Question-ID: 283

ESRS E5 paragraph 37 states: ‘The undertaking shall disclose the following information on its total amount of waste from its own operations, in tonnes or kilogrammes:

(a) the total amount of waste generated;

(b) the total amount by weight diverted from disposal, with a breakdown between hazardous waste and non-hazardous waste and a breakdown by the following recovery operation types:

i. preparation for reuse;

ii. recycling; and

iii. other energy recovery;

(c) the amount by weight directed to disposal by waste treatment type and the total amount summing all three types, with a breakdown between hazardous waste and non-hazardous waste. The waste treatment types to be disclosed are:

i. incineration;

ii. landfill; and

iii. other disposal operations;

(d) the total amount and percentage of non-recycled waste.’

Waste is defined in Annex II Glossary of Acronyms and Terms as ‘Any substance or object which the holder discards or intends or is required to discard.’ This definition refers to Article 3(1) of Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 November 2008 on waste and repealing certain Directives (Waste Framework Directive or WFD).

Incineration is defined in Annex II Glossary of Acronyms and Terms as ‘The controlled burning of waste at high temperature with or without energy recovery.’

Recovery is defined in Annex II Glossary of Acronyms and Terms as ‘Any operation the principal result of which is waste serving a useful purpose by replacing other materials which would otherwise have been used to fulfil a particular function, or waste being prepared to fulfil that function, in the plant or in the wider economy.’ This definition refers to article 3(15) of the WFD. Likewise, Article 3(15a) of the WFD on the definition of material recovery states that ‘“material recovery” means any recovery operation, other than energy recovery and the reprocessing into materials that are to be used as fuels or other means to generate energy’.

In addition, ESRS E5 Disclosure Requirement 5-1 requires an undertaking to consider whether and how its policies address the waste hierarchy (as per Article 4(1) of the WFD: (a) prevention; (b) preparing for re-use; (c) recycling; (d) other recovery, e.g. energy recovery; and (e) disposal.

The WFD also provides a list of Disposal and Recovery Operations in its Annex I and Annex II, respectively. While incineration is included in Annex I of disposal operations (‘D10 Incineration on land’), Annex II on recovery includes operation ‘R1 Use principally as fuel or other means to generate energy’. This category potentially includes co-incineration where wastes are burned for their fuel content, and a note is also included allowing the inclusion of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) incineration provided that a certain level of energy efficiency is achieved.