Licences & labelling

To ensure your business and the environment is protected, you need to know if your business activities fall under environmental legislation, licensing and labelling requirements.
  • Environmental legislation
    All Australian businesses can play a part in environmental management, but whether environmental laws will affect your business directly will depend on your business activities.
  • Licences & permits
    Approvals for environmental licences and permits can be obtained from federal, state and local environmental agencies, and the type of approval you need will depend on the jurisdiction and type of your business activity.
  • Standards & labelling
    Product environmental standards are sets of quality benchmarks that promote the environmental performance of a product. While many standards are mandatory such as energy ratings for televisions, others are voluntary and are a great way to promote your brand as environmentally friendly.
    • Energy rating
      Energy ratings are an important tool for comparing the energy efficiency of appliances. As a supplier of an electrical appliance, you can use the rating to allow your customers to compare your products with your competitor's.
    • Energy star
      Energy star is a voluntary international standard for electronic equipment that has an energy-efficient standby function enabled. By selling or using products compliant with the energy star standard, you can help the environment and your customers by reducing the amount of energy needed.
    • Fuel consumption
      The Motor Vehicle Standards Act 1989 covers national safety and environmental requirements for all vehicles manufactured in Australia. Under the Act, manufacturers and importers must also comply with the Australian Design Rules (ADRs) that cover fuel consumption labelling requirements.
    • Greenhouse gas emissions
      Find out what greenhouse initiatives are available to recognise your business as environmentally friendly.
    • Water efficiency
      The mandatory Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards (WELS) Scheme was introduced to help the environment by reducing water consumption.
  • Environmental legislation in your state or territory
    Environmental legislation links and resources in your state or territory.
  • Environmental licences and permits in your state or territory
    Find licences and permits in your state or territory.

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