Fortunately, the concept of “environmental justice” is now spreading: according to it, every industrial production, but more generally every human activity, must take into consideration not only the immediate “costs and benefits”, but also the medium and long-term effects which until now have been left to the community (e.g., the effects linked to changes in the environment or public health). As far as both diffuse and conveyed atmospheric emissions are concerned, it is easy to see how less attention to the containment thereof initially increases the profitability of the plant by reducing its operating costs, but subsequently increases the externalities of pollution, impacting public health and the environment. Numerous actions on the European regulatory plan have been implemented with this in mind, such as the revision of the IED and E-PRTR directives. The lack of adequate monitoring of this evolution at a national level can significantly alter the development of entire industrial chains, modifying competitive relations at an international level.
The role of the regulatory process is also unquestionably very relevant for decarbonization and, if not adequately monitored, can lead to forcing the management costs of certain supply chains.
The other determining but usually overlooked aspect is that sometimes, within the regulations designed to “protect the state of public health” (e.g., the various regulations on the determination and limitation of polluting emissions by industrial plants), rules are implemented which are instead of a purely protectionist nature. Therefore, monitoring the regulatory and legislative tables is crucial and strategic to guarantee the circulation of critical information in time and the harmonization of national needs with the various transnational partners.
Pre-regulatory activities thus have a strategic character at a national level, as they allow us to:
• Know the European and non-European guidelines in the field of regulation of atmospheric emissions.
• Represent national interests in the ISO and CEN tables to allow a non-punitive harmonization of the national system.
• Timely implement into the country the topics considered strategic in the international field, before they become mandatory, and thus avoid having to suffer them, with potential great damage at an economic and industrial level.
• Report national needs in the field of standardization with high industrial and economic impact to the European and international level.
• Validate and give greater scope to the decarbonization and energy efficiency process.
As part of the pre-regulatory activities and their possible concrete consequences on the “real” life of the plants, the activities carried out in 2020 were the following:
• Active participation as National Experts and/or coordinators in the sector Working Groups and Technical Committees, including UNI GL4 “Emissions and air quality”, CEN TC 264 “Air Quality” and ISO TC 146 “Air Quality” and the development activities relating to the measurement method of non-regulated pollutants (formaldehyde, in this case).
• In particular, the activities of the CEN TC 264 WG 45 “Proficiency testing schemes for emission measurements” working group for which RSE is coordinating were followed.
• The drafting of new guidelines for the management of EASs (Emissions Analysis Systems).
• Implementation of actions to disseminate knowledge of the sector through distance learning tools.
• Continuation of activities for the creation of an open source system for the acquisition of environmental data according to the new EN 17255 standard project, building a prototype device called “AEDOS 2.0”.

Although there was an undoubted slowdown in activities in 2020, the regulatory process in the CEN, ISO or UNI context was still very significant.