: Approved Code of Practice L8

HSE guidance on managing the risks of spa pools, covering design, operation, disinfection and monitoring. HSE and local authorities treat it as the standard to achieve.

See also: Pool Water Treatment Advisory Group, Legionella

The environmental and social conditions the International Finance Corporation attaches to development finance, including pollution prevention (PS3) and community health and safety (PS4).

See also: Joint Commission International

The practices that prevent infections spreading in healthcare, spanning hygiene, water and air safety, and surveillance. It is central to accreditation and to tackling antimicrobial resistance.

See also: Antimicrobial resistance, Care Quality Commission

An international healthcare accreditation that signals quality to patients and investors. It is comparatively scarce in some emerging markets.

See also: IFC Performance Standards

Bacteria that can grow in water systems and cause Legionnaires' disease when inhaled in fine droplets. Controlling it is a legal duty for anyone running a water system that could create that risk.

See also: Approved Code of Practice L8, Responsible Person

The duty on local authorities to review and assess air quality, designate Air Quality Management Areas where objectives are exceeded, and run action plans.

See also: Clean Air Zone

Controls, implemented through environmental permitting, that require medium combustion plant from 1 to 50 MW thermal, including standby generators and CHP, to be permitted and to meet emission limits.

See also: Environmental Permitting Regulations

The rules setting a minimum EPC rating for let property. Sub-standard property can become unlettable as the required rating tightens.

See also: Energy Performance Certificate

An area designated because of nitrate pollution risk, where extra rules apply to how and when nutrients can be applied to land, with closed periods and storage requirements.

See also: Farming Rules for Water

A planning requirement in affected catchments to show that new development will not add nitrogen or phosphorus to protected water bodies already in poor condition, before permission is granted.

See also: Biodiversity Net Gain

The regime making packaging producers register, report packaging data and, for large producers, pay fees covering the full net cost of managing household packaging waste.

See also: Simpler Recycling

The body whose Code of Practice is the industry benchmark for swimming pool water treatment. HSE and local authorities consider it the standard to achieve.

See also: HSG282

Water that is safe to drink and to use in contact with food. Food processing must ensure the water it uses is potable.

See also: Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points

Data centre efficiency metrics. PUE measures total facility energy against IT energy; WUE measures water used per unit of IT energy. Both are increasingly reported.

See also: Fluorinated greenhouse gases

The requirement that only approved substances, products and processes are used in contact with public drinking water. Manufacturers must obtain approval before water companies use a product.

See also: Drinking Water Inspectorate

The named, competent individual a duty-holder appoints to manage a Legionella control scheme: keeping the risk assessment current, ensuring controls are carried out, and maintaining records. It is a personal accountability, not just an administrative role.

See also: Approved Code of Practice L8, Duty-holder

The plan that sets objectives for the water bodies in a river basin under the Water Framework Directive. Its objectives shape permitting and abstraction decisions.

See also: Water Framework Directive Regulations

The reform requiring English workplaces to separate food waste, dry mixed recycling and residual waste for collection, phasing in from 2025.

See also: Packaging Extended Producer Responsibility, Waste hierarchy

The framework under which large companies report energy use and carbon emissions in their annual reports, moving toward fuller climate-related disclosure under UK Sustainability Reporting Standards.

See also: UK Sustainability Reporting Standards, Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme

Liquid waste from a business discharged to the public sewer. Discharging it requires a consent under the Water Industry Act 1991, with conditions on volume, strength and pH.

See also: Environmental Permitting Regulations

The scheme requiring large emitters to hold a permit, report verified emissions annually and surrender allowances for them. It covers larger combustion installations, industry and aviation.

See also: Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting

UK standards, based on the ISSB framework, that extend corporate reporting toward full climate-related financial disclosure, phasing in from FY2026.

See also: Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting

The duty under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to store waste securely, transfer it only to authorised persons with the right paperwork, and apply the waste hierarchy. Breach carries an unlimited fine.

See also: Waste hierarchy, Hazardous waste

The order of preference for managing waste: prevent, then reuse, recycle, recover, and dispose only as a last resort. Businesses must apply it when handling waste.

See also: Waste duty of care

The framework under which water bodies are classified and managed toward good status. Operators must not cause deterioration, and conditions feed through their permits and licences.

See also: River Basin Management Plan, Abstraction licence